Back Again To The Purgatory Box

Here are some more items I found in the box, and some other comments. First, a PRR N8 kitbashed from two Mantua-Tyco cabooses following articles in MR and RMC from the 1970s and 80s (one was in the April 1982 MR, but I think the RMC one gave a more accurate version);

I must have done this at least 25 years ago, certainly before the Bowser cars came out. I cleaned it up and gave it a coat of flat finish. It has Champ decals. I'll need to scrounge some ladder stock to finish it.

Below is what I think must be one of the oldest cars I still have. This is an Ambroid wood and metal car from the 1960s. It was one of a dual kit that I built in my dorm room in college. At the time, I brush painted it and used some really thick varnish called Walthers DDV to flatten and blend the decals.

Over the years, the varnish and decals yellowed, so I gave it a dust coat of thinned light gray. I replaced the stirrups and the trucks and wheels. It actually looks good for a 50 year old car.

Here's a more conventional purgatory box item, a Bev Bel-Life Like covered hopper. The prototype Napierville Junction had PS-2s, but the paint job is really nice.

This spent 20 years in purgatory after I got it at a swap meet in Sacramento when I had a work assignment there. I finally pulled it out and started work making it layout-friendly, with scrap sprues in the truck mounting holes and styrene for the coupler boxes:

Switching gears, I'm getting more and more respect for the Bachmann GP9 as a layout quality loco. With the factory decoder replaced, they're easy to speed match and run in consist with Atlas Classic locos. The Bangor and Aroostook leased locos to the PRR and LIRR in their off season.

The hood louvers aren't correct in their location, and they lack other fine details like grab irons. On the other hand, at the range this photo was taken -- maybe 2 feet -- it's just not noticeable. But the good paint stands out.

I notice that Bachmann has come out with a second road number for the PRR simple keystone scheme GP9. It'll be on my next web order!

Back To My Purgatory Box

Here are some more old, and very old, projects I've pulled out. I mentioned not long ago that I had some Athearn wide body units in the box (actually various drawers and piles of stuff). I ran into one when I was looking for something else, an Athearn bluebox SD45 from the late 1970s:

Guys had to put quite a bit of work into these to make them acceptable. This one has had work done on the cab, the roof top, the radiator intakes, hand brake, and the lights. I pulled it out and cleaned it up, but a big obstacle remains, the chassis:

This is pure 1970s Athearn, although they added the sintered metal flywheels late in the decade. Think disco. A big problem is the plastic motor mounts, which do little more than put a loose hold on things, so the motor rocks back and forth. This, I discovered long ago, leads to trouble. I think I still have a spare A-Line repower kit, but I'm on the fence as to whether it's worth the effort. Stay tuned.

I started serious rebiulding on the prewar work car I got at a swap meet and talked about here. This is how it looked when I got it last April:

As the mood strikes me, I've started serious teardown. Tender bodies on flats like these mostly just carried water for the work outfit, so I needed to get rid of the coal load. I also needed to sand the hand-painted lettering off.

I got the tender deck cleaned off and put on sanding sealer to get rid of any wood grain:

I cut openings in the end sills and added coupler pockets. The original never had couplers, so the guy never ran it.

The car is older than I am, so I'm not going to try to make it more than it is, but I think I can turn it into something that's fun to have on the layout and even operate.

Near the SP SD45 in the purgatory box was this Athearn carbody, something I started work on in the late 1970s but lost interest in. I cleaned it up, finished the decal work, and gave it a coat of flat finish:

Back then, I had a project of removing the roof walks and upper ladders from a number of bluebox and IHC cars. Be nice to finally finish some!

Good Train Videos, Good Music

Taking A Close Look At A Bachmann CP SD40-2

Many modelers have improved opinions of Bachmann products over the past 15 or 20 years, certainly since their Spectrum range, and more so in the past 10 years or so with improved paint work and mechanical and electrical upgrades to their standard line. I've been a fan of their RS-3, S-2/4, and GP7/9 for quite a while. Recently I got a CN SD40-2 and was impressed with its potential. Just the other week, I went ahead and ordered a CP version.

The first two photos are straight out of the box, with just a quick test run to be sure it works:

The paint is smoothly applied and opaque. The lettering is very clear and opaque.

The paint scheme on this loco, according to this site, is Action Red, 5" nose/cab front stripes, small multimark. However, the site isn't clear on exactly which units got this scheme. After 5718 in 1975, 8-inch nose stripes were used, with a small multimark. 5937 would have been delivered in a later scheme, with 8-inch nose stripes and a large multimark. Based on the info I see, I can't rule out some units being repainted in the 5-inch nose and cab stripe scheme.

I popped the body off and hit the chassis and air intakes on the body with grimy black. Looking at the chassis, I saw that the DCC version for this model is the full factory PC board. This does not support most NMRA speed control CVs and comes with a factory-default compulsory speed curve and momentum setting. This makes it impossible to match speed curves and consist the loco with other units. The best bet is to replace it with an NCE BACH-DSL decoder, which is designed to be a drop-in replacement for Bachmann DCC on board decoders.

