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South Jersey S Scale Modelers

Conrail RS11 7651

 

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I have been on a “Modern” and diesel binge for over a year now with no end in sight. In 2022 and 2023 I bought 4 SD40-2 and 3 GP38-2 making many of them for Conrail. I also bought 4 GP30 making 1 of them for Conrail. With the SD40-2 possibly being difficult to get running well I was looking for other locos to make for Conrail. For me my Conrail is BLUE. I don’t do early Conrail with whatever was inherited in awful condition from Penn Central. When I saw some RS11 were Conrail Blue that became a possible project. Locos 7591, 7598, 7630, 7644, 7651 and 7652 were Conrail Blue. I picked 7651 because there was a lot of on line photos. Ironically I found the upper left photo on a Conrail roster website then looked on eBay only to find that same photo had the original slide for sale so I won it for this page.

 

 

I mostly thought I was going to get a new unpainted RS11 from American Models to show them some support. This loco came up for sale in march 2024 and had 3 price drops until it was the same price as the American Models loco. I could not pass that up. It is Overland Models OMI 1776 imported in 1989. Another ironic fact of this loco is I knew who likely was the very first owner from an address written on the box. I painted a low nose RS11 for him as PRR which is a foobie paint job in the 1990s. That loco appeared for sale on www.brasstrains.com for about a year before it finally sold.

 

No Lightening Stripes

I really resist buying painted brass locos especially if they are one I like and might want to keep. By the time I am done with adding the DCC and repairs the paint has usually suffered wear from handling. Further I do NOT model New York Central. I have NYC freight cars but no locos – on purpose. It took about 7 months but I finally found someone to trade for an unpainted RS11 so the Lightening Stripes will survive because of my friend Andrew. It was just too nice of a paint job to strip - even I could not do it.

 

I do not know all of the details. This could be off just a bit. Apparently the order was placed with Alco before it was officially (financially?) approved. When the order was complete NYC rejected them.  But no NYC RS11 actually ran in revenue service in the Lightening Stripe scheme. So there is a very thin line of justification for modelers to have them. The real locos were sold to Delaware & Hudson.

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Overland Drive

While they run better than the older Overland “tank drive” I have always hated the 2 “HO” motor drive as well for the RS11. The 2 motors are not even coupled together. It is essentially 2 locos in 1 shell. I mostly have changed to a single Sagami 22mm x 40MM motor. The first photo below is the stock Overland 2 motor drive then my remotored drive.

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These are the motor mounts I designed in 2006 for my PRR RS11 Finding the 22mm x 40mm Sagami motors now is a challenge. I check eBay every day.

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This motor threw me a curve. There must be various versions of it. It usually has a plastic hub to attach 1 of the motor mounts to. This did not have that. I rolled a brass ring and soldered to a very chopped motor bracket.

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Also this is my typical all wheel pickup improvement I have done many times.  That is a Miniatronics 2 pin plug leading up to the motor and decoder. It runs really well now.

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Detailing Completed

Added 1-12-25

 

My projects get completed in a very random order depending on where my moods take me. This one was stalled for a few months hoping to find a trade for a bare brass model. Also I was hoping that Scalecoat would be reopened by now to buy their Conrail Blue……….

 

This was not that heavy of a project. It was changing some parts as a just bit more than a paint job making it a 1 of a kind model unique from the production run. But this is what I have been doing as the biggest part of my modeling for over 30 years now. 

 

I probably took off more parts that I added to make it more like a Conrail loco. The most noticeable is removing the pilot footboards. Luckily that was easy. It was a 1 piece casting. I was missing 1 of the cab flap windows in the parts bag so I winged it with other parts I had. Soldering very thin stainless steel parts to brass can be a challenge.

 

I had to flip the seats and control stand around 180 degrees to face long hood forward. There were 3 seats. I just used 2.

 

This is showing the inside of the short hood. The square tubing is to hold the headlight LEDs in place. I used the larger brass strips to block off the numberboard openings. Lit numberboards are nice but they are a ton of work to make. Also the small brass strip I hope will help hold the red corner marker LEDs in place.

 

 

These are 2-56 bushings I make to hold the speaker in place. I point the DLG8 speaker up through fans and other openings. Besides the fan there are not many roof openings here.

 

 

 

 

M V Lenses are in the correct size and color are getting tough to find. There are already some holes for the corner marker lights. I only had to drill them out .003 to fit some red LEDs that have a lens look to them so I will be lighting them like on my PRR RS11. They are not shown here yet

 

 

Updated 1-12-25

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