O scale GP-9 project

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I had the good fortune of finding an out of production Red Caboose body kit for a GP-9 done up in Nickel Plate Road on eBay. It comes with a plastic frame, no motor or trucks but loads of nice details. I then ordered up a set of stunning power trucks in brass by P&D Hobbies. The come with a ball bearing Pitmann motor and everthing needed to make the loco run. I can’t stress how nice these trucks are…every journal is independantly coil sprung, and even the leaf spring at the center of the truck is functional. The detail is just stunning. This setup currently sells for only 200 dollars, surely the best deal in the O scale end of the hobby. Truely a stunning setup. Once I got the frame and power train put together I became disappointed with the lack of rigidity of the plastic Red Caboose frame. I bought a heavy brass frame by DesPlaines Hobby Shop from a local friend who had one surplus to his needs. [ He had installed one on a Red Caboose GP-9 with a Roco power train, bought 2, to have a spare for a future project that never came] Now we have some nice weight and rigidity to the loco frame!! I have not yet started to work on the carbody but the chassis is now done, and it sure is a nice runner. Before I go to work on the upper part, I will have to modify the fuel tank to install a speaker for sound. Once the powertrain is broken in on DC, I’ll be installing Soundtraxx sound and NCE 4 amp DCC decoder. I have the NCE/Soundtraxx setup in my Atlas GP-35 and it sure is nice! I install hidden switches on each decoder so that each one can be disconnected from the other for programing.

After this loco is done, I have a Weaver RS3 in Nickel Plate Road that will need to be gone through. Its a brand new ready to run loco I found on a dealers close-out webpage . It has no cab ‘window glass’ but microscope slide glass should cure that, and it will need sound and DCC like all my locos a will have.

Another project coming up is to do sound and DCC in a vintage Hinze steam engine model, a

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Sounds great Jennifer, I’ve never seen O scale stuff, I’m envious!! The detail sounds incredible. Maybe when the dream house comes along I could import some O and build a new layout… mmmm… got me thinking now. Or mayby Sn3.5 and model NZR, or maybe live steam in the backyard…[%-)][%-)]

Ken.

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Thanks for the kind words from way down under. O scale is really nice. It is more costly than the smaller scales, but because of the size, you end up buying so much less. Many O scale modelers are strapped for space, just like everyone else, and choose to build switching layouts. One other aspect of O scale is the ease of viewing, the larger size is really easy to see as you get older and don’t see the little tiny things as well as one does when young. The sound when running is nice too, especially with metal wheels. The weight and heft of the cars and locos also helps with tracking, good trackwork is easier to acheive and hence derailments are much less common than with smaller scales. I suggest you take a visit to Atlas-O website and take a look. You might want to just buy one of their vintage billboard reefers for a display model. They are RTR in detail that only a few years ago would have been contest quality . Even if you model in HO or N it would be fun to have at least one nice O scale car. Atlas is only one of many manufacturers, but they offer the best detail in RTR plastic. The cost for one of these beauties will be between 45 and 60 US Dollars. Of couse, shipping to you might be costly. You will not be disappointed with buying one of these as a display model. Who knows, you might just get interested and make a scale change, or get a group together to build a small switching ‘club’ layout. Good luck!
Jennifer