Back in March I got a few shells back from a painter who never got to them before he passed away.
http://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2016/03/more-e-s-and-f-s-will-join-fleet.html
After a little snooping I ran across another painter, who turns out, is following my blog. I contacted him and asked about doing up my shells and he replied he would be glad to help me out. So I decided to do a little bit work to the shells before shipping them off to him.
Here is his info in case anyone is looking for a painter.
Parker Locomotive Works
Doug Midkiff
Custom Model Railroad Painting and Detailing
Doug was very professional and did a great job with my shells. He kept in touch with me throughout the process with emails and pictures. I am very happy with the overall process and job he did for me.
Thanks Doug!
To me, there is nothing that screams "Underdog" more than seeing a train roll past with a batch of Hood Units and having a at least one F or E units tucked into the consist or even on the point, which Rock Island did quite a lot. So I decided to fill in the gaps of my roster. Another reason for adding a few was Rock used a lot of them on the fast mail trains once passenger service was dissolved.
This first unit was nothing special other than I finally scored the third number of the three FP7's that Intermountain ran several years ago. The first two came from Steven Johnson's Rock Island Ottawa Sands layout.
The next one, and F7a came from Brian K. He did this one for a customer awhile back. It was listed on eBay a few months ago and I was lucky enough to score it. It came all the way from Germany. I had asked Brian to paint my four units before I ran across Doug, but he said he had too much going and didn't have the time to tackle them at that time. At least I got this one!
Here are the four that I had Doug work on for me. The first one is an E8a #658 in the Red and Yellow dress. I didn't have a good idea of how to add the proper raised number boards that the prototype had, but Doug was able to transplant some from an F7 shell he had on hand. They turned out very nice, Thanks Doug!
A second E8a, this time in the maroon with yellow wing scheme.
The third unit is another F7a #122.
The fourth unit I just had Doug squirt some paint on for me and I did the decals. This an F9b that was acquired from the UP. It started out life as an F3b but by the time UP retired it, it was classified as an F9b. It's not true to prototype but its close enough for me. All the shots of this unit that I could find on-line showed it in service without having received the yellow stripe. It also got received the smaller lettering.
After getting them all back together, chipped and speed matched, I took them for a spin!
