after reading the article in the latest MR, i was thinking about kit bashing one of my atlas rs-3 into a s-2 switcher. maybe try to work it onto a con-cor sw1200 chassis. may not end up true to scale, but i think i could come close enough. any opions? or comments? or is this wacked.
ai
Arnold (German company) manufactured an S-2 switcher a few years back, and they can still be found on eBay and possibly at train shows. If you had to do a kitbash, I would start with an RS-1 rather than RS-3, because the cab hood and body styling is different (the RS-2 and RS-3 have a more rounded contour). The Con-Cor chassis may work, but then this is an older switcher which was produced simultaneously with the Arnold S-2, so acquiring one ought to be just as difficult. I don’t know anything about how well the Con-Cors run, but the Arnold is a decent machine. It’s heavy, too, since its body is a solid metal casting (no plastic shell). I know this because I used an Arnold S-2 in order to kitbash an Alco T-6; the T-6 is basically an S-4 with a hood that resembles the long hood of an RS-11. I had a bear of a time sawing off the sides and nose in order to fit on the kitbash parts from my sacrificed RS-11.
Depending on what road you model, there might be other funky things to do when it comes to an RS-3 kitbash. Off the top of my head, I can’t recall which roads did them, but I have heard of an RS-3 being rebuilt with an EMD engine and thus and EMD long hood (from a Geep-7 perhaps), and also of an RS-3 being given a chopped-down nose. These result in extremely awkward looking units, which any model railroader would adore.
EDIT: I should have read the rest of the threads first! Seems there is a thread about just the thing I’m referring to, the RS-3M:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=11901