I was going to share some of my misery, maybe just give the other poster some perspective or whatever, but I’ll just start with my latest one. I bought a reaaaaaaaally nice Atlas GP9TT a while back. DC, Milwaukee Road paint scheme, 70 bucks, it was perfect for me and what I wanted to start off in the hobby with. It lasted all up untill last night. I took it somewhat apart to see how the trucks were attached. I had the intentions of possibly converting into an SD9 to use as a logging train. I should admit I had a fairly decent layout planned, and probably a tad over my head since I’m a green horn in all this. I’m now quite sure it’s useless except for parts. I got it back together fine, only lost one little part but that wasn’t a biggie. It was a plastic spacer that went between the metal from where the two frame halfs get screwed together. I figure if I did run into problems I knew it had to be from that because that little black plastic piece isolated the two metal frame halfs. Easy fix with either calk or making my own little black plastic isolator piece from sheet styrene. Then the real problem occured. Not sure why I was doing, but I was tugging on one of the trucks to see if I could get it off again for some reason, AFTER I put the frame back together. Needless to say, now I have a little metal bar piece that is no longer part of the truck even though it should be, and the bottom plastic piece won’t snap back into place. I do think that little bar though was what connected the metal wheel sets together and sat on the contract strips for the motor. But if I’m right, then I might also be right in thinking there should be two of those little metal bar pieces, one for each side, and I only found 1.
So, I guess if anyone’s interested in fixing this, they can actually have the whole thing. I want to run ALCo loco’s anyways. Sad part is I never even got to run the baby. I might just take it down to the LHS though and see if they can fix it. I hate wasting money and see mon
It can be fixed, and it’s probably a simpler fix than you think. Your LHS is the right first stop.
It may surprise you, but many of us deliberately “break” our trains so that we can “fix” them again, only a little bit different.
Prototype steam engines, in particular, were also subject to this. They weren’t sent back to the factory for repairs. They were fixed in their home shops, with whatever equipment was available. So, after a while, two “sister” engines might end up looking quite different.
Repairs are in the best tradition of both the hobby and railroading in general. Time to make lemonade.
That brings up a good point MisterBeasley (alright where the hamburger helper do I know that from). If I couldn’t get it fixed one of the things I actually thought of doing was leveling off the top of the truck and taking the gears off the axles and having the trucks sit on a storage spur next to the machine shop, as if they were there to be repaired, are already repaired and waiting for reinstallation, or just simple extra trucks that were taken off a junked loco and kept for parts. As for the body well I was sure I’d be able to find someone that would want it. I figured the same for the frame and motor too. I still might because If I do freelance I want to either run all ALCo locos (inspired an article in a Trains issue from a few months back, the one where they follow the build process of some UP ES44’s I think they were), or go all Fairbanks Morse since they were made in WI and I’m modeling WI, and I live in WI, and ok I’ll say it I love WI.
I experienced a similar type of situation- I was vaccuming my bedroom and right before running over a small white piece I noticed it looked very similar to a rung of a step ladder from my Cement hopper- looking at the model, lo and behold, it was missing one. I tore apart the vaccum cleaner bag (which was full b.t.w) and eventually found it. The lengths I’ll go to make things look realistic…
Well the good news is I didn’t actually brake brake it. The bad news is there is in fact a piece missing. So the better knews is I know exactly what piece is missing and what it does. Now the worse news is it’s a little metal bar that crossed the axles and touched the contact strip for the motor. Funny news? I didn’t pay enough attention and may have put the trucks back on in reverse so it would run backwards, which may not be a problem because I may have put the body on backwards which means when I get the chance to run it I won’t know if it will run in the intended “forward” direction or run in the intended “reverse” direction. I also completely took apart the body in it’s sections and managed to brake off one little locking tab at one end of the loco body. So now after I have all other problems sorted out I know have the problem of the body not wanting to stay motor frame. Somebody remind me not to touch stuff anymore.
So now I have a question. Will the loco still run ok with only one truck picking up current? Or an I kinda screwed. If it helps the loco is an Atlas GP9TT which I de-phased to a normal non-passenger service equipped GP9, manufactorer symbol has 2006 stamped with Atlas.
