Unintended Consequences Of Updating My JMRI Decoder Roster

My current project of bringing my JMRI DecoderPro roster up to date is proving larger than I expected, but there have been good side benefits. First, I'm finding locos I'd even forgotten I had, which is inevitable with a lifetime collection, I guess. Another is I'm building a to-do list of locos I haven't yet converted to DCC. A third is that I've been finding back-burner projects that are fun to finish.

One of these is a pair of Atlas Guilford high hood GP40s that must date from well before 2010, which as far as I can tell is the last time they produced the dual-mode decoders that convert the loco to DCC by moving a jumper on the PC board. It looks like I had every intention of moving the jumpers on these when I started converting to DCC in 2012, but I never got around to it. It was a trivial task, and I programmed them and added them to my JMRI roster.

But then I noted that Pan Am was still running GP40s in the Guilford scheme when CSX took over Pan Am early this month, and in fact CSX is still running those locos. So I undertook another small project I'd had in mind and added yellow conspicuity stripes to these locos. Checking photos, I found that both MEC 370 and MEC 378, the prototypes for the Atlas locos, got these stripes before they could have been painted Pan Am blue, if they ever were,so I went ahead and added Smokebox Graphics self-adhesive stripes to the sills.

And I went a step further: it turns out that CSX has added a pair of trains, M426 and M427, that run from the CSX Boston line onto former Pan Am trackage and into Maine. However, these trains must have CSX 400 series AC44s in the lead, since they're the only locos that have the MBTA CETC train control system. (My not necessarily correct impression is that Pan Am has been otherwise exempt from PTC.) As it happened, I also have a Roundouse AC44 in the CSX 400 series that I'd already installed a decoder in. So I was able to put together a more or less prototypical and up-tp-date CSX/Pan Am train.

The model CSX 424 needs a white cab roof and PTC antennas. The signal bridge in the photo is on its last legs -- it's an old NJ Internationial plastic kit that has somehow survived 25 years or so but is due for replacement.