Model Railroading > Walthers SP SD-9e at NTS

Walthers will be the first to do a Grip program SP SD9e. Will other manufacturers follow? Photo sent to me by a friend at the show
Added 7-15:It looks like 4375-4408 had the air filter box along with 4450 & 4451 . Five of these 4379, 4392, 4393, 4450, 4451 were first order SD9 no nose number board access doors or separate UDE light . Which means the model is accurate for about 30 units although some of these had oval UDE lights (undesired Emergency Light) so the number is less than 25 units .



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/19 07:26 by dmaffei.

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did they botch the rear light package like they did on their GP35's

Jeff

They added the distinctive access doors on the hood ends.  That's quite the surprise!

Elizabeth

chitownjeff Wrote:
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> did they botch the rear light package like they
> did on their GP35's
>
> Jeff

the bulge for bulb wiring behind the red gyralight is there front and rearr. I can't post the top photos Ryan sent with this tablet, but will Monday. 
Yeah Liz, glad they did re access doors.
 

I saw it at the show but didn’t get a chance to ask about it. Was wondering if it was something I needed to budget for. Looked nice in person!

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

Looking at Harry's pics on facebook, I think I will just pop that cap off the back of the light bracket and remove the red light, and plate over the holes with thin styrene.  I wouldn't really have a reason to use the red light in normal operations. I can understand Walther's perdiciment, if they didn't light the red light to keep the scale fidelity of the light bracket, then people would be griping about the red light not working. But it appears to be a large improvement over the oversized bracket on the GP35's. That cap is small price to pay for an otherwise fine looking model long sought after by SP modelers.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Here's the 4402 at Dunsmuir in the early 1990's. I'm no ta modeler but to me it seems the step handrails seem a little to big.

Robert Morris
Dunsmuir, CA
Robert Morris Photography

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Bob they also need to loose the step in the plow.
 

That looks pretty good to me.  There were at least a couple variations of air filters if I remember correctly so I wonder if they will produce the variety of options over time.

If someone tells me I need to "get a grip", I'll go out an get one of those models!  :)

czuleget Wrote:
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> Bob they also need to loose the step in the plow.

Running boards were outlawed September 1978 I believe. So if a SD9 went through GRIP program in Sac before that date, the plows still had steps.
Other things to consider is why a loco with the large air cleaner box? Some of the locomotives with the large air boxes (early locomotives) Did not have the access doors behind ladders that Walthers added. If you look at Bob's photo, the jacking pads and Emergency fuel cut off switch addition would have been nice. The bulge behind the red gyralight on the light package is a drag and I can't accept that personally as I'm building old P2K SD9E'S with kato motors and upgrade wheel sets. 

I'm glad the did the locomotive. If you model the SP in the 70's it's a must have locomotive. 

I'm still hoping Athearn is doing a genesis version that blows this model away as some rumors say. The locomotive has a bunch of variations that can made into with the amount of new owners of the old SP SD9e. Not being ungrateful, but personally picky as this is a favorite locomotive the SP owned. 

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Thanks for the new product info, a favorite locomotive indeed.

Ebay seems to be full of P2K SD9 new-in-box 'deals' right now.

SD9E details were all over the place in terms of lighting, snowplows, breather pipes, stuff like that.  In part because of different options on different orders, and that they went through the GRIP program in nothing resembling numerical order.  At some point, the large paper air filter box stopped being added, and even locomotives that didn't originally have a full light package got them front and rear.  It will be interesting to see how Walthers handles all that.  I notice that the louvers on the long hood still aren't correct for the SP units.

In essence, these look at lot like a stock Proto SD9 without fixing some of the problems and adding a Details West detail kit.  Only some of the added details (the large indistinct blob that is supposed to serve as the attenna base for example) aren't as nice as the DW parts.  The needed improvements were discussed in this thread:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,4467463,page=1

Should I ever get aroud to finishing the remaining two, I think four will more than suffice for my needs.  At a minimum, I'd recomend everyone planning to get one of these send a few dollars to Dave to buy some of those much better fans!

Elizabeth



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/19 11:35 by Betsy.

Betsy Wrote:
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> At a minimum, I'd recomend everyone
> planning to get one of these send a few dollars to
> Dave to buy some of those much better fans!
>
> Elizabeth

Yes, They look good and run much better than the old Proto units.

Might be able to make a C&S unit from one:)

How hard would this be to speed match to my BLI SD9 (manually)? Also what kind of decoder is this thing going to have?