I found out the cigar band from the Microscale F and E decal sheet is too small. Also the black/yellow stripe for the warbonnet is not the correct shape for the U30CG. Well, I kind of bent and stretched things in places, located some yellow numerals and found some larger black lettering for the side. I made lenses for the head lights out of fiber optic stock and colored one red for above the windshield. It will not be lighted. It ain't perfect but this is what I have so far.
What really blows me away is how well the old mechanism runs. It has a three pole, non-skewed armature motor, no flywheels, picks up power from only four of its six axles and it still runs very smooth and slow. It could almost pull the tracks up behind it.
Russell, if you want, I will send you a spare Santa Fe Cigar Band herald off my decal sheets at no charge, these are the Micro-Scale 60-188 decals that are correct for the U30CG. Otherwise I think what you have there is pretty good, the Warbonnet is pretty close. Certainly, you've done better in 2 days than I have in 2 months, so if you want to re-do the nose herald, send me an private message with your address and I'll post the decal for the nose herald to you.
Back 'in the day' I ran this same layout (minus scenery) with the same 25-car trains behind 2 Trix U-boat mechanisms. Had had the pair of them since about 1975, and 'well wore in' hardly describes it. No plating left on the wheels, down to brass. I was so surprised when I got Kato SD45's that while they were good, they Trix U's still outpulled them. And the OLD Trix, when the tooling was newer, was much quieter all around, very little mechanism noise, and the 3-pole motors settled into a quiet routine. Newer ones, and particuarly the Con-Cor import years later, were much noisier, and you could find burrs and tooling wear everywhere. But the old ones, like fine wine, ah, those were just the best. I had one particular mechanism that was just outstanding, put it under an F-45. Entered it in an NMRA regional contest for slow speed. It killed it, taking something like a minute and 45 seconds to move 12", pure DC, no additions. Now mind you, it was tuned, and cleaned, and lubed, and the track was freshly polished, but it won against all comers. The 'average' Kato mech was still much better than the 'average' Trix mech, but a really good one could match it step for step. The final frontier - and nobody has done it on this project, is that there still is more room in that shell to add more weight. Other that Jim Fitzgerald with the infamous double U30CG "Cotton Brute" (with the depleted uranium frame) has anybody piled more weight in the body yet to see what it will do?
Depleted uranium is hard to obtain and nasty to work with. Tungsten is just as dense and can be found in all sorts of shapes and sizes at some of the pine wood derby sites. However it is hard stuff and hard to cut or grind. I was looking at my collection of tungsten pieces last night. None of the shapes I have would fit anywhere without some grinding. Too much work for this project. I have a large sheet of 1/16" lead that I may cut into strips and lay a few on each side of the chassis between the shell standoff ribs.
Thanks for the offer. I think at this point I will just wrap this one up and live with it as is. If I set this aside to wait a few days, I may not finish it for a while.
I imagine that the "Cotton Brute" would now be confined to home-road or highway travel. Can you imagine the uproar you might set off in an airport with that stuffed in your suitcase with even the slightest blip of radiation still coming off of it? I think I remember hearing about it in the NMRA Bulletin probably about 1975-1977. I just remembered that double U30CG as the all-time recordholder for single-locomotive Ntrak tractive effort, I think it still stands unchallenged. I'll probably stuff some more weight in mine, no sense having a reputation if you don't try to lve up to it.
Trix kept me in N scale way back in the day after some of the POS that Atlas was selling. I still have several original U28Cs. Thanks Trix...
OK, finished for now. I may revisit the fuel tank some other time. This shows the modifications I made to the chassis to add the LED and open up the cab to be able to put clear windows in. Here it is with the head lights iluminated and showing off the new handrails.
Looks good! Nice job on the handrails, too. If therey's one thing that's an instant fix on the Trix units its take out the milk-glass windows and redo the handrails, everything else is gravy.
Thanks guys. I remember the first time I saw these beasts. I thought they were an abomination impersonating my beloved F units. One morning, my dad and I had taken my brother up to Union Station in Houston to catch the #16, Texas Chief to Chicago. When he got to Chicago he would change trains for Madison, Wisconsin where he was going to school at the time. As we drove up Capital Street looking for a parking space I was looking through the gaps in the buildings and could see the train sheds paralleling us over one block. I noticed that something was not right sticking out on the head end of the Santa Fe train backed into the depot. After we got my brother checked in and took care of his bags we hiked down the platform to see what they were. Ugly, I thought. Oh well, all these years later they have kind of grown on me.
Russell, great, looks so much better. And you're so much faster than me, I'm happily jealous . How did you do the handrails? Wire handrails a la Randgust? Or did you find another way to do them easier (like got them off some Atlas spare loco parts?) Thx.
I used Randy's technique. Was really quite easy for me. I bent up the main loop first then plugged a little "L" shaped wire in and laid the end over the main railing. I could slide it back and forth with my finger till it was where I wanted. A little solder flux, a quick touch of the soldering iron and clip the extra end off. I then dipped the finished part into blackening solution to give the paint a little tooth to grab on to. The hardest part was to find them on the floor each time I dropped them. I spend a good portion of my modeling time on hands and knees looking for small parts on the floor. I have quite a system. The floor is light gray vinyl tile. I keep it very clean and have a flash light, large paint brush and a dust pan. I just sweep the entire area into the dust pan with the paint brush and then look in there. I usually find whatever I am looking for.
Jim did a U30CG that he loaded with lead, diamond dust embedded in the wheels, etc. It was lettered Cotton Boss. He used it as helper service when he was doing the long train record. He said he had another name picked out if he did another one. Name was to commemorate a female N scaler of the time with whom there was no love lost. Rather surprising, knowing Jim, but funny none the less.
Man, it's all just technique and brass wire. And I didn't even originate it. Tom Hoover taught a couple of us way back in the late 70's. I doubt any of you would believe it to see just how sloppy my soldering is. I focus on getting everything straight, cutting it back to length. The skill, if there is any, is on learning how to touch up the joints with a dremel abrasive disk. That forgives all sins. You can't 'make' parts because the only way to get it straight is to build it on the shell.
