I’ve got kind of a double purpose in posting this one.
Obviously I’m happy to show off my little attempt at customizing a loco. My first attempt, by the way. I’ve always been reluctant to take a saw to something that I bought r-t-r. But while I didn’t have the layout to work on, and being intoxicated by some of the superb work I’ve seen on the forum, I thought “What the heck, why not try something?”
But now that all the birthing pains are over, I’m asking myself “Why did you put yourself through all that pain?” Was it really worth it? (I am really proud to report that I didn’t once throw anything during this conversion. Now that’s something!)
Here’s a couple of shots of the little jewel. Let’s remember that this guy is all of 2”long. Okay, so it’s 2-1/4” with the new headlight hanging out in front. It’s black, all black (well, I suppose it could be Brunswick Green, but it sure looks black to me). I could barely see the details when I was trying to install them, and I had my optivisor on! I can’t wait to see it on the layout, it’ll look like a little black blob.
Hope these come out the way I want them. I’ve tried to size them so that they show at close to actual size. It would be too easy to show them at 2 or 3 times actual size, but that would make it seem like you could actually see the detail.
Can you see all the new detail??? You can’t? You know what, I can’t either. It all blends in together! But just so you’ll know, the project entailed:
Mounted new MT couplers front and back.
Cut off the old style headlights in front and back.
Installed newer style headlights in front and back. Mounted the front one on the smokebox door (family trait on my roster)
Nice set there, I don’t think I’ve seen something like that before. I know there’s been roatary plows but I haven’t seen anything with a matching loco. Good Job!
Thanks Noah. Many of the plows that were modernized, had the old steam plant removed and used traction motors from scrapped locomotives to power the plow. I used some old Athearn dummy trucks to replace the originals, with the idea that that’s where the traction motors orignated from. An old B unit or geep would be assigned to the plow that had it’s prime mover disconnected from the traction motors and power cables would be run to the plow to provide power to the blade. So that’s the story with the plow and B unit. Then I had an A unit lying around, and decided to go MW orange also and put a big plow and icicle bar on it to be be used to pu***he rotary and B unit or run foward as a plow when conditions didn’t warrant breaking out the “Beast”. I’ll probably use it as MW train power off season. Right now, it’s drive train is detached, effectively a dummy until I decide whether it’s worth putting a new motor and decoder in. Each of the units is well over twenty years old.
Hey Ed, thought you would like to see the pics again [(-D]
Very nice, especially the ladder on the back. (Must confess to have missed the generator [:D]
Reminds me of a Docksider I detailed in my HO days. Didn’t run worth a darn but I had it as a “Fan Special” to justify all the pristine paint and polish! the only photos I have of it are out of focus, so I can’t put them up.