Atlas Roco CN S-4

CN 8017 is an Atlas Roco HO S-4 from their first run of these models in the late 1980s. It's been on my to-do list for conversion to DCC for quite a while, but this was complicated by the fact that it had been disassembled, parts were in two or three different places, and when I finally gathered them up, one of the coupler mounts had disappeared, and the left side handrail had more or less disintegrated -- I'm not sure why.

What made this more difficult was that this model, both the original Roco version and the subsequent Chinese clone from the 1990s, are discontinued, and Atlas no longer has replacement parts for either. On the other hand, one problem these locos had from the start was they sometimes had cracked axles, but with replacements no longer available, I had one or two locos that became hangar queens, just there for the parts. So I was able to raid a hangar queen for the coupler mount and and left side handrail.

On the other hand, the original Roco coupler mounts had simple plastic plugs to hold the coupler in (which is probably why the mount on this loco disappeared). So I had to drill a new mounting hole #50 and tap 2-56 to use a 2-56 screw to replace the plastic plug. Maybe a little more work than I'd really like to undertake for a 35-year-old loco that shows its age more with each passing year.

I instralled a TCS AS6 decoder, probably the easiest part of the whole project.