I bought mine ove ten years ago now and made it up quite quickly after I first aquired it.
The body casting was, still is, devoid of any of the detail that you would now find on locomotive models these days - it’s very much at the level of old Athearn model locomotives.
I sought to remedy this sparce level of detail and I’ve searched through Walthers on-line catalog - they have nothing suitable as a kit, and an e-mail to Bowser seeking information about detail parts or detail kits bought nothing of any real substance - strange as they made the Cary E4 kit as well as a big range of detail parts that my be helpful to me.
Ok, that’s the situation as it stands right now.
Does anybody here have any suggestions that may help me progress this model to achieve more detail?
You might try Details West, which specializes in diesel locomotives. I don’t have an link for them, sorry, but I’ve seen a lot of their products at both of my LHS’s. I know that they offer a lot of details for F units, there’s a good chance that they might offer details for the E units, also. I know that those metal Cary bodies lack detail, but they sure have good bulk for pulling purposes, at least what I’ve heard.
Hope this helps. Just curious, since I’m not a diesel modeler, except for an E-6 that I have, but which RR’s used the E-4? I’m not familiar with that particular body design. I kinda like all of those really early E designs.
I believe that Rail Model Journal did a series on detailing the E-units years ago when P2K was putting out runs of these. This will give you an overview of what’s available to improve the detail on your E.
Handrails are probably the very first thing that would need attention. Unless someone makes a detail kit that’s specifically available, you’ll be bending your own anyway. Placement varies from road to road, so getting documentation on what your prototype is should get you started.
Did the Cary E’s come with window “glass”? That would be the hardest thing in my book to get if this wasn’t included. Maybe P2K spare parts, although this sort of thing was known to vary between manufacturers?
The Cary die-cast E4 is an early and basic casting and has very little cast on detail. There is no “glass” with this body shell - how basic is that
During my sniffing about on Google I found a guy in Canada who sells line drawings of many different locomotives including the E4. Regrettably his e-mail address eby_michael@sympatico.ca. is not functioning just at present. These plans would have allowed me to identify the detail parts I needed and I could then have searched them out - I haven’t given up yet though.
Tom, I’ll search out Detail Associates list of parts - this seems like a decent lead once I know what I’m looking for.
The E4 is a favourite of mine because of it’s exaggerated rakish front. Immediate pre and post war comics would sometimes have illustrated on their covers a locomotive of this type - they looked pretty snazzy with Superman resisting the locomotives forward movement with just one hand This design feature is what differentiated the E4’s frontal treatment from the latter EMD E series diesels
I model the Seaboard Air Line Railway who were very early users (1939) of the seminal E4 so it is the Seaboard’s use of these diesels that attracted my interest rather than having a general interest in the E4 so I am not familiar with the other railroads who also bought E4’s
Thank you both very much for your helpful suggestions.
The EMD E3 through E6 were produced before WWII. These were ‘Slant Nose’ locomotives that standardized on the new V12 ‘567’ prime mover. The E4 was a ‘Seaboard Only’ engine that had a retractable nose door assembly. The others in the pre-war series did not have this feature. EMD resumed passenger locomotive production after WWII, and used the ‘Bulldog’ nose like in the ‘FT’ for future passenger production(E7 throguh E9).
This design feature is what differentiated the E4’s frontal treatment from the latter EMD E series diesels