Rolling Stock Updates

I've been working on contemporary items lately. Here's the Walthers BNSF corrugated-side gon from my last post, with tags and conspicuity stripes added:

About 30 years ago a long-gone train shop was closing out Model Power/IHC quad hoppers. These were a Bethlehem Steel prototype from the 1960s and 70s. Walthers did these as kits in the 1990s and recently reissued an upgraded version as a Mainline model. The older cars were done by Mehano, then in Yugoslavia, now Slovenia.

I got a bunch of the Model Power closeout cars and have gradually pulled them out, stripped them, and upgraded them following my usual technique with AHM and similar cars. Here's one I did as C&NW about eight years ago:

Here are the two I'm working on now. They'll be done as NS in current lettering with conspicuity stripes.

Walthers BNSF Gon

I recently ordered a Walthers Mainline BNSF gon:

I decided I wanted this car, because run-of-the-mill contemporary equipment isn't all that easy to find. And actually, the Walthers rib-side car itself doesn't quite have a prototype. I did some research and discovered that this is 1990s tooling, originally issued as a Walthers kit, but the rib sides were simply added to plain-panel Thrall gon tooling. You can see this in the photo below, where I juxtapose a CP Rail Thrall car with the BNSF gon:

The closest prototype to the Walthers rib side car is in fact a BNSF, ex BN class:

However, it looks like these cars never had a panel with the circle-cross logo like the Walthers car. And I've never shot one out here, but I've seen many other BNSF gons, so this one is close enough.

To do will be painting the wheels, the truck sideframes, the couplers, and the interior, adding a better COTS stencil, tags, and yellow conspicuity stripes so it comes out a little more like this:

A Look At The Updated Atlas Classic HO GP7

I've been a big fan of the Atlas HO GP7 since it came out as a Kato model in the early 1990s. This was fairly crude by current standards, but it's still a very acceptable layout-quality model, and it runs very well. It was reissued later as an Atlas Classic model made in China, with finer handrails, individual grab irons, LED lighting, and an NMRA 8-pin DCC socket -- all big improvements. A major disadvantage, however, continued to be the tab at the long hood end that attached the body to the chassis. This easily bent or broke, which created problems.

Eventually Atlas withdrew the Classic GP7 with the promise that it would be upgraded. The new releases recently came out, and I ordered an MKT green GP7:

Atlas has always been good at choosing the numbers it puts on these locos. Some MKT GP7s were chop nosed by the time they were painted green, but the ones they chose, including 107, kept their high short hoods.

The problem with the fragile tab at the end of the long hood has been fixed, and the body is now held on like many other made-in-Cina Atlas locos:

However, other than the new tabs that hold the body to the frame, there have been no changes to the body from the earlier Atlas Classic version. The chassis is another matter. The PC board above the motor now has a socket for a 21-pin connector. While there is still an 8-pin NMRA socket, you must remove the 21-pin dummy plug to install DCC. You can see a Digitrax DZ126PS installed in the 8-pin socket here, with the 21-pin dummy plug removed.

The biggest change is to the chassis. The Kato version, carried over into the Atlas Classic model, had a chassis and fuel tank cast as a single unit in metal. The problem with this was that GPs had several sizes of fuel tank, and earlier models, like the 1950s Athearn and the Kato version, reproduced only the larger version, and modifying it to a smaller version meant milling the metal. Athearn set a new standard by making different sizes of fuel tank in its Genesis units. Atlas has now followed suit:

I've heard the estimate that more GPs were built with small fuel tanks than the full-size, which opens the possibility for many more accurate models. However, the Kato cast metal chassis had the advantage of weight. The new version weighs 9 ounces. The older Atlas Classic version weighs 13.75 ounces.

Yard Job YZ222

With the rewiring project 90% complete, I'm taking up operation again. With my new phone, I also added another twist. Here's the switchlist that JMRI Operations generated for the job:

Track 1 is a mainline track that through and transfer freights use to set out and pick up blocks for Zenith Yard. Track 3 is a yard track that handles the blocks. YZ222 is a pretty simple job that mostly swaps the blocks from Track 1 to Track 3 and vice versa. I decided it would be a good way to ease back into operation.

But I also figured out how to send the JMRI switchlist to my phone:

This, at least for me, makes it a lot more convenient to refer to the switchlist. An 8-1/2 x 11 page gets in the way. (I never ever used car cards, which are even worse.)

Here are some interesting cars in the job:

I also got to test the speed-matched Bachmann and Atlas GP7s on this sort of slow-speed switching work. They worked out very well and mean I have a formula for mixing Bachmann and Atlas locos in regular operation.