Model Railroading > The 2018 Penn Central - The "What-If" Fleet expands...

While I have to create a modern "what -if" Penn Central locomotive fleet, the fact that there is no Conrail, or CSX, or BNSF or Guilford, means I have to also create a modern locomotive "fleet" for connecting railroads.

One of those connections is Erie Lackawanna, and while there are some model manufacturer-created models available (Intermountain's GEVO, Atlas' recent U23B, knowing EL's affinity for EMD's made me determined to create a few SD70ACe's. Here is the first one - created from the conveniently-available NS Lackawanna Heritage units. The first of 3 is shown here....4332. I still have to change the number boards but the other carbody numbers are set....

As always, my apologies to fans of the original roadname on it....:)

These sorts of things are easy to do....find a close scheme, paint out what you do not want to keep and replace with Micro Scale decals. This took bottles of EL Gray, EL Yellow and EL Maroon, plus a single decal set. Beats trying to paint one from scratch. It took an hour to paint - 3 days for the paint to set up and then an hour of decals.

All that remains to do is finish painting out the Lackawanna nose logo, add the EL nose logo and do the number boards.

By way of information, there are now 13 EL units...four SDP-45's, three SD45-2's, three U33C's, the U23B a GP35, the GEVO and this one. Yet to go two more ACe's - one to run with the GEVO, the other to run with this ACe (pairs)

Bob



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/18 07:30 by navarch2.

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Very Nice Work. I find it amazing that there are several "fantasy" Penn Central Railroads out there. Being on paper, in cyberspace or in model form, the Penn Central STILL lives on as do MANY other Fallen Flags. My own version of the PC lives as well but only in my mind. The history I would change is that PC actually DID fall as a flag and Conrail actually WAS formed in 1976. However, after railroad legislation was reformulated in the early 1980s, the administration of the Reagan era was trying to shrink "Big" government so Conrail went up for sale and was bought by the Norfolk and Western in the merger madness that was the 1980s. The Southern Railroad had merged with the Illinois Central to gain access to Chicago in 1980. After the buy out of Conrail, the new merged road re-instituted the Penn Central name in order to reflect it's new business model. To raise cash for the merger, the Penn Central sold ALL of the ex NYC lines to CSX. This would, in my mind still keep completion in the deep sound with CSX and the now "Illinois Southern" and in the north with CSX and the new PC. The new PC would be an all EMD road BUT would buy the latest GE power for a lease fleet to other roads much like the Conrail LMS units or the CITX units that now ply the rails all over the country. They would also serve PC as a "surge" fleet. The rest I will leave up to you and your imaginations. We have an AWESOME hobby that lets us spend our free time as we wish and have no one else criticize it because....IT'S MY RAILROAD.

Whats the future of steam excursions on the Penn Central?

robert162 Wrote:
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> Whats the future of steam excursions on the Penn
> Central?

With the outcry that came when Walthers came out with the Penn Central steam locomotive decals...

robert162 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Whats the future of steam excursions on the Penn
> Central?


Fairly bright....I have a pair of "preserved" steam locomotives...both NYC ..... (as obtuse as my modeling may be, I am not SO obtuse as to even DESIRE a PC steam locomotive....lol...) a Mohawk by BLI and a Niagara by BLI as well...both run quite well...I continue to try to find a last-built P&LE Berkshire...The Glacier Park Models version is a tad steep in the $$$ department - IF you can even find one....William Devane my be keeping them with his gold...)

Bob

No Hudson?

navarch2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> robert162 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Whats the future of steam excursions on the
> Penn
> > Central?
>
>
> Fairly bright....I have a pair of "preserved"
> steam locomotives...both NYC ..... (as obtuse as
> my modeling may be, I am not SO obtuse as to even
> DESIRE a PC steam locomotive....lol...) a Mohawk
> by BLI and a Niagara by BLI as well...both run
> quite well...I continue to try to find a
> last-built P&LE Berkshire...The Glacier Park
> Models version is a tad steep in the $$$
> department - IF you can even find one....William
> Devane my be keeping them with his gold...)
>
> Bob

I wanted to get later steam power...the Mohawk is a good stand-in for early steam. It is available in a BLI Brass Hybrid.....The NYC Hudson is only available in Paragon 3 in a "Commodore Vanderbilt" and in Brass Hybrid as a Dreyfuss streamlined unit...I do not care much for streamlining anyway, and that "Commodore" may be the ugliest steam locomotive ever built.....so I plan on a PRR J1a next...in Paragon 3, to close out the steam program fleet for now. Early BLI Hudsons had a lot of problems...I am hoping that one day they do the P&LE modern Berk...if not a Paragon 3 Hudson might be nice....a NYC J3 hudson preferable with a long distance tender.

Bob



steam290 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No Hudson?
>
> navarch2 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > robert162 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Whats the future of steam excursions on the
> > Penn
> > > Central?
> >
> >
> > Fairly bright....I have a pair of "preserved"
> > steam locomotives...both NYC ..... (as obtuse
> as
> > my modeling may be, I am not SO obtuse as to
> even
> > DESIRE a PC steam locomotive....lol...) a
> Mohawk
> > by BLI and a Niagara by BLI as well...both run
> > quite well...I continue to try to find a
> > last-built P&LE Berkshire...The Glacier Park
> > Models version is a tad steep in the $$$
> > department - IF you can even find
> one....William
> > Devane my be keeping them with his gold...)
> >
> > Bob