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| Rock Island #4424 and #1351 are in charge of the NB local as they throttle up through Haskell, AR. on a hot, muggy July morning. |
I did some horse trading with a friend who needed some N scale locos and I need a little kitbashing done in the form of a chopped nosed GP7, the trade was agreed upon and set in motion. I sent him his locos and all the parts he needed to complete my project:
An Atlas GP7 non dynamic shell
A Lifelike GP18 low nose shell
An Atlas GP7/9 analog chassis
A Digitrax DZ120 chip.
About a year later I received my chopped nose GP7, but was bummed to realize that with the modifications he was unable to give the unit any headlights which meant it would be regulated to a trailing unit only. So there it sat.... for years.
A few weeks ago while I was rummaging around looking for something to work on, I grabbed the box that held these parts and opened it up to take another look at it and contemplate whether or not I should get started on it?
I took it to the bench to inspect the chassis again for a possible replacement of the old DZ120 with newer DZ126T. As it happened, I had a newer DCC ready Atlas GP7/9 chassis sitting on the bench in the process of being cleaned and lubed when the light bulb went on! The GP18 low nosed shell fit the newer chassis with only a tad bit grinding needed on the end to match the slope of the nose, and the "drop-in" DN163A4 with its surface mounted LED's fit with more than enough room. So the unit would now have headlights!
With the hard work done for me, I got started adding a few detail parts and then painted it. I used TruColor paints, Micro Scale Decals and Pan Pastels for weathering. The grills and fans were darkened with P3 Armor Wash.
