Well, finished up a C40-8 the other day, at least sort-of. I didn't get any underframe weathering on it, but here's a run through of what I did, and a few pictures of the finished model. Coming out of State Line tunnel pulling Q114 on the CSX Boston Line. (Model scene on the RPI's NEB&W layout.) I got this for free, so I decided to do a little work on it. First, the molded on plastic details went, as well as the horn-hooks. Horn, plow, MU hoses all came off. I added Details West DitchLights, a Plow, the appropriate horn, and MU hoses (front & rear). A lot of my information was obtained from the CSX photo archives, http://www.trainweb.org/csxphotos. I had planned on running it with a pair of Athearn UP SD70Ms, but they didn't arrive until Thursday, so it ran solo. To be prototypical, it would have to be done up for CSX, since UP didn't have any SD70Ms in the Conrail era. I got a Microscale CSX C40-8 decal set, and replaced the numbers on the cab. I then removed the numberboards, and put a piece of styrene in place of them. Over this I put the numberboard decal, then the numbers. This was done front and rear. Cab shot, resting at the NEB&W's Rutland Yard, RPI layout. You can make out most of the detail here This loco was going DCC, with a full FX class decoder, so I added Miniatronics 1.5 Volt, 15 Milliamp white microbulbs (1.2mm) for the headlight and ditchlights. The exisiting lighting board was removed. I also backlit the numberboards using the same bulbs, but broke one so the circuit didn't work. The class lights are 40 milliamp, but one of those also broke. The locomotive has oscillating ditchlites, Rule 17 headlight, and once I fix a few bulbs, will have operating Class and Numberboard lights. A drill was needed to make some new holes (ditchlites, class lights) and to widen the headlights. I then weathered the roof in true GE style, and painted the handrails white where appropriate. The Underframe got Grimy Black, but has not had any weathering so far. Here are a few more pics. Side shot, Rutland Yard. State Line Tunnel, showing full lighting. I can go into the DCC and lighting if you guys would like, including resistor values. But I'll do it in the DCC forum.
