1980s Brass N Scale Diesels

Forty years ago, I was concentrating on N scale. I had a small N layout in an apartment walk-in closet. Eventually I wound up getting a number of painted brass N scale models from Hallmark, W&R and Sunset, and a number of others that I painted myself. Here's a Hallmark (I think) U36C that I painted myself:

As for looks, these locos have aged quite well. One thing I liked about them was that Hallmark in particular was bringing them out in up-to-the-minute paint and detail versions, so that these locos are now something of a memento of what I was railfanning in the mid-1980s. But the photo below shows their current Achilles heel for 21st century modeling:

These locos had open-frame motors, electrical pickup from only one side of each truck, neither incandescent light bulbs nor LEDs, and DCC wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye, much less sound.

Here's a factory-painted Hallmark SD45u. The "shouldn't have painted so fast" paint scheme dates it perfectly:

Another SD45u, factory painted in the traditional yellow bonnet:

A UP "fast forty" that I painted myself:

An SP SD45E, factory paint:

A check of Chrome AI mode tells me that these locos are selling for about half of their mid-1980s retail price, and that would be 2026 retail. I'd be lucky to get $100 for any of them if I were selling to a dealer. They'd be too much trouble to try to convert to DCC, although one possibility might be simply to swap out the chassis for a Kato -- but even rhen, the brass body might cause shorts against the Kato split frames.

But they do look great in their display case.