Well, nothing is more satisfying than having your favorite locomotives leading a train across the layout. Here are some of the locomotive projects I have tackled over the past few years.

Web page written and maintained by Mike McNamara

With an open house coming I wanted to get a few more sound equipped locomotives on the rails. This MEC GP7 is stock Atlas unit. The basic MEC conversion is to remove the supplied horns on each side and replace with a 3 chime horn on the short hood. The other key feature is the bell mounted on the front of the short hood, Custom Finishing part #110. I add a small piece of black wire to enhance the look of the bell. Otherwise the unit is pretty accurate. For sound, I used a Soundtraxx DSD decoder for Atlas. The mini oval speaker was recommended by Tony's Train Exchange and I agree it sounds pretty good. It easily fits in the short hood above the truck and gears. KD #58 couplers and weathering completed this loco. More info on the GP7s can be found on my MEC GP7 page. (Click on image for larger view)

The other sound unit I did was on this CP Rail RS-10. This is a really nice Proto 1000 locomotive produced by Hobbycraft in Canada. It has great detail and is very accurate right out of the box because it has many specific details already added. I used a Soundtraxx decoder in this loco as well, using a DSD for Atlas as recommended by Tony's Trains. They were right as the P1K board is closer to Atlas than P2K. It has the same speaker and enclosure and easily fits in the short hood above the drive shaft. KD #58's and weathering finished this unit. (Click on image for larger view)

One of the great advances in model railroading is not only DCC, but DCC sound. I knew I wanted to have at least one locomotive with sound for an upcoming open house in March 2004, so ordered a Soundtraxx decoder for the Atlas GP38 and installed the unit in my Maine Central GP38. This 'low cost' sound and power decoder directly replaces the exising Atlas decoder board. This leaves plenty of room for the speaker and enclosure above the decoder meaning no surgery on the unit. An alternative is to get a sound only decoder, add that to the unit above the Atlas decoder and put the speaker under the rear exhaust fans. this requires removing some of the weight in that area. For now, this option works well and gives me sound. It is addictive, though, and I want to convert more units! (Click on image for larger view)

I had picked up an undecorated Kato RS2 wanting to model a Maine Central unit. Finding pictures of #554 in the experimental scheme made me want to model this particular unit. I wrote about how I completed the model within my NER Custom Painting article. The loco uses Microscale 87-958 decals and has an NCE drop-in DCC decoder. Like all Kato units, it runs great. MEC Alco RS units stayed in Maine until retired in the mid-1970s, but I will use a little modelers license to get the unit into St. Johnsbury on my 1980 layout!

The LVRC had four ex-D&H RS3 locomotives. I have started work on my first model of these. An Atlas Undecorated RS3 is the starting point, painted yellow and lettered with Highball Graphics decals. Details were added based on prototype pictures. More info is available on the LVRC 7804 page. The picture here is right from the paint shop. The unit has since been weathered.

Atlas has done a nice job of providing good looking and smooth running locomotives needed to model the MEC in the 1970s. Along with the GP7s, there have been two releases of GP38s in two slightly different paint schemes. These are pretty good right out of the box, but I wanted to add some missing details to make them more accurate. This includes a Details West firecracker antenna, a DW side mount bell, a DW 5 chime airhorn (pretty close match) painted a silver-gray color, the MU cable and touching the airhose ends with silver. A KD #58 is also used.  (Click on image for larger view)

Here is another GP38 that has been upgraded. This one has the forward mounted bell which I fabricated with some styrene and the DW bell. A note about the weathering. I have used both airbrushing and chalks. Airbrushing has consisted of light coats of Dust. Mud and Grimy Black, all diluted and applied lightly. The chalks I have used are from Bragdon and include an adhesive that helps them stick to the model as it gets rubbed on. I really like these for simulating soot and rust as well as some dust and dirt. They work OK over a stock model but are even better over a model with some airbrushed paint, such as Dust that helps take the shine off. (Click on image for larger view)

Here is a look at the unit with the shell off, showing the sound decoder and the speaker inside the enclosure. It sits above the truck behind the cab. It sounds great and fits very easily into this area. The trucks show the effect of the rust colored chalk applied which really helps bring out the details.

Last Update: September 14, 2011

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