Here's the loco put back together temporarily with the air intakes now painted black.

Another thing you can see here is that, although the site I linked above says the units with the small multimark had a red area above the height of the multimark on the rear of the long hood, the long hood end here is black and white all the way to the top. Again, I can't rule out that some units may have been painted this way.

Here's the Bachmann unit set next to an Athearn bluebox CP snoot behind it. The snoot has had some roof weathering done. The overall level of detail and proportions look very close.

Here's the bluebox snoot by itself, currently on a dummy chassis. Both the Athearn and Bachmann models are generic in their detail, and the actual CP units have many variations from these models. I'm using them as layout quality models. Bowser now offers models much closer to Canadian prototypes, and they're an option for people who want more accuracy, though of course at a higher price.

On my two bluebox units, I added Detail Associates Chessie-style pilots, which are close to the CP prototype.

The bluebox unit also has the black and white area extending to the top of the hood with the small multimark. Apparently the reflective dots seen on this unit weren't consistently applied to all units.

It slowly began to dawn on me in recent years that, although CP power was common on lines like Guilford's freight main, the former D&H, and the Conrail/NS Southern Tier, the SD40-2s ranged all over former Soo and Milwaukee territory, as well as on NS and Conrail trackage rights in many areas. Good units to have for my general interests.

This multimark CP scheme is out of production at Bachmann, but if you look, you can find them. They still offer later CP schemes. It's worth doing a thorough search for the best price on Bachmann locos, but I get the impression that Bachmann has increased its prices recently and is imposing greater price discipline on retailers. The SD40-2, if you can find it at prices between $50 and $75, is a very good value, especially with a good decoder.

Looking At My "Purgatory Box"

Fellow blogger and modeler John R has what he calls a "purgatory box", which is a place he puts older models that he obtained in his younger days in the hobby, but for various reasons has taken off the layout, maybe because the trucks and couplers are no longer up to standard, or the paint job is too toylike.

I realized I have something similar, but I never gave it a name. "Purgatory box" is a really good one! In my case, nearly everything in the box is an Athearn bluebox loco. Some of them are from the old wide body days of the 1970s. I spent a lot of time with those, but I haven't run them for a long time. I may well never bring them back.

More recent ones in my "purgatory box" are the newer, narrow-hood GP38-2s and SD40-2s. These were an advance, but I often gave up on them before I could put them into service on a real layout like the one I began in the late 1980s. Pickup was poor due to the old sintered metal wheels and metal strips that carried power to the motor. The coupler mounts needed a lot of rework before you could mount Kadees properly. The metal handrails were a bear to assemble. The huge HO diesel detail aftermarket grew up almost entirely because the Athearn bluebox locos needed so much work.

However, there are some candidates that can be put into service without too much effort. I seem to have gotten pretty far with them, but once better models from Atlas, Kato, and so forth turned up, I took the path of least resistance and put those into service first, just deferring work on the blueboxes. For 20 or more years.

The new Walthers Mainline Soo SD60 changed my priorities. I got more interested in the Soo in the 1990s, when MR ran a number of articles on the railroad, especially the Red Wing project layout in the December 1994 MR. Inspired by the article, which included early instructions on how to convert an Athearn loco to DCC, I got a bluebox Soo GP38-2. I finished detailing it back then, but set it aside. Nearly 25 years later, it's going into service.

It needs some paint touchup. I converted it to DCC:

One thing that confirmed my interest in the Soo Line was that, after CP became the designated operator of the D&H, Soo-CP power would run through onto Guilford, one of my favorite prototypes. The runthrough power was frequently Soo SD60s, as well as Soo and CP SD40-2s. But in the 1990s, there was no easy way to get to a SOO SD60, just the Rail Power Products body and Proto Power West chassis, and a lot of work. The new Walthers model has changed that!

Speaking of Proto Power West, they made "tweaked" Athearn chassis, with extra lead weight, can motors, wire pickup, and tuned mechanics. I have a lot of those in reserve.

The good thing about these was that in the days before DCC and speed matching, you could get an Athearn loco with a PPW chassis to run with an Atlas or Kato loco. The can motors also drew less current.

I have two CP "snoot" bluebox locos that won't be too hard to put into operation. This one, a dummy, will probably get the PPW chassis above, with a DCC decoder:

Here's a Soo SD40-2:

This one already has a bluebox chassis that's had new wheels and a PPW upgrade kit installed. Like a number of these, it was very close to being finished, but it was just a lot easier to get a new Atlas loco or whatever!

A lot of guys who did a lot of work with bluebox locos in the 1970s and 80s built up a surplus of aftermarket parts, expecting things never to change. But the locos that have been available since the 1990s are so much more detailed that a lot of the aftermarket parts will never be used. At least these projects are letting me work my way through my own surplus!

