Ok as I was reading the December article on the Utah Belt I came across a picture of a SD60/70M (dunno which exactly) I was reminded of the nice lines that the Phase II North American Safety Cab has.
My question is did ANY SD40 OR SD45 series units receive this cab?
I realize it’d probably be a rebuild deal where the original Spartan Cab was destroyed.
My reason for asking is I’ve had my eye on Athearns Conrail SDP45s (SD45Ms) for a while and I might get one and give it a NASC
Nowhere can evidence of the NASC being used on an SD-40/45, wreck rebuild or not be found. The NASC first appeared on US EMD power with the GP-60s of Santa Fe. At that point in time, the SD-45 had fallen out of favor due to fuel consumption and crankshaft issues. The straight vanilla SD-40 had been eclipsed by its Dash 2 offspring and spartan cabs from retired GP-35, SD-35, and in some cases SD-45s were readily available. It is doubtful the expense of applying an NASC to a 15-20 year old locomotive could be justified. Remember, Mopac rebuilt some wreck damaged GEs with EMD cabs but, they were spartan cabs. Regardless, it’s your railroad, do what YOU wish.
The crank issues were solved in later years in the 645 series.
In 95 the NWP-SWP did a major overhaul program of their extensive fleet of 45-series units, upgrading the units with newer 20cyl. 710 series prime movers and equipping the units with Safety Cabs.
Kinda like NS and their extensive rebuild program.
Just have your railroad buy some second hand from the Canadians.
www.railpictures.net/photo/432349/
Jeff
Yeah mine would just have Phase II cabs, the two window ones.
But if CN had 40s equipped with Safety Cabs I could reasonably get away with a 45 with one.
Here’s my best approximation to what it would look like.
SD45 with Phase 2 NASC (two windows not triclops)
In both the cabs are just the slightest bit off level and the base units are plain SD45s not SDP45s
But it conveys what it would look like.
Having a new phone is the BEST I installed Adobe Photoshop Mix and was able to piece those together in a few minutes.
Next is to get to work on my logo.
An SP SD45T-2 was fitted with a safety cab for crash tests at the DOT Pueblo test track.