Model Railroading > Stoneage Kitbash

Stoneage Kitbash from 1975, SP SD45X

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Very nice!  I did a lot of similar kitbashes in that era.  In some ways it was more fun than the perfect off-the-shelf models you can buy now!

Considering what you had to work with, that is pretty good.
 

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

funnelfan Wrote:
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> Considering what you had to work with, that is
> pretty good.
>  

Even had to make both snow plows, shorten an Athearn FP-45 frame to 70 feet and take it's fan grills off and use on the 45x. Remember, Athearn had not introduced the SP SD40T-2 in 1976. That would have made a great frame and trucks to use.

Did you use an Athearn SD45 shell in that project?  I had one I got for Christmas in 1973 at age 14 and noticed the nose and hood was wide.  I learned later that Athearn tooled it wide because there were no motors narrow enough to fit a scale hood shell.

There was a gentleman on another forum who was working on a project to narrow the hood on Athearns DD40 and he removed the oversize from down the middle of the shell in two halves, to get the hood width to correct scale.  I don't know if the project was ever finshed.

HardYellow Wrote:
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> funnelfan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Considering what you had to work with, that is
> > pretty good.
> >  
>
> Even had to make both snow plows, shorten an
> Athearn FP-45 frame to 70 feet and take it's fan
> grills off and use on the 45x. Remember, Athearn
> had not introduced the SP SD40T-2 in 1976. That
> would have made a great frame and trucks to use.

I didn't recall the blue box SD40T-2 was ofirst offered until around 1982.  During the 70's I would have loved to had an SP SD40T-2 as I saw them regularly crossing the causeway over the rice patties over to Sacramento.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/21 10:54 by SPDRGWfan.

You're right, I wrote "had not introduced." Had to use the FP45 and shorten the frame by 2 feet to end up with a 70 foot frame.

Ah, right.  I misread your comment on the SD40T-2.  Actually it might have been around 1983 or 1984 when the SD40T-2 was introduced.  Around that time I was getting interested in the D&RGW but was moving around a lot and didn't buy any SD40T-2's until a few years later.

Cheers,
Jim

I cut 2 feet out of the FP45 fuel tank which gave me the 70 foot frame I needed

Very cool!

Posted from iPhone

HardYellow Wrote:
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> I cut 2 feet out of the FP45 fuel tank which gave
> me the 70 foot frame I needed

Are the HTCs modified Flexicoils? There was a company that made a cast metal HTC to retrofit, but if memory serves me, I think I drilled the extra hole, added a plastic block and sculped it for the traction motor bracket addition (towards the fuel tank) and added a Details Associates snubber.

I tried casting the roof of an F45 shell to make the fans cheaper than buying shells, but it never worked out for me.

As for the "fat hoodwidth," either GEM or Halmark (or maybe both) had brass models that were also "fatsos" so they wouldn't look out of place among Athearn and other models. While Athearn's "excuse" didn't seem to affect other builders (Tyco and Bachmann never seemed to need wide body locomotives), Athearn were superior runners to their competition. Hobbytown of Boston made superiior replacement drives (and scale width models, like the RS-3/RSD-4/5, S-2/4 swticher and others), but were muich more expensive than Athearn's offerings. For the time, the "fat hood" width was an acceptable compromise.

The Flexicoils had an even axle placement. The HTCs did not, so any modification of a Flexicoil to an HTC, including the replacement sideframes I mentioned above, were another compromise, again, acceptable to the rivet counters of the period.
Nice work.

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

Of fatbody Athearn SD45's. 

What looked awful to even me as a 14 year old was the nose was fat on the SD45 as well, presumably to match the fat hood.  It always looked wrong to me.   As is apparent YMMV.

I made the trucks by drilling the holes adding shocks, etc. The nose of the 45x is longer by one foot than the standard 45 and other EMD's. Back in the day, you could still buy the DD40X radiator grills. The eng's side has one at the rear. See "Railroad Model Craftsman" December 1977. I'm sure, 45 years later, people have made 45X's using the Atheran narrow bodie and 40T-2 frames.

I remember that kitbash, and the article was a big influence on me.  I eventually did a similar model, and if I remember correctly, also numbered it 9505 (I'm sure about the blue and white).  The HT-C trucks had a more "up-and-down" profile than the Flexicoils, which on many early kitbashes using the old Athearn trucks with the metal sideframes I simulated by gluing a piece of styrene on and filling in the rest of the profile with putty.  I do remember it as not being a fun task.  I do remember using the fans from a couple of F/FP45 shells, and even carefully shaving off the cast-on grab irons from those shells and gluing them on the rear of the SD45X. 

EMD's mechanical drawings, which aren't necessarily to be relied on for dimensional data, are suggestive that the short hood may have been 88 in long from the cab face to the prow, which became EMD's standard in about 1978.  Assuming the wings on the grey/scarlet scheme are the same as everything else, that hypothesis seems correct.  Subsequent efforts using Photoshop and SD45/SD45X photos taken at the same angle also seem to indicate that 88 in is a good guess.

Ultimately I did end up almost scratch building a model using primarily Cannon and Athearn components.  Since It predated Athearn's SD45T-2 by not quite a year (it "debuted" at the Cannon booth at the same NTS at which Athearn announced the 45T-2), I ended up scratch building the deck and steps.  Here is the model leading a train on the La Mesa Tehachapi Pass layout.  Thanks for the inspiration!

Elizabeth

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