I have recently puchased an HO Proto 2000 E6A/B trainset in the SantaFe Warbonnet scheme and I want to kitba***hem into E5 Burlington Texas Zephyr scheme. Besides the MicroScale decal set, is there a kitbash kit that would have the necessary parts to do this? For example, the fluted sides which distinguished the E5 from all others.
Thanks,
This will be an interesting conversion. According to the Kalmbach book “E units, Electro-Motive’s classic streamliners”, the E5 was “An E3 or E6 custom-built for the CB&Q”. The main detail differences listed are the fluted sides that you mention, as well as “skirts” above the trucks (not all E5s appear to have carried these) and some differences in window arrangement and size. I’m not sure if a kit exists to create one of these, and I’d really like to see one RTR - ideally as a Proto 1000 as we need some more affordable E-units.
I think that you are on your own with this project, unless someone is making a resin replacement shell.
Mainline Modeler just ran a series on the Sam Houston Zephyr.
Good Luck…
maybe you cuold cut the fluting off an old passenger car, sand it thin, and add it to the loco
The Illinois Railroad Museum has a CB&Q E5 and perhaps their website has photos you can use. The fluting does not stick out from the sides very much so using fluting from a passenger car would not I think look very realistic. There is an old old trick that E.L. Moore used to use to make cheap home made corrugated siding for his buildings, and that is take index card type paper, place it on commercial fluted siding, and then run a dried out ball point pen down the ridges to transfer the ridges to the paper. If the paper was then sealed with shellac it would prevent future warping yet could still be easily cut with sissors or a knife blade.
The wheel covers were by the way mostly removed for ease of access.
Dave Nelson