Well first of all, I’m not sure what a “GP9TT” is?? I’m guessing your model is in N scale and it’s a GP-P with “torpedo tubes” for passenger service (see pic below)?? (BTW if you removed the tubes you didn’t “dephase” the model, phases are something else. Unless you meant you “defaced” it?? [:)])
The missing parts shouldn’t cost very much, maybe a few dollars. Your engine probably came with an “exploded view” diagram / instruction sheet showing all the part numbers for each part. If not, you can probably look up the part number and cost on the Atlas website - or send them an e-mail saying what part you need. (BTW - Yes you can run a diesel on just one truck picking up power, but you’re going to have trouble at turnouts with the engine losing contact and stalling…especially in N scale.)
However…I would suggest taking it to the local hobby shop. They may have the part in stock, or can get it for you and can put the engine back into working order. Once you get it back in working order from the hobby shop, I’d suggest you run the engine and not tinker with it for a while. [:)]
I think you’d benefit from learning more about the hobby and about real railroading at this point. (For example, you really can’t convert a GP into an SD - the difference isn’t just the trucks, an SD-9 is longer than a GP-9. Atlas makes an SD-9 if you want one (below). Plus I don’t know why you’d have to have an SD-9 in particular to model a logging railroad??)
As often happens on this forum, people assume “HO” without thinking (or at least reading through the thread). These are probably Atlas N scale models of the “Torpedo Tube” variant of the GP-9, which had air tanks on the roof reminiscent of Navy torpedo tubes.
That said, your other comments are correct regarding differences between SD-9s and GP-9s and the OP’s ill-advised attempt at model surgery.
They did come up with some doosies. Monekying around with, yes my N-scaler, I realized that with out the cab the GP9 looked like a pretty neat little B-unit motive power. Some not exactly prototypical but then again neither would a cabless SD9 booster unit[;)]. And after reading one article somewheres about prototypical dummy engines that had no engines just the trucks/motors that used the juice made from a high horsepower engine so the main loco wouldn’t be over powering, I thought it would be kind of neat to model a chopped down cabless GP9 dummy engine, even though the were made about 20 years or so before the dummy units I’m reffering to were concieved. But I think I’m more of a freelancer at heart, as with all above mentioned, I’ve also thought of getting either a 50 foot or 60 foot double door box car and retrucking it with 3 axle trucks. Instead of a 50 foot 90 ton flat car a 50 foot 90 ton box car. And also though of doing the same with the 50 foot flat car I have or the 40 foot gondola, which wouldn’t be all that fantasy since I remember seeing an article written about turning a flat car into a gondola. It was a Kalmbach book either one of the track side industry books or one of the books about rail cars. I think it was the latter.
The one pic way up there posted is it except mine is #208, and according to my digging around MILW got it in 1954. Using the SD7/9 was just an idea, I thought maybe a logging train having ro run around 15-20 cars and dealing with grades might be best with a C-C truck arrangement. I will look for it a little more, but I figure if I can find a scrap of metal thats the same thickness as that pick up bar I can just make my own. I mean the small hobby nippers I have cuts through C80 rail fairly easy I don’t like a piece of metal the thickness of a few sheets of paper will have any problems. I’m not sure what everything there was, but it wouldn’t be a big RR. The shortline might have been more accurate as I don’t think I want to sit there and repaint all of the 40-50 or so cars I plan on having. Plus the LHS really only sells already painted cars, but I figure with Milwaukee Road, Soo Line, Green Bay & Western, Wisconsin Central, Chicago & North Western in the area I didn’t really need to model an entire company. Plus I’m sure I can throw some other cars in there too say from UP, C.B. & Q., CN, and I found out there was a lesser known one from upper michigan called Escanaba & Lake Superior RR that’s been around since forever and I do believe they owned their own cars. It all depends because I also heeded some advice that I’ve seen given more than a few times and decided to go with a smaller lay out, perhaps no bigger than a door or part of a 4x8 (if I want to walk around in the back room with out hinderence no wider than 3 feet and no longer than 7), which also meant I don’t really need to go with DCC anymore. It all depends, I also had the idea of building a larger computer desk that had a layout on it and a coffee table. I want to stick with N scale mostly because I already have a nice little cache of things, a DPM bulding, the GP9 from this thread and 11 cars. Otherwise I’d probably switch to a modified 4x8 and run HO. That and we live in an apartement, so the smaller the
