Dude Crazy weathering sklills! They literally look sick ... no pun intended haha Killer. Cant stop looking.
Thanks for the Mad Props Sam! Haven't heard the word SICK used for a long time. There were a couple members on the Rustbucket weathering forum who used that term all the time! I'll take that a high compliment!
I got the first of the GP35's finished last night. I pretty much followed the same process for this one as I did for the U33B's. TCP paint, Micro Scale decals and Tamiya black panel liner. I also added all four marker lights since I now have plenty of them on hand. I'll probably go back and add them to the rear of the U33B's as well. Here's a side by side of the original on the left and the new on the right. The old one was painted with Floquil Rock Island Maroon which is a bit lighter. The TCP is a much richer Maroon and closer to the factory color. After as much research that I've done recently with the U33B's and these GP35's, along with all the new available photos that I've found online, the one thing I've come to realize about most of the Rock Island locomotives that were photographed in the final years of operations is that most weren't Rust Buckets. They were more grimey than rusty. This is also why the newer GP35 is a little darker this time around. Several of the GP35's that I have planned will not be as dark or grimey but will hopefully look a lot more sun bleached and faded. The weathering was quite diverse in the final years of the Rock. This is mostly what has drawn me to model this road. I've got one more solid Maroon unit that is ready for the weathering step, but I still need to mask and paint the yellow ends on the others. Masking the yellow on these GP35's are a little complicated than it was on the U33B's.
I noticed on a few pics that some of the 35's had some oil leaking out of the doors. I tried hard to restrain myself from making them into oil gushers again.
The 2nd of 7 to join the fleet. I pretty much followed the same method that I did for the first Gp35, so I won't bore you with any details. One bit of interest, I was not aware that any of the GP35's ever wore this "Plain Jane" Maroon Dip scheme. I knew that a lot of the Rock Island U25B's did. Here's the solid Maroon pair together. And a quick video
Locomotives look great. Love having a few grimy ones on the layout. And yes, I remember how bad the Rock Island equipment looked in the late 70s. Wish I would have had pictures from then.
I think we all have that wish. I even managed to get a few pictures way back, of the wood roundhouse and some SD7's and whatever else on the CNW. All lost. A real camera, not the old 126 roller, would have been nice Ah well.
The third GP35 joins the Rock Island fleet. It's the only GP35 that wore the Red and Yellow scheme and along the way I realized that it had a couple of oddities with the scheme. The first thing I noticed was the lack of the nose herald, the second thing were the faces of the steps below the cab. Normally on this scheme and the maroon and Yellow scheme these faces were Maroon or Red. The third thing was the bottoms of the end handrails, at some point the original silver was painted white. The white paint on the handrails were done due to maintenance on high wear areas and by the time they got repainted, they used what they had on hand which was white paint with the Blue and White scheme being in full swing.
It's interesting to capture the visual effects of a failing enterprise. Pride of ownership becomes a needless expense, while pride of capturing that aspect of history is sheer excellence in modeling. A far cry from the heady days when streamlined, modern appearances held sway, the railroads have long since lost their shine, in more ways than one. But like the sewer system, the only part where appearance matters is the part the customer sits on.
It has been brought to my attention that my post could be construed as a negative commentary on Allen's work. I want to assure you all, nothing could be further from my intention. I hold in high praise Allen's excellence in faithfully capturing the visual reality of the modern railroading industry, and sharing his work and knowledge with us. Allen, I sincerely and humbly apologize for my carelessly worded post and commentary.
The fourth GP35 is done. Following close on the heels of the #323 is #307, I was working on this one right after I got the #323 done and was waiting on the chips to arrive. Pretty much the same as the #323 except it's Maroon and Yellow. Nothing special about this one, just the typical scheme on a GP35. #307 and #317 were the only two GP35's that wore the Maroon and Yellow scheme with the large speed lettering. Here's a link to my blog where you can see more...