Hi, Sorry if this is a blatant self plugging....if it's against rules etc then it can be taken down, but please don't bash me for it, I just wanted to share my modelling and if someone fancies a bid.... I have a highly customised Con Cor Union Pacific Gas Turbine listed on eBay at the moment. I have done all the work myself, etched brass ladders, grabs, wipers, door handle, hand rails, decals, oil lines, correcting the rear platform, scale couplers, recessed sand filler hatches on the nose, MV lenses with red UDE light, all sorts of stuff to make one of these models look really good. I've also re-motored it with a twisted 5 pole Mashima. There is a post in TrainBoard SwapMeet, with eBay links, if you want to see the full description and more pictures of what has been done or place a bid https://www.trainboard.com/highball...acific-con-cor-customised-gas-turbine.138731/ If anyone is interested in more pictures just for looking at the modelling please ask. Thanks for looking, Phil
It looks and sounds like it's something you can be proud of. But, it's not something I could not afford and not in my area of interest. Best wishes. Rich
I had one of these that I repainted and detailed (but not as much or as nice as yours) but I couldn't stand the HUGE SIDE RAILINGS. Finally sold it with ConCor promising to bring out a new, improved (smaller side rails), DCC compatible one within the next 4 months... OVER TEN YEARS AGO! Since that time they just kept updating the same ad on their website, but instead of it saying 'Redesigned for 2010' they would just change the year. I think it was some time after 2017 they finally took the ad down. One of two things I actually pre-ordered, waited forever, and was finally never produced. Where's my 'pound to dollar' conversion chart. You may have a fish on...
Very Nice work. Wondering why you never settled on a road number for it? I've bought one so far at a low price that didn't come with a tender but have picked up a couple of those (Kato). Would like to get a Scale Trains tender but so far no luck. I've bid on a number but the prices got to steep for me but did recently get an unpainted one that has never been put together at what I thought was a reasonable price considering where prices are at the moment. They have been going for a lot, most at least $200, and none of those customized like yours. I image you will get a good price for yours. Do you plan on doing another one? I am surprised that at this point and for what people are paying for them that no-one has come up with replacement hand rails? Once I get further along with my resin printer I might attempt that. I think the Ender 3 Pro filament printer might do a better job than Con-Cor did back then. Above is a handrail I did for my turntable project next to the Con-Cor handrail. Of course a lot has changed since the late 70's so not knocking them. One way to help the appearance of the handrails is by the color that is chosen. Lighter colors on the same object vs. darker colors make the object appear larger. Black would make them appear the smallest. Haven't found pictures of any painted black but have found pictures where the handrails were gray and the stanchions yellow for real engines. I've seen models with the stanchions and handrails gray but not prototype so far. Personally I think the gray makes them appear slightly smaller than the yellow you normally see. A real life example of this is I chose a dark purple with flames for my Street Rod vs. a lighter color to make it appear smaller. Good luck with the auction and I'll be following it (saw it a few days ago). Sumner
No other roads had this style of Turbin. Uhh...err Gas Turbines. I really like what you've done. You can be proud of your work.
Thank you all for your kind feedback! I am building another, but it's been one of those slow burn projects; 11 years . It's MUCH more detailed than this, etched walkway on the tender, the tender has been made properly cylindrical, complete new tender chassis, electric pick-up. The turbine has been lowered on the chassis which involved a lot of machining to achieve and the body is too tall as standard so some has been Sandee off the bottom, the turbine vents and intake are all open with etched screens and support trusses behind, reshaped nose and windows, the list goes on. Oh and custom brass side rails on the veranda side because yes, I to am surprised nobody has released aftermarket parts to improve the look of these as standard they're pretty bad. The reason these weren't great from the start is that ConCor produced the U50 first, then built the turbine around the U50 chassis with quite a few compromises which with only a little bit of tooling change to the chassis would have made a nicer model, but as pointed out it was the 80's. No other roads had turbines, but UP had six different types... Steam turbine Double cab ended gas turbine #50 Standard gas turbine Veranda gas turbine 3 unit gas turbine Coal burning turbine Only other gas turbine I know of were 2 owned by LMS London, Midland, Scotland (I live in England). My dad has a very nice OO brass model of one, really rare for brass models of English prototypes. Anyway, thanks again Phil
If you ask Concor, LOTS of RRs had them: SP, GN, SF, CSX, even Pennsy! Just like the Concor steam GS-4s!
And it looks like yours is going to go for what it is worth...which is more than I can pay...maybe. Meant to attach this to the previous post:
I'm guessing it will go for over $300 and considering unmodified ones have been well over $200 (I think a few have gone for over $300) this last year and the time that has been put into it probably a very reasonable price. If you haven't looked take a look down the page ( HERE ) at all the mods. I copied the page for future reference. Lots of good info there on the model vs. the original. Sumner
As far as I know, no other road had gas turbines; however, there were some steam turbines. The Pennsylvania class S2, the Norfolk and Western "Jawn Henry", and the Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1. None of them were in service very long and the S2 and Jawn Henry were one-offs; although they did make three of the M-1's. Good job on that turbine, I'd like to do some improvements to mine sometime. I've got a CSX one, yeah I know it's not prototypical, but I like it.
There was the Westinghouse Baldwin demonstrator , Blue Goose, 4000hp turbine. No buyers so it was scrapped. https://www.steamlocomotive.com/types/turbine/
I'm curious as to what chassis that SP turbine tender is mounted on as it's certainly not the original...any ideas?
Congrats on the sale of the Turbine. That is the most I've seen one go for but also the nicest one I've seen . How about posting pictures and info as you modify the next one? Sumner
Wish it was coming home to me, but a man has got to eat. Congrats on getting what it was worth. I'll go back to looking for one that I can someday say that I'm going to modify so it looks like the one you did, take it apart, start on the modifications, eventually setting it aside once I get stuck on one of the things (probably the sand hatches), move it off to the side of the work bench, have it get knocked over loosing at least one of the important pieces, finally to get relegated to a box of pending and in process projects that someone years from now will find as part of an archaeological expedition...like so many of my other projects (I'm really going to finish that three truck shay once I get around to installing a decoder and making a drawbar, really!)
