Model Railroading > Athearn SD40-2`s with Remounted HTC Trucks

Nice work!  Actual modeling to boot.  It's hard to beat a good jig during fabrication of precise multiples of the same piece.  In the end, you have some unique beauties.

John  

TCS Wow Sound, EMD 645 turbocharged.

Thanks for looking,
Tom

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You my friend have Mad, Mad, Mad Skills !  That handbrake chain tensioner assembly is outrageous !  Finally someone who put those trucks where they're supposed to be on these units. The handrails are fantastic, not like the warped plastic crap that comes on all the RTR stuff. That MU receptacle is a nice touch. Nice clear photos and captions explaining the process. The video shows that they sound as good as they look too !  Not many people have your gift for kitbashing, detailing, and painting. Some true modelling on the Model Railroading forum. Nice Work !

FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

Congratulations!  Your work is VERY impressive! I always see such fine work and get discouraged with my skill level, tools and parts availability.

'Beautiful work, including the hand-built tooling that you have made to re-use.  'Just amazing...

What`s nice is with the low Kato motor and that particular TCS kit, you don`t have to sacrifice the factory weights to mount a speaker on either end. The Loksound Select Direct works nice also. The Keep Alive device is soldered to the rear of the plug in decoder and goes all the way up into the cab area over the front truck. No weights have to be removed to mount a speaker

tom

The modeling and technical skill involved in this project are off the charts. Not sure the bar can be set much higher. Absolutely stunning stuff. 

Wow!

Beautiful work!

Cheers,
Harry

Simply awesome work. Bravo.

Btw, let's see more of that layout!

dt

Very, very impressive.  Thanks for showing this

john

Nice work Tom. How long did it take to do these projects?  Bruce

World-class modeling and craftsmanship.  Well done!

~RGDave

Beautiful model work! Now, let's get a crew to trim the trees around the pole line.

Winston Hill

Great post, lots to see and hear. Like the stereo as well.

actually Bruce I started on them about 9 months ago but with working 10 hour days and alot of Saturdays, there were many days I didn`t touch them. Also since it was the first time I ever did 40-2`s I prepared for the future and made drilling templates for locating  detail parts I also mentioned that I bent all the wire for the future. I also soldered 20 surface mount LED`s with magnet wire for a total of 40 pcs. of wire. Also had to remove portions of the underframes to make room for detail parts. I made homemade ditchlights for the CSX units that mount up under the anti-climbers. And on 5 units there ae almost 100 step edges that were decaled with striping and locating and decaling all those stickers took alot of time. My 2 biggest time hogs are masking and decaling. The archer treadplate worked great after I made templates to cut them out. Then I took BIOYANS advice and bought a Canon brass treadplate set to use later for templates. I was only going to do 2 ICE units to start but then saw the snoot sitting on the shelf and I remembered that ICE also had snoots so I started a 3rd unit. I figured while I was moving trucks I`d try the ex Conrail flexicoils. And after painting the ICE units with Tru-Color, I wasn`t happy with the results so I sandblasted the shells and started over with Acrylics. I like acrylics better...period. Highball Graphics decals are great but scratch very easily so I had some problems with them. The tough part is thinking about how your gonna do something but fortunately I can do that while I`m at work. Future 40-2`s should go easier now that I`m ready. Next I`m doing 4 KATO 80macs after working on the layout for a while. BTW, I`d love to see the ICE units pulling your ethanol empties!

Tom
brfriedm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nice work Tom. How long did it take to do these
> projects?  Bruce

Super impressive work. Kudos!

I'd comment but my hands are busy trying to get my eyeballs back in my head. Simply put: wow. 

Any time. Bring 'em on by LOL.  Didn't the ICE units pull grain trains over sand patch for a number of years?  Trying to remember. I just remember some unit trains over Sand Patch off the W&LE that ran to Hagerstown. Thanks and well done. Hope to see your layout this year on the openhouse schedule. Do u plan to be open?  Bruce Friedman

globalethanol Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> actually Bruce I started on them about 9 months
> ago but with working 10 hour days and alot of
> Saturdays, there were many days I didn`t touch
> them. Also since it was the first time I ever did
> 40-2`s I prepared for the future and made drilling
> templates for locating  detail parts I also
> mentioned that I bent all the wire for the future.
> I also soldered 20 surface mount LED`s with magnet
> wire for a total of 40 pcs. of wire. Also had to
> remove portions of the underframes to make room
> for detail parts. I made homemade ditchlights for
> the CSX units that mount up under the
> anti-climbers. And on 5 units there ae almost 100
> step edges that were decaled with striping and
> locating and decaling all those stickers took alot
> of time. My 2 biggest time hogs are masking and
> decaling. The archer treadplate worked great after
> I made templates to cut them out. Then I took
> BIOYANS advice and bought a Canon brass treadplate
> set to use later for templates. I was only going
> to do 2 ICE units to start but then saw the snoot
> sitting on the shelf and I remembered that ICE
> also had snoots so I started a 3rd unit. I figured
> while I was moving trucks I`d try the ex Conrail
> flexicoils. And after painting the ICE units with
> Tru-Color, I wasn`t happy with the results so I
> sandblasted the shells and started over with
> Acrylics. I like acrylics better...period.
> Highball Graphics decals are great but scratch
> very easily so I had some problems with them. The
> tough part is thinking about how your gonna do
> something but fortunately I can do that while I`m
> at work. Future 40-2`s should go easier now that
> I`m ready. Next I`m doing 4 KATO 80macs after
> working on the layout for a while. BTW, I`d love
> to see the ICE units pulling your ethanol
> empties!
>
> Tom
> brfriedm Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nice work Tom. How long did it take to do these
> > projects?  Bruce