I "accidentally" ended up with two locos — what I am wanting to do is change the road number on one of them. Does anyone have a simple guide? — In my head, I am thinking of laying an 8 over the 3. Would I need to get a specific Kato numbering pack? To ensure that the type/font is the same? Or, am I going about this all wrong. Thanks in advance. Adam.
I've seen this done many times. If you can match the font, color and size... Especially nice,too, if there is a matching prototype.
It depends how prototypical you want to be . . . if you change one of the 3(s) to an 8 did a locomotive with that new number ever exist? Probably not a big deal (and there doesn't seem to be much info available on the Maersk roster), but a consideration . . . I agree with BoxcabE50 . . . your physical plan seems sound. Dan
If the 8 is the same shape as the 3, then sure. You'd have to be sure that it was completely symmetric and circular. It would look weird to have part of the 3 show from under the 8 if it wasn't covered perfectly. Kato locomotives are notoriously difficult to strip paint from, and people even go as far as sanding the numbers off with sandpaper. Depending on how realistic you want to go, I would ideally want 3330 or 3328 and not patch a 3 with an 8. Two adjacent-numbered locomotives would make sense from a proto-freelancing perspective. The real NS 8329 is a GE Dash 8, but there is no 3829, so if you do patch out a digit, I would use that road number. Microscale makes decals for the Maersk locomotive scheme, but the number font looks similar to regular NS numbers, so you could probably use a basic NS diesels sheet too. Don't forget about the number boards either, those are usually more difficult and time consuming to change than the cab number.
