Early days of ConRail

Yes, ConRail as it was back then. Many my age or younger forget the ashes in which Conrail emerged from. While many of us remember Big Blue with its SD90's and red classification lights, many forget Conrail's early days. Like AmTrak of the era, Conrail had locomotives from Erie Lackawana, Reading, the Penn Central and many more. These locomotives didn't receive a coat of Conrail blue for quite a while.

Recently, fellow TB member nscalerone requested some work of me to make some early Conrail units. In all, five locomotives are going through my shop and all will look like something one would have seen track side on the east coast around 1976.

The first two are former Reading Lines units.


Unit #3673, a GP40-2


Unit #3626, a GP35

Here is how I made them into Conrail #3278 and #3631 respectively.

 

George Lucas once said to make Star Wars look authentic even though it was a fantastic tale, he made all the equipment look used. Everything from our favorite Droids to the X-Wing Fighter featured chipped paint, exhaust stains and general wear and tear. When Conrail received these units they certainly did not look as nice as the pictures in post #1. One must make the unit look old and used before adding patches since the patches cover in some cases, years of old paint.

I started with the GP35 first. In the pictures of the time I could see the yellow had faded a lot. What was once a vibrant yellow was more of a custard yellow. To simulate this and to mute down the yellow on the Atlas shell, I sprayed Polly Scale AT&SF Cat Whisker yellow at 13 PSI, concentrating on just the sides. I did not use a mask since I had good control of the paint at 13 PSI. After a few passes, I was happy with the results.



Both the truck frames as well as the fuel tank was cleaned in alcohol and sprayed with Polly Scale Grimy Black. Next I mixed up a mixture of Polly Scale Mud and Dirt and thinner and sprayed both shells with the earth mixture at 16 PSI. I shot this at a low angle on both the shell as well as the trucks and fuel tank to represent dirt and grime being thrown up along the sides. I concentrated on the front and rear pilots as this would see the most road grime. Next, Oily Black was applied to the top of the locomotive shell as well as just the top of the trucks and the fuel tank. An oil drip from servicing was lightly applied at 13 PSI. Finally the overall shell and parts were given a coat of Polly Scale Dust. This gave a uniform real world look.

With weathering done, I now turned my efforts to patching. In the real world, patch jobs are utilitarian not a work of art. Most of the time, the former roads logo is painted out in the new roads color or black with the new roads reporting marks added. In some patches where the new roads numbering standard is different from the previous roads, a patch is painted over the road numbers and left bare. With the Reading units, Conrail simply left the diamond and painted the inside of the logo black. Here we see the GP35 all masked and ready to get a coat of black.



To simplify things, I used Tamiya Tape to outline the logo and mixed a batch of Engine Black with a few drops of Gloss Clear and some thinner. I shot this at 16 PSI and had very fine control. Here are the results with the patch job as an exact match of the prototype picture.



Here we get the results we are looking for. The used unit that has seen a hard life gets a fresh coat of black to cover the former roads name and number. This unit is ready for decals now.

 

Here we have the GP40-2.



Both the nose logo and cab logo are patched out, however the original road numbers still exist. In the next step these will be patched with Reading Green as was the prototype. While technically the same color, the patched green will stand out very boldly to the rest of the area, again, just like the prototype.



Here is a mocked up shot showing the trucks and fuel tank installed. Look carefully and you can see the fuel stain on the tank. Tomorrow I will paint the green patches as well as the original handrails for both units.

Next will be decals, number boards, dry brushing of some more weathering, a unifying dullcoat and re assembly.

I hope you enjoy this, it's fun for me to model the "gritty" side of railroading sometimes.

 

Randy, thank you. I'm glad your enjoying this. Yes sometimes we as modelers forget what is a pretty piece of equipment to us, is a tool to the company. An expensive locomotive is one that sits idle. That is why many of these did not get a coat of blue until money and shop time allowed.

3626 Had it's original road numbers patched out with Reading Green, probably because there was Reading green on hand at the time. I masked three areas, again per the prototype, the middle area of the hood, small area at the end of the hood and on top of the cab.



Now with the new green applied we see a sharp contrast of the new green and the older weathered green.



Finally, the handrails on these two units were the older one piece raw black type. I soaked them in 98% rubbing alcohol over night then shot them Polly Scale Undercoat Light Gray. Once dry, the walk ways were painted Reading Green. To continue the look of older paint, I painted the hand rails and stantions AT&SF Cat Whisker Yellow. The handrail assemblies were given a coat of mud, earth and oily black with the airbrush.



Here we have the handrails on the GP40-2. A few small items are left to finish the two former Reading units. Cab interiors will be painted, decals, flat clear coat, small amounts of dry brush weathering and final assembly.

 

Thanks guys. Progress has been slow, there is not enough hours in a day. I next painted the cab interiors light gray, applied the decals and gave everything a coat of Testors Dullcoat in a spray bomb. Not my usual method, but since The Testor Corp in their infinite wisdom discontinued Polly Scale Flat, which was a nice DEAD flat, I have had to resort to dull coat. I tried the Model Master Acryl Flat and it looks more like gloss. All that is left is the number boards, couplers and a little dry brushing. I hope to have these done tonight as I want to bring them to the Northeast Fallen Flags Prototype Meet tomorrow in Bridgwater NJ. While I did not paint the original shells, I think it is a good illustration as to what can be done with weathering.





More to come.....

 

A tease for ya'll. The GP40-2 and GP35, both former Reading units are done. You may just notice the former CNJ RS3 back there too.

Better pictures soon as soon as the sun comes up.

 

Mike, thank you and you might enjoy today's update.

The former E/L GP35 rolled out of the shops late last night.





Un like the Alco, this one was a pretty clean patch job. The employee must have liked that classy E/L scheme because as per the photo I found, the maroon was painted carefully over the logo and stripe. I did add the typical soot on top which shows up nicely with that light gray. While in relatively good shape, a few rust spots have showed up such as the one on the nose near the cab and the battery box hinges. I think this is my favorite out of all the ones I did for nscalerone.

Interesting note, the D&H received a few former E/L SD45's and actually did a nice patch job. D&H kept the gray and yellow, but patched Avalon Blue on all of the maroon and placed D&H lettering on the hood. A very attractive patch job. Hmmm, I have an undec Kato SD45.......

The Alco C420 received the last of the decals last night. With a heavy Alco weathering, and two shades of blue for patches, this Alco looks like a red headed step child of Conrail. Hopefully I can add pics of that tomorrow.

 

Thanks for all the comments guys. Well the work is done! All five locomotives are ready to start hauling for Conrail. Bringing up the rear is another Alco, C420.




All five units have left the East Deerfield Shops and are headed west bound. It was fun, I hope Jim (nscalerone) enjoys his OLD engines:tb-biggrin:.

With that, the East Deerfield shops will be quiet and shops will soon be set up in Illinois again.