Paint Shop

[R.K. Maroon]

Those look great, Pete. Two questions:

-- What is the full consist of your Hummingbird with the added coach?
-- I am guessing you wouldn't be lashing up three E-units at once if there wasn't a prototypical precedent. What's the story there?

Jim

[De Bruin]

Thanks guys, Rich I rebuilt my light tent with a new cold LED lamp to get rid of the warmer fluorescent unit in the interest of
getting the yellow or pink out of the image, but my camera still tries to "adjust" the results, hence not much blue in the first shot. The car body is actually a lighter blue then the L&N unit, you'd think I'd have this figured out by now, but no.

Currently the Hummingbird/Georgian is eight cars; 4 Walthers, 3 ICC's, and a Weaver or MG REA box. I've had to replace the ALW trucks with metal trucks in anticipation of running it on the club (Delrin trucks not allowed there) with a corresponding increase in rolling resistance. I don't plan on running more than a pair of the E's, so my strategy was to minimize the draw from the C&EI unit, but together they still pull too much amperage at least on trackworld, so I'm thinking about how to isolate the Minitronics power supply in the L&N units, which seem to pull the same draw lights on or off. My PC pair pulls a max 3.5 amps with a stout train, so I'd like to get closer to that with these. Right now they bounce around 4 to 4.5 and again any minor spike blows the throttle breaker.

[ScaleCraft]

I can understand Delrin wheelsets....but why ban Delrin trucks?

[De Bruin]

I suppose I could get away with putting metal wheel sets into the truck frames. I've done that with some freight car trucks, it was trickier then I expected specifically getting the axle length to easily fit in the frame pocket, never seemed to get the adjustment for an optimal fit, as in too tight or too loose. (i know excuses, excuses) I believe the club prohibited delrin trucks sometime in the early 90's after some catastrophic in service failures occurred on some that had been in service for a few years, that and the wheels are just plain dirty.

Before the E-unit I re-did another Walthers P70FAR that I scored cheap off of E-Bay, this time though I elected to finish it in the late-model simplified PRR scheme with the scotch-light sticker on the car-body ends for my NY&LB commuter train. The car was already assembled and painted, and while the roof was not particularly fitted well, the sides and ends were cleanly soldiered together and the car sides had liners installed, which are not commonly found on low cost Walthers cars off Ebay. Interestingly the car came lettered with a Champ Powhatan Arrow/N&W set, so while the decals were removed I kept the Tuscan Red finish.



Decals are a mix of Champ and Microscale, I installed seats and dividers for the WC's. This is the third P70FAR I have for this train, the next car will be a different P70 variant kit-bashed from Walthers components and I may throw in a stainless steel coach or two as well.

[E7]

Thanks guys, Rich I rebuilt my light tent with a new cold LED lamp to get rid of the warmer fluorescent unit in the interest of getting the yellow or pink out of the image, but my camera still tries to "adjust" the results, hence not much blue in the first shot. The car body is actually a lighter blue then the L&N unit, you'd think I'd have this figured out by now, but no.

Pete, No need to apologize. Great work and great pics. In my (very limited) experience you can't seem to get "too much" light on the subject in digital shots.

[R.K. Maroon]

I have also had troubles with the automatic color balance feature of digital cameras. I like to shoot against a blue backdrop sometimes. No problem with my Canon DSLR. The (otherwise fantastic) little camera in my smart phone doesn't do so well. It reacts to all that saturated blue by making the model I am photographing orange. As I am a bit color blind, I don't trust myself to fool with color settings, so my solution to the problem is to shoot against black or white when using the phone camera.

Pete's camera seems to have a color temperature issue. I would have thought going to the higher-color-temp LED bulbs would have solved it. Not sure what is going on there.

Jim

[De Bruin]

Trying to keep up with Sarge these days, adding to my older US made Weaver stable;
I got this RS-3 pretty much in pieces due to it getting mailed solely in the factory box. The motor and weights tore loose inside the carbody and pretty much blasted the u-joint clevises apart along with part of the stanchions.

#5532 was originally ex-NH #522, repainted at Collinwood shops in 1970 to this incomplete scheme.

After repairing the drive train, I removed the factory scheme and added some P&D grabs, fan kit, an Alco factory style sg stack typical of the NYNH&H and the PRR’s dual purpose RS-3’s.

The ATS box was scratched from styrene and parts off an NYC ATS set, and the “peaked” NYC style spark deflector scratched from brass sheet.

