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South Jersey S Scale Modelers

CSX SD60 8704 Banner

This loco is very well photographed on internet train sites.

 

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Until I saw this American Models CSX SD60 I never paid much attention to them. It is outside of my main modeling era. But it was a goof buy in November 2018 when I saw it listed on eBay for $75.00, shipping included with a QSI sound decoder. There is only so much I can resist! It was listed as a “project” somewhat disassembled. I don’t think it was ever run. I would have preferred it to be Conrail but so be it. This is my first and possibly will be my only CSX loco.

 

I absolutely HATE QSI decoders, as I cannot easily program them. I found a friend to get me a new TCS WOW4 and a trade was made. I did run it on the QSI for 1 night. The slow speed performance with the same very basic programming was significantly better with the WOW4.

 

 

This has the largest flywheel I have ever seen on a model. I spent a bit looking at removing it. For the past 2+ years I have been building my diesels without flywheels, and even removing them. I feel momentum is better done with the decoders now. The flywheels are rarely perfectly balanced anyway. After the WOW4 got installed it ran pretty well so the big flywheel remains.

 

 

The first thing I did was remove most of the wiring. Most of the time I mount the decoder and speaker to the roof of the shell. Since the roof fans are not open grills I kept the decoder the speaker with the drive. There is a 3 wire Miniatronics plug to run the 3mm LED headlights.

 

 

I made a bracket to mount the speaker and capacitor on top of the flywheel.

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As bought it had high rail wheels. I got Northwest Shortline 2691-6 code 110 scale wheels. As it sits running with a WOW4 sound decoder and NWSL wheels I have about $115.00 total invested. Can’t beat that!

 

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None of my rolling stock has truck mounted couplers. It is not good to mix truck and body mounted couplers. For now the Kadees are truck mounted. American Models included snow plows that were not in the box when I got it. I am getting the snow plows. I also waiting for a 3D printed draft gear that will better fill in the high rail coupler opening in the pilot and move the couplers to the body shell. I have HO ditch lights that MIGHT get installed.

 

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Added 8-18-19

The purchased 3D printed draft gear was not what I wanted so I did it myself. The end results were good but the coupler was a bit high and sticks out a little too far even with the snow plow. It is done though. I will revise the draft gear at some point.

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Completed 8-3-19

 

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Added 4-29-23

This is the draft gear from 2019. The coupler was high and stuck out much too far. I never liked it.

 

 

I bought an American Models Norfolk Southern SD60 on 4-2-23 so I had to get more pilot plug draft gear parts made. I lost the Solidworks file for this so I had to start from scratch anyway.

 

I love it when a plan all comes together. I took some time on 4-29-23 to remove the old draft gear and replace with the latest version. The couplers are closer to the pilot and are correct in height. You can buy the draft gear at Shapeways

 

Updated 4-29-23

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