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. |
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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.
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.
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.
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. It runs really well now.
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.
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. I was also hoping that Scalecoat would be reopened by
now to buy their Conrail Blue……….that does not seem like it is ever going to
happen.
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 efforts for over 30 years now.
I probably took off more parts than I added to make it more like
a Conrail loco. The most noticeable thing was 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 2MM LEDs that
have a lens look to them already so I will be lighting them like on my PRR
RS11. They are not shown here yet
Completed
3-22-25
I did not take any more “in progress” photos. From the above
photos it was really just painting it. I used MCW
Finishes Conrail Blue again. I also used K4
Decals The Conrail logo was a nudge too big. Mike
checked the size, made them smaller and printed again.
He is great to work with. All is good.
The RS11 numberboards are a very odd size. There was no way any
stock numberboard decals would fit, so I had to “build” them with Microscale black
decal sheet and a white alphabet/number set. The number font is not quite right
but whatever - good enough. I can’t go for a $100.00 completely custom decal set
for every project.
Getting the red 2MM LEDs installed was extremely annoying. I wound
up gluing 2 of them in place in the long hood. I did not want to do it but I just
could not get them to stay in place any other way. You can never see how red
the corner markers really are in the photos.
I did not add any of the small “warning” decals. Without close up
photos of what they were I don’t add them. Even though this is a brass model I have
been going for good enough these days. With the Overland
inaccuracies I can’t grind away trying to fix everything. I don’t have
the energy and motivation I used to have so projects take a lot longer to
complete than they would have even just a few years ago.
Updated
3-22-25
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