Opinion, but few external car body options change the profile look of a locomotive quite like the Alco factory styled SG stack on these early Alco’s, which look a tad clunky in the freight only config or with the separate up-right pipe exhaust as found on NYC, C&NW and D&H units.
Paint is Ace Gloss Black via rattle-can and Testor’s Daytona Yellow, decals a mixture of salvaged Champ and Walthers sets. There’s something therapeutic for me in gussying up these factory models with add-on parts and it’s rare I do any locomotive project without something from either P&D or Des Plaines or both.

[rogruth]

Very nice. I remember similar units on PRR and PC many years ago.

[De Bruin]

Thanks Roger, Pennsy did indeed have a fleet of these dual-purpose versions with this integrated SG stack, I believed they bought them to dieselize the commuter runs out of Pittsburgh. A lot of them made it to the PC era, the detail differences between them and the New Haven's include an extra battery box which extends the cab walkway out an extra four feet from the cab door on the right side of the long hood. They also had large bridge plates on the end platforms, a feature I didn't want to do either. and vertical twin sealed beam headlights, I believe they originally sported an elaborate train-phone antenna array too. Maybe next RS3

[chuck]

Really nice work on the RS-3. Always had a soft spot for them. The mushroom cloud of black smoke when they would accelerate out of the station was quite impressive as was their actual acceleration out of the station. They routinely beat out the GP-7's they were literally competing with in terms of hitting 40-45 mph from the station. The ALCO's were hitting that mark just about two-three houses bast Washington Ave crossing. The Geeps didn't hit that till they were past our house, about an additional 300 feet.

[rogruth]

The smoke is well known. I think I can also hear them, of course in my memory.
PRR had what seemed to be several commuter trains except on Snday between Steubenville, Ohio and Pittsburgh which I think used Alcos.
Before the Alcos ten wheelers and Atlantics were used. Of course I have no proof. Only my faltering memory.

[De Bruin]

They did have that distinctive sound, the 244 kind of coughed when it started to roll, and then had a distinct syncopation and bark that audibly contrasted with the throb of an EMD 567 for example.
Thanks Chuck, and agree about their acceleration too, my up close and personal memories on the RS3's are from traveling in Mexico in the seventies, specifically Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, El Paso, Monterrey and Saltillo in the seventies, NdeM apparently preferred the Alco's and Baldwins then as yard switchers in major terminals, I would assume because they loaded up so much faster than the EMD's, and they would get-up-an-go pronto drilling cars and yeah, the Alco's in particular having that massive blast of black smoke starting. Awesome stuff and good memories.
NdeM had a contract with a skilled Swiss engineering group, Taller Diesel, at the time to run their maintenance shops, and I'll be damned if that roster then wasn't a virtual A to Z "Diesel Spotter's Guide," they still even had FA's in road service. Amazing, very grateful now to have seen it.

[Chris Webster]

TI got this RS-3 pretty much in pieces due to it getting mailed solely in the factory box.

I'm surprised that the frame didn't break. That's usually what happens to poorly packaged Weaver RS3s -- the plastic frame can't withstand the bending moment when something impacts the pilot and steps

You did a very nice job -- maybe you need a Dewitt Geep to go with it?

[De Bruin]

Thanks Chris, I noticed you leaned on Brian about doing one of those too, do you recall seeing them back in the day in Utica or is that based on your just "liking their looks?"
Such as they had, also which version? More then one as I recall.

[R.K. Maroon]

...maybe you need a Dewitt Geep to go with it?

I had to look it up:

Penn Central started rebuilding RS-3s in 1972, using parts from retired EMD passenger engines. The RS3m rebuild program started in 1972 and continued until 1978 under Conrail. The bankrupt Penn Central needed more reliable local and secondary service locomotives and had a surplus of passenger locomotives. The result is a locomotive that has the frame, body and trucks from an ALCO RS3, but using fan assemblies and EMD 567 prime movers from retired passenger engines, such as the EMD E8, in place of the original ALCO 244 prime movers.

The principal visible difference on the Penn Central/Conrail rebuilds is the addition of two conical-shaped EMD switcher style exhaust stacks in place of the one rectangular-shaped ALCO stack and a raised hood. Later rebuilds would just have a raised feature on the long hood to accommodate the larger prime mover. The shape would vary from a rectangular shape with fillets on the long sides to a simple box on top of the long hood. These locomotives are often called DeWitt Geeps, so named because Penn Central started rebuilding them in their DeWitt, shops in Syracuse, New York.