ALCO...........synonomous with grime; smoke and sound..... regardless of the model; they were dirty; dusty deafening locomotives that many of us love to this day. The Montreal Locomotive Works built 100's under licence for the CNR and CPR - one of the most popular of the "Century" Series diesels were the C 424's.... Life Like did a credible model of the C 424 before they were "absorbed" by the Model RR Borg..... and Hobby Craft Canada slapped some Canadian road paint on a few; but they were not even close to the MLW units...... I didn't care - they were close enough for me..... The differences to the Canadian prototypes are numerous; there are variations on the headlight; Canadian models had the lights on the lower nose; while US counterparts had high mounted lights. The car body filters were quickly changed to a "quad" pattern that made the MLW units very distinctive; the bell was engineer side mounted on the body; the horns were brought to the front, center of the cab; and later moved "a mid ships".... and the most obvious spotting feature was the split duel fuel tanks..... Life Like's model didn't cut it.....but what to do ? On a trip to Montreal I came across a small conversion kit by "Transport 2000"; the same guy who does the nifty plows and Jordans in my photo gallary. The kit had a few resin parts.... a starting place for a "closer to prototype" C 424..... Here's a link to the "protptype" 4219....http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp4219ajf.jpg Here's the model....... This dirty bird is one of the second delivery of the 424 (the first being a one unit order from Alco itself.)and has many of the aforementioned features; the quad car body filters are "cut into" the frame. The split fuel tanks are a modification to the Life Like casting. The headlight change; bell and other parts are all brass... only the rear of the unit is un altered; the MLW units didn't have the tapered flair at the end..... just didn't want to cut into the model anymore than I had..... All the normal details have been applied like MU's; handrails have been painted; weathering a plenty applied and various parts added.... all in all a somewhat reasonable replica of the CP Rail MLW unit...... The units look fine; albeit they don't pull great - but a couple of these units lashed up would be a fine addition to the active roster and would bring that Alco-MLW "dirty-grimy-smokey feel" to the Puddington Valley sub.......
Added another "Canadian" friend for the C424 - this time a Montreal Locomotive Works RS 10 (the Canadian version of the RS 11 and first cousin of the more popular RS 18) is the victim of the "weather me like an ALCo should be" bandit..... This is a True LIne Trains model; built on an Atlas frame and motor the shell is very detailed and darn near correct for an RS 10. The fuel tank is wrong - but this is mainly due to the construction requirements that Atlas frame brings - I, and several others are looking for a way to change this.... Here's a prototype CP Rail RS 10....... http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cp/cp8586ads.jpg Here's the model............ CP Rail (and CPR) RS 10's ran long hood foreward until the mid 1970's, thus in my 1973 world the "Multi Mark" would have been on the short hood...... Since this photo was taken earlier this week, I've reweathered the fan.... Two MLW ALCo licencee's look "soot-a-lishous" together........... Nothing like a dirty ALCo to say 1960's-1970's railroading..............
What a great job! I'm glad to see that there are parts around for detailing locos the Canadian way. It never ceases to amaze me that a model locomotive company can produce a loco and slap on a Canadian road without looking at the details. It has kept me from buying a few interesting locos (bell / horn / lights ex in the wrong place, even incorrect trucks). So again, GREAT JOB!:thumbs_up: Here is one of my favorite sites for looking up CP Rail locos -> http://www.mountainrailway.com/Diesel%20Roster%20Page.htm