Operating A "Facade Industry"

Fellow blogger and modeler Ralph V recently put up a post on some of the "facade industries" he uses with his layout. In his case, these are separate dioramas that aren't connected to his layout's baseboard or trackwork that he uses to create a photographic extension of his model railroad. It occurred to me that some modelers have explored this idea in the past, and some have even gone a little farther to add them to operations.

In Ralph's case, he manually carries some cars that he wants to photograph as virtually interchanging with his or other layouts, puts them in the diorama, and photographs them to publish on his blog. Other modelers have taken this a little farther and had a mini or micro layout that, while not connected to the main layout, operates as a "branch". Cars are manually carried as needed between the main layout and the subsidiary micro.

About 10 years ago I was inspired by a micro layout plan at the late Carl Arendt's site, Box Street, designed by the prolific Jack Trollope:

I realized I had enough scrap items laying around from my main layout construction that I could build exactly that plan. The was the preliminary result:

At first I had fun taking it outside and photographing it in natural light, but it was still a hassle to carry it in and out with rolling stock, set it up. plug it in with an extension cord, run it, take it down, etc.

But after a while, I decided to mount it on shelf brackets in a storage room next to my layout room:

Eventually I set it up as a two-station "branch" of my main layoyut on JMRI. The interchange from my main layout is at West Egg. A "route" in JMRI called Hand Carry hosts a "train" called Manual Carry that instructs the 0-5-0 transfer run which cars to move from the Box Street layout to West Egg and vice versa:

A separate JMRI job creates a switchlist for the industries on the Box Street layout (called Paper Box on the LF&NW -- the main industry is a paper mill). One advantage is that it gives me extra spots for car types like wood chip and pulpwood cars that I don't have enough spots for on the main layout.

This is still on DC, not DCC, so I can use locos that I haven't yet converted. However, I've made enough progress on conversions that I'm now thinking about running the DCC bus through the wall to this layout and making it convertible from DC to DCC via a DPDT switch. You can see the Bachmann train-set DC controller that it now uses. A DCC controller will be better for regular operation, but I can still switch to DC for testing new locos or occasionally running unconverted ones.

Then, maybe extending it along the wall. . . I need more spots!

Speed Matching

One of the good reasons for any modeler to go into DCC, even if they don't run with multiple operators, is the ability to speed match locomotives. In the old DC days, it really wasn't a good idea to run Athearn and Atlas locos together in MU. More recent higher-quality Bachmann and Walthers locos provide the same sort of problems. However, speed matching with DCC is fairly easy.

A lot of guys on YouTube, and MRVP as well, tend to make things harder than they need to be. Some say you need a scale speedometer to match speeds, and others say you need to fiddle with BEMF CVs. This may be necessary in some cases, but I've found that 90% of diesels can be speed matched simply with 3-point speed curves and adjustment of CV2, the starting voltage. The rules of thumb I've found:

• Use CV2 to be sure both locos start at the same speed step. You set up a DCC consist with your control station and put both locos on the track, but don't couple them. Start the consist and see if both locos start running at the same time. If one doesn't and the other does, increase CV2 by small increments in the one that doesn't until it starts at the same time as the other loco.
• Using the same technique of putting both locos in a consist but not coupling them, try running the consist at a faster speed and see if the locos match speeds. You don't need to be exact, just be sure one doesn't catch up to the other right away. If one is faster, adjust CV6, the mid-range voltage, down by increments of 10 or so until the two locos run at visually a close speed.
• Then try running them coupled, maybe doing some switching work or running a freight with them around the layout. Check especially to see if one isn't pushing the other hard or holding the other back. If this happens, keep adjusting CV6 on either loco until the problem is fixed.
• Listen for scraping or groaning sounds that might indicate a loco is being dragged or pushed. Adjust CV6 on the faster loco (generally) until this goes away.
• If one loco has a lot more flywheel dwell time than the other, you can adjust acceleration and deceleration momentum with CV3 and CV4. This keeps one loco from shoving the other just because its flywheel runs longer. Very small changes in the value will work wonders.
• No two locos are exactly alike. Two locos can run at the same speed at a mid-range speed step, but their acceleration and deceleration can vary from 0 to the middle speed step. If you have the big issues solved, this won't be a big problem.
• Make notes of what values you put in the CVs!

Here are some examples of multiple-maker locos that I've speed matched.

The first, below, is a new Walthers SD70ACe that I speed matched with a Bachmann SD40-2. The Bachmann SD40-2 is a special case, because it doesn't have flywheels. But when I set CV3 and CV4 to 1 on any non-flywheel Bachmann loco (like older GP40s), it runs just like a flywheel loco. These two locos match speeds very well.

A Bachmann GP40, an Atlas Classic silver GP7, and an Atlas U23B:

A yellowbox Atlas C425 and a Walthers Proto GP30:

A Bachmann GP7 with an Atlas Classic silver GP7. Note that Bachmann DCC on board locos with factory decoders must have their factory decoders replaced (NCE BACH-DSL decoders are specifically meant to do this on many types) to enable speed matching, but when this is done, these locos operate and speed match very well.

An Atlas U23B and an Athearn GP38-2: