Union Pacific fleet upgrade

Recently I have been on a bit of a buying spree.  A friend who was thinning his collection had a large number of Kato locomotives for sale.  These will replace a number of Atlas SD50 and SD60 models that have not run well for me on this layout.

These SD40-2's and the SD40 will fit in on both my 83-88 and 89-96 eras.  These are all decoder ready models, and I already had the decoders for them.  The handrails will get painted on those that are not already painted.

These Kato C30-7's will also work with both my 83-88 and 89-96 eras.  They are the older models that are not decoder ready but I swapped the mechanisms with a pair of Santa Fe models that already had decoders.  These will also get the handrails painted and I may do the number boards on them as well.

And last I aquired these Kato C44-9W's that will work in my 89-96 era as they entered service on the UP in 1994.  I already had the decoders for these as well.

Techinque for painting lococomotive handrails.

Most railroad have had a practice of painting the handrails of their locomotives and cabooses in a contrasting color as a safety measure.   Sometimes this practice is extended to the edges of the steps.  SP and UP used white Many of the older Kato and Kato made Atlas locomotives I have on the layout did not come with painted handrails. 

On these models the handrails and walkways are a separate assembly that is made of a durable and smooth plastic a little different than the other components.  It is easier to paint the handrails with this assembly removed.

On some of these models it is not uncommon to find a bit of flash on the handrails.  Referring to the photo below, it is not very noticeable in the basic gray color so I placed a bit of white paper behind it.   Once the handrails are painted, the flash is more noticeable so it's best to remove it before painting.  These small flashes can be removed with a sharp Exacto blade.  After this I give the assembly a good washing with warm water and dish soap using an old toothbrush and then letting it dry before painting.   

That durable and smooth plastic of the handrails does not stick to paint very well.  Over the years I have tried several brands and types of paint and ended up having the best results from Testors Practa Racing Finish Enamel.  This is made for R/C car bodies which are made of a flexible plastic.   Even using this paint some of the paint would flake off the handrails over time with handling the models.

 

Recently I had read about some modelers using spray adhesion promoters to get better results when painting such plastics.  Not finding any product like this at my local hardware store, I ordered the product shown below from Amazon.  It is clear so masking of the handrail assembly was not necessary. 

After some practice I learned the trick to using this product is to spray the hand rails at one end then let it dry to the touch, about 3-4 minutes.  Then paint the hand rails with the top coat within 10 minutes.

I have now done 5 locomotives this way with some of those shown in the photo below.  This technique is getting me the best results yet.  Over time I may go back and redo some of the others with this new technique.

Upgrading wheels on old Kato locomotives

I have quite a few of the older Kato SD40, SD45, U30C, and C30-7's and I really like them for their reliability and durability.  One thing that has bothered me is the way they would rumble through any of the code 55 turnouts that I have had on my last two layouts.   No such problems with code 80 like on the Ntrak layout or the staging yards of my current home layout.   Apparently the older releases of these models have what in the hobby are called "pizza cutter" wheels as they have a flange that is almost as deep as the rail code 55 rail is tall. 

So I decided to see if I could do something about this and found that Kato USA sells packages of 6 locomotive axles with low profile wheels so I order several sets of these.

Once I got the new wheel / axle sets I wanted to make a side by side measurements of all the dimensions of both new and stock.   My first impression of the new wheels is that they look more like railroad wheels.  I also noticed that they also appear to be the same or similar as what are on some of my newer Kato releases.   Below are two photos with the dimensions I measured on each type of wheel set.

 

The main difference between the two is that there is a .013 difference between the flange depth.  The old wheel flanges are actually slightly larger that the height of the code 55 rail which is .055 so no wonder the wheels bumped.  The wheel itself is .015 narrower than the stock wheels but since flanges on both are right on gauge I don't believe that would make any difference but it does look better.

To change the wheels the trucks needed to be removed and then opened up to expose the axles and gears.  Then those are popped out and the new ones popped in, they are a perfect fit.  It's a good idea to clean out the cups in the brass contact frames that the axle points go in before re-assembling the trucks.

It is an $8.00 investment in each locomotive but I feel it's worth it as they are otherwise such great runners and already have DCC decoders in them.  Little by little I plan to got through the fleet with this improvement.

New additions to the locomotive roster

Lately I have been adding some additional motive power to the layout, filling in some gaps in the 3 different layout eras that I use.  In most cases I already had the locomotives but as this layout is DCC only I don't consider them on the active roster until they get a DCC decoder installed.

It all started when I found SP MP15DC 2696 on a sale table at a club open house for $40.00.  I already had the correct decoder for it so installed it right away.  It will join 2690 and will work in any of the 3 layout eras.

UP 910 and 912 are GP40-2's that came from WP in 1983 and were overhauled and repainted in UP colors.  They got TCS Z2 decoders installed in them and will work in the 83-88 and 89-96 eras.  910 still needs it's hand rails painted.

SP 7514 is an SD45 that came out of SP's GRIP program in 1984 as a SD45-2.  It got a TCS M4 decoder and will work in the 83-88 and 89-96 eras.

U30C SP 7912 got a Zimo decoder and will work in the 75-82 era.


GRIP (General Rehabilitation and Improvement Program) was a major locomotive rebuilding program undertaken by Southern Pacific at their Sacramento Shops during the late 1970's and through the 1980's.

2009 to present - Building a WP locomotive roster

In the summer of 1970 I was lucky enough to visit the Feather River Canyon for the first time and see some silver and orange GE diesels of the Western Pacific Railroad. Because of that memory I have always liked the WP but had not really collected any WP engines except for a pair of Atlas GP7's.  Building this new layout of the paired WP / SP line in Nevada gives me the the opportunity to model another railroad that I liked.

So starting in about 2009 I began to find the occasional deal on WP engines on ebay.  All of these were Atlas models as WP had only 4 axle road diesels and all of Atlas's offerings are 4 axle while Kato's are mostly 6 axle, wonder why that is ?

So here's what I have so far:

I'm really proud of the fact that I've got decoders in all of my WP locomotives.  The ones with Lenz decoders came with those but all the others I installed.  While it's always tempting to buy more locomotives, this should be a good fleet for this layout and I believe is a good representation of what they had running by the time of the merger with Union Pacific.  One locomotive model I would like to add is the U30B as WP had 19 of these.

2009 to present - Expanding my SP locomotive roster

When I re-entered active N scale modeling in about 1990 I had decided to keep as narrow a focus as possible in terms of era and railroad.  My initial interest was on the Southern Pacific between 1958 and 1965.  This era fit the theme of my Ntrak modules and first two layouts and I was able to build a good representative fleet of locomotives for that era.

After I got interested in modeling the Palisade Canyon, it opened up the possibility of acquiring many more locomotive models which has been a lot of fun.  Initially I started with expanding my SP roster to the years beyond 1965.

From various sources I compiled a list on an Excel spreadsheet of locomotives sorted by year between 1977 and 1996 and used this as a guide.  This spreadsheet is shown here.

Some of these are not available in N scale but most are.  So I began to purchase locomotives and assign them to one of the three eras that will be represented on this layout. Most of these were found at train shows and on ebay.





So I got a start on expanding my SP roster but also needed to build up a Western Pacific roster of locomotives for my 1976 to 1982 era and I'll talk about that in a future post.