Atlas Long Island C420

I picked up one of the most recent run of Atlas Long Island C420s to go with the older-run example I have in the bicentennial "wave" scheme:

The whole story of the Long Island C420s is pretty complex. A first class of C420s, eventually called L-1s, was delivered in small batches between 1963 and 1964. These had individual detail differences, rode on AAR standard trucks, and carried the gray and orange World's Fair paint scheme. They were leased from Alco.

A second class of C420s was ordered by the MTA, which had taken over the Long Island, in 1968. These were purchased from Alco and had hi-ad trucks and other detail differences and were classed L-2. The recent Atlas runs are of L-2 locos. The L-2s were delivered in light blue with yellow cabs, but by the mid 1970s were repainted in the "wave" scheme. A later repaint in blue and yellow used a darker blue. The L-2s had a higher gear ratio than the L-1s, because the MTA intended to get out of the freight business and use the L-2s for passenger service, which never completely happened.

The L-1s came off lease about 1976 and left the railroad, replaced with GP38-2s, MP15ACs, and SW1001s. The L-2s, which were owned, lasted much longer until about 1989. Both the L-1s and L-2s operated in all types of service on the Long Island.

The Atlas model of the Long Island units carries out the smoke deflectors, hi-ad trucks, and plows that made the L-2s distinctive. However, the rebates in the fuel tanks on the Long Island L-2s aren't reproduced. For moderately priced, moderately detailed locos, this is acceptable.

The bodies are fiendishly hard to remove from the chassis for decoder installation. Although online instructions for shell removal say to rock the shell back and forth to get it off the body (first removing the couplers), this didn't work for me. I was able to pry the body from the chassis by gradually inserting small screwdrivers and leveraging the body upward against the chassis, starting around the long-hood steps and gradually moving toward the cab.