Here are some of mine. Just your standard Atlas MP15DC with Digitrax DCC plug-n-play decoders installed. A Baldwin And an Bachmann ALCO Road Switcher with factory installed DCC.
I'll join in! Here's a project in the making: Union Pacific TR-5 set with dynamic brake housing for helper service over Cajon. Made from LL SW. Oh and they had marker lights on the top front of the nose... Does anyone know a maker of GOOD N scale marker lights (not the cast metal detail associates ones they're terrible). More switchers to follow....
I said there'd be more..... VO-1000 (Second order; single stack as produced by Atlas, with wire handrails and grab irons) VO-1000 (First order; four stacks, modified Atlas) Key Brass S-2. Custom painted UP. The cast grabs were filed off the nose and wire ones added, GGM all-weather cab windows, blanked out centre cab windows, extended stack, etched brass screen over nose top vent, under cab roof grab iron (that took some soldering), MV lenses that work (eg let the light shine through), NWSL gears. This thing runs excellently nice, slow and smooth and will pull tons eg 25+ cars. Love this thread and the quality of some of the switchers people have shown is outstanding! Phil
I think Atlas did a great job on this S2 locomotive, it runs very wel and sounds awesome Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-T510 met Tapatalk
Loving all these switchers !!! Has anyone built the C415 kits yet ??? Mine were supposed to be a COVID project. Got called back to work because suddenly everyone needed the best car floor mats in the World !!!
And loving them in my truck!! Would love to see a C415 for sure! My shortline favorite is the Chehalis Western, they had one.
I wish SOMEONE would come out with a 3d printed body for a TR-5b/TR-6b so I don't have to try and kitbash one...
Quote: JMaurer I wish SOMEONE would come out with a 3d printed body for a TR-5b/TR-6b so I don't have to try and kitbash one... How much different is the TR5b to a TR4b? Skytopmodels produces an excellent resin shell. I have built one and am quite pleased with it. The battery box on top of the narrow end is added and not part of the resin shell.. http://www.skytopmodels.com/products.html Bill Denton’s photo at the bottom of page 1 of this thread shows one such example.
J Starbuck: There's a couple of really big differences, but the hardest to overcome is the TR5b and TR6b have straight sides so they don't angle in where the cab should be. That's what has kept me from making one with a Concor shell. Straightening out the sides is difficult. SP-Wolf has done one but said he didn't recommend trying it. In Challengerphil's third photo above you can see how he grafted the 'cab' less end on from something else (Phil, what did you use there?). But modeling the NWP, the TR-6a and b units spent their early life there so I have always wanted at least one set.
Can you share the source of your backdrop in this scene? I am going to be modeling Solder Summit in Utah and this might be helpful. Thanks! Mark
Pacific Electric VO-1000 1329 Pacific Electric SW1 1011 Southern Pacific SW1500 2510 Southern Pacific SW1500 2539
JMaurer1: I cut down the middle of the section that transitions from the wider to the narrow part to widen it and then just made the bit where the cab would be out of styrene sheet, rounded at the corners and recessed where it needed to be etc. Phil
Hey, don't go putting this back on me. I want something where I don't have to do anything to get it accomplished. OK, I'll add it to my list, just after installing a bunch of decoders in locos first (including a custom SP LL SW-9 that I did years ago).
Here are some of my old switchers and their stories.... SP 1433 was one of two Arnold Alco S2's that I bought un-decorated and painted in SP scarlet and gray. As the truck side frames matched those of the locomotives at the end of production in 1950, I numbered these for one's from that period. They would have been tiger stripe as delivered but I was not up for trying that so I went with the 1958 paint scheme. This was all before I had DCC on the layout that I had at that time and when I did get DCC I went on to other models that were more compatible to decoders and these have lived in the display case since. Next is one of the locos that replaced the S2's on the old layout. An EMD SW8 by Life Like which originally got a wired lenz decoder later replaced with a TCS MT1500 decoder. I don't run this on the current layout either but sometimes do run it on the Ntrak layout with a "near end of show" short train. Last is B&O 20, a GE44 tonner by Bachmann that came decoder equipped. My original plan on my current layout was to have a coal burning power plant and this loco was purchased to use for the plant's own motive power. The plan changed and this little guy sits in the engine drawer. I did run it today when taking the photos and was impressed that it could pull several cars up the helix. Maybe someday I'll have a plan to use it on a layout but right now it's a bit of an orphan.
Here’s a recent addition. Bachmann NW2 custom painted and detailed. It’s equipped with Loksound 58823 decoder and a Soberton 8x12 speaker in the cab.