A&C Alco Units

I finished up this pair of HO scale Alco units for a good friend that used to work for the railroad.  The A&C never had Alco's on the roster, but his favorite locomotive is the FA and I thought the paint scheme would look great on the body.

The models are Life-Like Proto 2000 units that came decorated for the Missouri Pacific.  After disassembly, they took an overnight bath in 91% alcohol to strip the paint.  I sprayed a base coat of Tru Color white and then it was off to masking.  The most difficult mask was across the cab doors and the curves on the nose.  I found inspiration for the nose curves from MKT Alco PA's. I shot the green next, Tru Color Reading Green, then unmasked and gave them a Future gloss clearcoat.  Decals came next, MicroScale produces a set for A&C units and I used the lettering, numbers and striping. I had to scrounge my decal box for the curved stripes on the nose as it's impossible to get a straight decal to curve more than a little.  Luckily I came across an N scale set for Lehigh Valley F units that had the same color and width of the A&C stripes and the curves were a fairly close match.  Lot's of MicroSol got the curves to massage into the perfect shape.  Another coat of clear came next to protect the decals and then it was time to reassemble. The last thing to do was detail paint for all the grab irons.  I also painted the cab interior that comes with the locomotives.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. These were fun locomotives to do and I think the scheme looks really sharp on the Alco bodies.

Thanks for looking!
Doug

GP7 ATSF 2650

This HO scale locomotive started as an undecorated LifeLike Proto 2000 unit.  These models basically come as a kit with all of the detail parts needing assembly on the shell before paint.  It was nice to have molded plastic parts that were designed with the shell, a departure from the usual sanding and drilling of N scale locomotives to attach detail parts.  The shell came covered in an oily residue that I believe was from the drivetrain lubrication.  An overnight bath in 90% alcohol cleaned the plastic and it was ready for assembly and painting.  Paint work started with the yellow on the handrails, nose, cab and a portion of the long hood.  I taped over the Microscale curve templates to cut a mask for the blue, which was painted next.  After the color was done, I sprayed Future for my clearcoat for decals.  Decals came next, which was a chore working with the large Santa Fe billboard logo.  Unfortunately, you can see the difference in color between the decal and the yellow we chose for the paint, it is difficult to determine how the decals will change with the paint underneath.  After decals and a final coat of clear, it was on to applying the grab irons.  I glued them in the shell and painted each by had with blue to get the contrast.  All in all this was a fun project that was not my normal N scale work.  It's always fun to see these next to an N scale model and see the difference in size and feel the difference in weight.  My O scale work makes the size difference an even bigger impact.









Thanks for looking!
Doug