It doesn't take much to alter the appearance of a steam loco

This is just a quick and dirty to see how easy it would be to detail a Bachmann USRA light 4-8-2 into a pseudo SP engine. The only details removed were the original headlight and stack. The stack is a PSC casting for large SP steam locos. It may be correct, but the visual effect on the USRA is that the stack is oversized. Fortunately, PSC makes smaller SP style stacks. None of these parts are permanenly attached. Just swapping the headlight makes quite a difference in the appearance of the engine.

A more complete exploration of the theme requires a lot more work, obviously, but it looks like it could turn out to be a really nice looking engine.

Just another project waiting to be done.

Andre

Great food for thought Andre. A look through the Walthers catalog will give folks an amazing assortment of loco detail parts, and comparing your model to a prototype photo will show you what’s needed to be changed!![8D]