Model Railroading > Rapido CN DASH 8-40CM "Draper Taper"

Just a few years ago no one would have dreamed we'd ever see these as an RTR option in the HO scale market. And some say this hobby is dying? Wow, just wow...



So got around to basically wrapping up a quick & dirty weathering job on one of my recently acquired Rapido Draper Taper Dash 8s. Picked up a CN "website" unit first to go along with the rest of my contemporary CN fleet, the BC Rail covered wagon is next...

The model received a few minor Details West white metal upgrades before weathering began. Details West locomotive air hoses and train-line hoses front & back. I haven't decided on a proper MU cable just yet. Working back from the cab, DW step lights were added on either side below the frame adjacent to the lead truck, and a DW modern speed recorder was installed on the third axle back. Then came air filters on either side as well just behind the lead truck. The front and rear handrails were painted red from the factory. Based on the pics I could find they should have been black stanchions with a white handrail all the way across, so out came the white and black paints again for that little correction.

Next came the weathering, starting with various passes of Testors weathering paint pens, RR Tie Brown, Weathered Black, and Roof Brown for the trucks, wheels, fuel tank, pilots, and long hood/roof grills. Next my standard water & alcohol thinned wash of Flat Engine Black, Grimy Black and Burnt Umber acrylic paints applied wet first then with a little vertical dry streaking as the initial pass settles down. After masking the windows and headlight lenses, the final model was sealed with a liberal fogging of Testors dullcote spray. Kadee #153 short semi-scale couplers replaced the Kadee #5s the model came with.

This non-sound model was 17.9 oz out the box, kinda on the light side for a full width cowl unit... But there are numerous pockets of space inside, I had no problem adding 3 oz of metal stick on weights inside to beef it up to 21.5 oz. For comparisons sake, the sound equipped ScaleTrains Tier-IV models are a hefty 25.9 oz.

---

---

---

Speaking of ScaleTrains... Since I had the paint out and the weathering bug running strong in my head last night (good music to pass the twilight away), I weathered up my CN ET44AC as well along side the DASH 8-40CM. Weathering treatment was the same as the Draper above.

Two new units to toss into my eclectic mix of CN units. I really gotta get back to that standard cab DASH 8 I've had kicking around on the shelf one of these days.

Roster pics are also uploaded here...
http://www.pbase.com/mrmrl/cn_models


Mr. MRL

---

---

---

Very very nice as always. Be good to see them in person one day!

Allister

New Zealand

I was really tempted on a BCR unit, but decided it didn't really fit into what I'm actively modeling, so I'm going to save my money on this round. Got wayyy to many projects and not nearly enough time to work on them!

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was really tempted on a BCR unit, but decided it
> didn't really fit into what I'm actively modeling,
> so I'm going to save my money on this round. Got
> wayyy to many projects and not nearly enough time
> to work on them!


I tell ya, with the recent posts on the Western Board showing a red white & blue BC Rail unit running around on the BNSF... I’ve been tempted to snag a second one just so I can weather the snot out of it, add a yellow stripe to the base of the frame and run a contemporary one for CN or BNSF freights. The first one I’ve got is intended to augment my late 1980s/early ’90s era BC Rail fleet along with the Bowser MLW C630Ms and GMD SD40-2s I picked up over the past couple years.

27 years on and many if not most of these cowl Dash 8s are amazingly still kicking around!

Mr. MRL

Robby,
Nice weathering job on the Dash 8, its one of the few I've seen where people actually bothered to add MU hoses! I'm detailing one unit right now with the split cooling upgrade. One thing I've found that improves the look of these models is to remove the oversize sand hatches and replace them with small parts, as well as moving the hatch location on the short hood slightly inboard. I've also lowered the exhaust stack, as I felt the factory position was a little too high.

-Trevor

tsokolan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One thing I've found that improves the look of these models is to
> remove the oversize sand hatches and replace them
> with small parts, as well as moving the hatch
> location on the short hood slightly inboard. I've
> also lowered the exhaust stack, as I felt the
> factory position was a little too high.
>
> -Trevor

Good points, I already repainted the front sand hatches gray to match the prototype, but I too thought they looked a little large, I’ll see what I can do to correct that. And yeah the exhaust also pops up a bit higher that other DASH 8s, sorta in between the height of newer DASH 9 style GEs. It should be a relatively easy fix to drop that down a couple scale inches.

Mr. MRL

The exhaust is easy to lower, since the factory used the smallest amount of glue possible to secure the stack, you can pop it off easy. There's a flange that the stack sits in, I filed the flange so the exhaust stack would slip through it, set the height where I wanted it, then CA'd in place. The sand hatches I replaced with a couple of raised MU hatches from Details Associates (they were close enough in appearance to the sand hatches). I also repainted the nose anti glare panel since I felt Rapido used too light of a shade. I'll throw some in progress photos up sometime, I'm about 90% done with the detailing.

-Trevor

MrMRL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> tsokolan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > One thing I've found that improves the look of
> these models is to
> > remove the oversize sand hatches and replace
> them
> > with small parts, as well as moving the hatch
> > location on the short hood slightly inboard.
> I've
> > also lowered the exhaust stack, as I felt the
> > factory position was a little too high.
> >


> > -Trevor
>
> Good points, I already repainted the front sand
> hatches gray to match the prototype, but I too
> thought they looked a little large, I’ll see
> what I can do to correct that. And yeah the
> exhaust also pops up a bit higher that other DASH
> 8s, sorta in between the height of newer DASH 9
> style GEs. It should be a relatively easy fix to
> drop that down a couple scale inches.
>
> Mr. MRL