I’m looking for a source for accurate illuminated number boards simlar to the ones
shown above. Did anyone ever make these?
Can’t see your picture. Try the www.walthers.com website.
Try it now-think I got it fixed. I have searched Walthers; all I found was white metal castings that, needless to say, do not illuminate. These look to have very thick glass; and often you can see evidence of “peeling” in the black paint behind the glass. As popular as the Santa Fe F-7s are, I would be very surprised if no one makes this, or at least the parts to make it yourself.
Some people have been known to settle for using numbered decals, white on a black background–so that the light shines through.
I have had painters quote me prices to do the large illuminated side numberboards on Santa Fe PA’s, as part of the overall paintjob. It was not a cheap quote–over $300 to paint a single brass Overland Alco PA.
Not to sound crass or anything, but quite honestly, if illuminated numberboards were important to me, I would simply buy the Walthers F Units. They come with them from the factory, and they look great!
Likewise, most recent Atlas diesels come with factory illuminated numberboards–even the less expensive Trainman line engines. (All my RS-36’s appear to have illuminated numberboards).
Athearn has not yet learned that some of us want them–though the recent 2010 run Athearn Genesis Big Boys do have illuminated numberboards.
John
Thanks for the info-I haven’t seen these units yet, but will certainly check them out. I have some older Athearn Santa Fe F-7s that I did almost 20 years ago, and I was really happy with the way they came out. I added many aftermarket external & internal details (over 50 hours on each one), and to me they were just about as good as an Athearn F-7 was going to get. Thoses number boards, though, have bugged me for 20 years…
I think the problem with non illuminated number boards on Athearn Genesis F’s has to do with the multi-purpose design of the Highliner shell.
It was designed for anything from an F2 to an F9. As a result it has small FT style number boards as an option.
So they couldn’t include a big hole in the nose for lighting the style of number boards posted in the photo of the Santa Fe F unit because the smaller FT style would not fit. Sort of a shame, but I’ll take it since the shell can’t be beat otherwise.
Oh and Santa Fe #33 in the picture is an F3, not an F7. It’s a late era F3, but still an F3. #37 was the first Santa Fe passenger F7.
For your old Athearn F7s, I’d suggest cutting out the center of the numberboard. Then glue in clear styrene. For lighted numbers, you could print your own decals for the number boards. To make them lightable, simply make a black background and put white numbers on it. When you print it on decal paper, the numbers will be clear and can be lit. I did this for G scale number boards on a Rio Grande steam loco. However I used white decal paper instead of clear since the numbers show up both in daylight and when lit. But the black background still printed black, just the numbers were white. See the attached photo of the number board lettering I printed:
If you don’t want to bother making your own, which is harder in the smaller HO scale then G, try Microscale’s lightable number set, 87-205: