Question for all you MoPac guys. I have an old S scale “Route of The Eagles” passenger train that I’d like to recreate in N scale. Have any of you custom painted an N scale PA2 in the MP “eagle route” colors? (the silver and blue scheme) http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/4129/blackhawk%20slide%20missouri%20pacific%2059%20pa-2%201962.jpg I see that Microscale has decals that are made for E-7,E-8 locos (Stock# 60-388) . Do you think they’ll work on a Kato PA2? I can acquire all the passenger cars already done up in the correct colors but the locomotive(s) I will have to custom paint. Con-cor did make this loco a number of years ago but they rarely come up for sale and they aren’t DCC compatable. Thanks in advance for any advice. Brian ps, Heres a link to a pic of the train I'm trying to recreate. It sits atop of the display case. Not the greatest pic but it'll give you an idea of what I'm trying to do.. http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/data/500/P8190468.JPG
I'm guessing you have an affinity for the PA units... along with the beautiful blue/grey MP Eagle scheme. I've been wanting Kato to do a Colorado Eagle trainset for as long as I've been asking them to do a Northern Pacific North Coast Limited. Unfortunately falling on deaf ears. If you wait until (who knows for sure) later this year... PCM has announced the release of an EMD E6 unit in MoPac Eagle scheme... but unfortunately it will not have the correct porthole arrangement MoPac used. There are a few custom model railroad painters but I have NOT purchased from them... one of the best ones was on the east coast and passed-away several years ago.
Not so much an affinity for the PA units (I actually like the lines of the E8 better) but I wanted to do a recreation of the train set my dad bought for me the year I was born. Guess I was programmed to be into trains at a very early age. That train has PA power so want to recreate that. This proposed custom job will be a piece of cake if the microscale decals advertised to fit E7,E8s will fit a PA unit. Of course as it often goes, within weeks of finishing this project someone will announce a run of the exact locomotive I want to do. Seems that's always the case eh....
Recreating a good quality Colorado Eagle... or any other MoPac Eagle consist will be painfully slow if we have to wait for manufacturers like PCM and Intermountain/Centralia to produce the locomotive and passenger cars. It is mind boggling that Kato hasn't put out a full consist of this passenger train... though Kato has boggled many minds over the years. I'm still holding out hope for a PA headed Eagle consist from them in the next decade... but... just how much time " I " may have to enjoy it is not up to me to decide. Meanwhile... I have an old LifeLike E8 and a set of ConCor MoPac decorated 'psuedo Eagle' passenger cars to look at with disdain. Intermountain/Centralia has put out 2 Eagle cars... one of which is actually a Pennsy car with MoPac Eagle paint. The future doesn't look good for MoPac passenger train collectors.
I think the length on the decal striping would probably work for the PA. Although you may have to doctor that lower nose stripe to get it to fit since the PA doesn't have quite the roundness of a E unit.
Brian, Great to see someone wanting to do Mopac PA and passenger train. The decals from Microscale will fit the PA. Mopac passenger car decals are available from Oddballs Decals except for the cream stripes. You could by several sets of the diesel decals and use the straight sections on the passenger cars. Oddballs Decals website: mopac1.tripod.com/oddballs3.com. 60-166 Lightweight passenger cars-Lettering-Silver. Will letter three cars. 60-178 passenger car numbers and names-Silver. Mopac paint is available from Modelflex. They have most of the Mopac blue and grey colors. Hope this will help your project. Gary
Gary, Thanks for the link to Oddballs decals. I've had that site bookmarked before for a different project and plum forgot about it. I've got all my cars ordered already. A combination of Con-cor and Walthers. Since they've already been painted all I should have to do is add the names (creek, canyon, hill, etc...) The oddball set will be just the ticket for that job. As for the locomotive, I looked real careful at the sheet from Microscale and the only bugaboo I can see as far as it fitting on a PA unit is the small cutout on the bottom of the chin decal. The cutout is there to get around the small ridges on an E unit that lie slightly above the bottom edge of the loco body, where on the PA the small ridges are even with the bottom of the body. I see a couple options. 1. add an extra ridge made out of real thin styrene (not protypical but this project wasn't ment to be rivit correct), or 2. match up the paint color as best as possible and paint that section. I'll try option 2 first since I'm going to have to paint the lower "plow" area anyway. I've got a ton of honeydoos in que right now so the PA project may not happen for a couple months but when I get around to it I'll post some pics. (if the job is picture worthy :goggles. Brian ps. Con-cor did a run of MoPac PAs a while ago (I believe in 2008) I dismissed them at first thinking they're not DCC compatable but after doing some research (spookshow) I guess starting with that run they are indeed DCC ready. Of course there ain't a unit for sale on the planet right now so I'll be on the lookout for something like that to come up on the site that shall remain nameless.
