I want to build a slug for my layout but how.
Styrene is the best way but is there any others.[?]
Hi Bryan,
About 5 years ago I wanted to do the same project and was a bit stumped until I realised that most railroads used old locos to convert to slugs and that most slugs were different from railroad to railroad.So I took the cab off an Atlas RS-3,filled in the small gaps with putty ,shaved off the louvers and door handles and filled in the headlight holes. After a nice paint job and some decals it did the job for me.Being an Atlas it runs beautifully,but if that seems too expensive a loco to do that to then you could use a Model Power RS-2.Hope that helps a bit,
Andrew
Do you want to build a yard slug or a cabless booster unit – there is a difference. A cabless booster unit is exactly the same shape and size as a regular diesel engine, minus the operator’s cab. This should be fairly easy to model, since some manufacturers provide removable cabs. A yard slug, on the other hand, is a large weight mounted on a pair of power trucks that gets its electricity from diesel engines at each end, and would be more difficult to model. Yard slugs have no on-board diesel engine and are only about 4 or 5 feet tall.
Hi Bryan.Are there any particular railroad’s slugs you are interested in? CSX road slugs are made from GP30’s and GP35’s,they look a lot like a real locomotive.
Surely there’s a gap in the market here - if someone were to produce slugs as either kits or RTR there would surely be some demand
SF slugs made as Cleburne shop rebuilds out of 30 year old GP30.
In 1987 SF took 20 GP30’s in Texas and rebuilt them in some way, most were remotored and few were modifyed to bosters or slugs.
SP style EMD switcher yard slug here.
http://ncespee.railfan.net/spemdslug/sp1012.html
GE frame + EMD sheet metal = TEBU (road slug / fuel tender)
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/tebu_photos/1611_sp-tebu-bob_dengler.jpg
ALCo style yard slug here. (I am building at least one in Nscale)
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/humpslug_photos/1001a_sp-slug-bob_dengler.jpg
FM brake sled here (sort of an exterme yard slug)
http://espee.railfan.net/sp_brake-sleds.html
And of course the KM camera car
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/km_photos/8799_sp-camera-car-john_rosser.jpg
Not quite a slug but a fuel tender…
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/fuel-tender_photos/0700_sp-fuel-tender-tony_johnson.jpg
and finally a slug like creature with a “Shell”, it’s a SNAIL.
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/spmw/bob_dengler_sp-mw-snail-8211.jpg
Bryan;
What year are you trying to model? That may dictate what kind of slug you need to make. Early in diesalization if a RR needed a slug for yard work they often took a steam loco’s tender frame, added some EMD or ALCO trucks to it , built a small form of sheet metal above the frame and filled that with concrete and this was also covered in sheet metal. This was then painted in the RR’s colors. Headlights may or may not have been added to the slug, depending on its position in the lash up. They were generally in the middle between two switchers. One truck obtained power from one loco and the other truck obtained its power from the other loco.
There have been several articles on bashing slugs over the years. The reason you won’t see one from a manfacturer is it could only be an unpowered model with the way the drive trains are set up. The only possible slug I can think of that could be powered are the CSX converted GP30’s and 35’s that retained the full body height. All that is involved there is a paint job.
I want to build a slug for my layout but how.
Styrene is the best way but is there any others.[?]
Hi Bryan,
About 5 years ago I wanted to do the same project and was a bit stumped until I realised that most railroads used old locos to convert to slugs and that most slugs were different from railroad to railroad.So I took the cab off an Atlas RS-3,filled in the small gaps with putty ,shaved off the louvers and door handles and filled in the headlight holes. After a nice paint job and some decals it did the job for me.Being an Atlas it runs beautifully,but if that seems too expensive a loco to do that to then you could use a Model Power RS-2.Hope that helps a bit,
Andrew
Do you want to build a yard slug or a cabless booster unit – there is a difference. A cabless booster unit is exactly the same shape and size as a regular diesel engine, minus the operator’s cab. This should be fairly easy to model, since some manufacturers provide removable cabs. A yard slug, on the other hand, is a large weight mounted on a pair of power trucks that gets its electricity from diesel engines at each end, and would be more difficult to model. Yard slugs have no on-board diesel engine and are only about 4 or 5 feet tall.
Hi Bryan.Are there any particular railroad’s slugs you are interested in? CSX road slugs are made from GP30’s and GP35’s,they look a lot like a real locomotive.
Surely there’s a gap in the market here - if someone were to produce slugs as either kits or RTR there would surely be some demand
SF slugs made as Cleburne shop rebuilds out of 30 year old GP30.
In 1987 SF took 20 GP30’s in Texas and rebuilt them in some way, most were remotored and few were modifyed to bosters or slugs.
SP style EMD switcher yard slug here.
http://ncespee.railfan.net/spemdslug/sp1012.html
GE frame + EMD sheet metal = TEBU (road slug / fuel tender)
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/tebu_photos/1611_sp-tebu-bob_dengler.jpg
ALCo style yard slug here. (I am building at least one in Nscale)
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/humpslug_photos/1001a_sp-slug-bob_dengler.jpg
FM brake sled here (sort of an exterme yard slug)
http://espee.railfan.net/sp_brake-sleds.html
And of course the KM camera car
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/km_photos/8799_sp-camera-car-john_rosser.jpg
Not quite a slug but a fuel tender…
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/fuel-tender_photos/0700_sp-fuel-tender-tony_johnson.jpg
and finally a slug like creature with a “Shell”, it’s a SNAIL.
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/spmw/bob_dengler_sp-mw-snail-8211.jpg
Bryan;
What year are you trying to model? That may dictate what kind of slug you need to make. Early in diesalization if a RR needed a slug for yard work they often took a steam loco’s tender frame, added some EMD or ALCO trucks to it , built a small form of sheet metal above the frame and filled that with concrete and this was also covered in sheet metal. This was then painted in the RR’s colors. Headlights may or may not have been added to the slug, depending on its position in the lash up. They were generally in the middle between two switchers. One truck obtained power from one loco and the other truck obtained its power from the other loco.
There have been several articles on bashing slugs over the years. The reason you won’t see one from a manfacturer is it could only be an unpowered model with the way the drive trains are set up. The only possible slug I can think of that could be powered are the CSX converted GP30’s and 35’s that retained the full body height. All that is involved there is a paint job.