Since its almost impossible to find an undecorated athearn sw1500 i went out and got this L&N/Family Lines one on Ebay for Cheap… the guy was a collector and it just sat in a box for years…
first thing i did, after checking to see if it worked, was strip it down… i used nail polish remover (acetone) and after some gentle scrubbing with a tooth brush all the original paint was removed… to give it a nice even coloring, i then painted the shell with a thin coat of black paint…
after the paint dried, i added all the hand rails and gave them a good coat of yellow paint (csx yellow)… painted the step edges and i modified the bell on the top of the hood to match what the bell on the P&LE switchers looked like…
athearn sw1500 kits don’t come with the high handrail on the right hand side… nor do they come with the hand rail for the right steps… i cut some wire for the high handrail and painted that as well… still need to make the other handrail.
i ordered the cannon brass walkway/step treds… should be here any day… once i have them ill post up another picture…
also need to decal this workhorse… the sceme will look like the P&LE below…
I’ve been casting about for another GN SW9/1200, and not finding anything, I went for an NP-painted PK2 on eBay. It will be a “leased” unit until I have time to repaint it.
Please do post more pics when you’ve added the treads.
No idea why P&LE has the different hand rail… i’ve seen pictures of a bunch of their sw1500s ranging from the 70’s to the 80’s and they all had the hand rail high on the hood on the right side… most other roads have the normal handrail set… anyone know why p&le is diffenrent? any other roadnames do this too?
looks like conrail did it too… penn central was the original owner…
Those yellow clunky Athearn handrails stick out like a sore thumb with the black background. You put Canon treads on, perhaps a new set of handrails is in line? Otherwise, it looks great!
All the ex Reading Conrail units had full handrails on both sides. I think the P&LE used a side sill handrail on the fireman’s side because this side has the door to the cab. The engineman’s side does not. Only a guess.
Which SW1500 or MP15 switcher units (numbers) had a full length & height rail only on the fireman’s side? In looking through the P&LE books and photos on the net I do not see any other than the NW2’s and S4’s that had full rails on both sides.