For fathers day I've decided I'm going to do some work on my custom MoPac PA unit. I've got the grab iron holes drilled already (no easy task for a 53 year olds eyes) so the paint is the next step. I'm thinking about using my oooooold Miller 2017 set to do the painting. We're talking 30+ years old. It did an ok job 10+ years ago last time I used it on an Alaska GP unit, but to be honest it's a pain to set up and then clean out. (Why yes I am pretty lazy) I really want this to look right so an air brushed finish is necessary IMO. I'll do some test sprays tomorrow and if all goes well I'll attack the shell. I'll be using Modelflex paints as they had the correct colors already mixed up and available. So, if any of you fellow modelers that own a Miller 2017 painting set (over 50, or young wierdos that collect antique air brush systems) have any comments on how to use them effectivly please speak up. If all goes well I'll post a pic or 2 tomorrow PM. Brian
Well Rats, the first attempt using my antique spray gun was a bust. Fortunatly, I was able to get the shell washed off without too much paint sticking. Multiple problems: 1st, the paint comes out of the nozzle in too big of droplets causing a splatter effect. I tried multiple adjustments to the spray tip and it seems I either get large droplets or nothing at all. Could this be caused by me holding the sprayer too close to the shell during application? 2nd, If I wait more than 15 seconds between applications the tip of the nozzle gets plugged up with drying paint. Using a thin wire I can unclog it but man what a pain! 3rd, the paint seems to not go on evenly on the shell. I washed the shell multiple times with hot soapy water to ensure no mold release was left on but the paint still beads up somewhat causing some areas to be thin and other areas to be too thick. I can't apply a very light coat and let dry due to the large droplet size. I'm afraid by the time I got a complete coat it'd look like I spackled it. This was the light grey color so being it is a light color (like most yellows) I may have to prime the shell. This was a step I was hoping to avoid so as not to get a thick looking paint job. Anyhow I'm going to ponder my next step(s) a bit more. Should I brush paint or try again with my airbrush. I've thought about painting the dark blue first and using that as a primer then going back and applying the light grey over the top but I've always been told to apply the lightest paint first then the darker tints. Any thoughts?? Brian
Progress!! I decided to hand paint the gray parts with a good old fashoned brush. Not perfect but acceptable. I think the worst part about it so far is where I buggered up the plastic trying to scrape off the molded on hand grabs. Next I masked off the gray stripe and hit the body with the blue. I tried my air brush again and was much happier this time. The darker color went on with a very fine spray and seemed to flow evenly. I still managed to make a total mess by spilling about half a jar of blue paint all over my garage floor!! Sheesh!! So far I am ok with the progress. I'm hoping as the paint cures completly it'll lay down a bit more. The decal stripes will hide a bit of bleed from under the tape as well. Brian
Good JOB!!! Of course... now that you've gone through all that trouble... we can expect Kato to release the same model with a full Colorado Eagle consist. ;~)
Ha ha, isn,t that always the case. I started the pinstripe decallimg yesterday with one hit and one miss. The lower yellow stripe went on ok but the center silver loop was a holey balled up bugger. I've got 3 days on the road to ponder how to get that delicate little thingie on in one piece. I hate to cut the front loop off and then add the straight parts on separately but that may be the only way to get it in the correct position without it getting balled up or torn. I think part of my issue was I Primed the surface of the model with Microset and it softened the decal too much to work it in place without damaging it. Brian
With all my questions answered, or solved on my own, (so far) this thread now belongs in the "N scale Whats on your workbench" folder. Future posts will be submitted there. Brian
