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South Jersey S Scale Modelers

 

Norfolk Southern SD70Ace 1011

Added 3-3-19

This is American Flyer by Lionel like the ES44Ace below, made in 2015. It is shown stock out of the box except for adding Kadee couplers. The current Conrail Shared Assets exists as the former PRSL. I pass Norfolk Southern locos all the time.  I always liked the NS paint scheme. This came up for sale on eBay and was bought on 2-17-19. It already had the scale wheels which I did not know they were offered as an option. I had significant programming issues with the PRR ES44AC which had to be sent back to Lionel to fix. If I had to I would gut it and install a regular sound decoder. The seller made a short clip showing it running on DCC. I got it running as well but it is by far not as easy as a DCC sound decoder. It is VERY fast. When compared to the ES44AC I like the SD70ACe better. The SD70ACe is the only “modern” loco I stand a chance at identifying in a train. The Kadee coupler mounting brackets were missing so I had to make them. Also I screwed the pilots down from swinging. It does look great and is appropriate to run with the ES44AC.

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Reading SD70Ace

Added 4-28-21

 

This is also American Flyer by Lionel. I looked for the Reading SD70Ace for about 4 years and none were ever for sale. In March 2021 about 50 of these various locos appeared for sale all at once on Trainz. The unpowered loco was for sale first. I thought maybe I could flip it to a powered chassis so I bought it. A week later the powered loco was for sale so I got that too. When the locos arrived the front pilots were broken. They were all originally sold to Charles Ro. I am sure that these locos were broken returns TO Charles Ro and Trainz bought them all. I fixed the pilots and got a refund for $50.00 each.

 

1067 is the powered loco and is the real Reading Heritage unit. 1836 really is a Norfolk Southern SD70Ace but it is not painted in the Reading Heritage scheme. In over 30 years of being in S Scale I have never owned an unpowered loco. This is the first and will very likely be the last. The only scale wheels are geared. I thought it to be very ironic changing the wheels with gears into a loco that does not have a motor.

 

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Savannah & Atlanta SD70Ace 1065 Heritage Unit

Added 12-25-23

This is the second American Flyer diesel I got this year that I could not easily program and get to run on DCC. The first was the Norfolk & Western ES44AC. I got it and quickly gutted out all the Lionel electronics then added a TCS WOW4 decoder that I could easily program and get running. If I cannot get the loco to run it is useless to me. I did the very same to 1065. There are a number of lights that worked with the Lionel system that are not currently working. I will figure out getting the ditch lights working at some point. But the much better slow speed operation and better more correct sounds are worth the effort. All remaining American Flyer SD70Ace and ES44AC locos I have will get gutted and TCS WOW4 decoder added.

Savannah_&_Atlanta_SD70_1065_1 small Savannah_&_Atlanta_SD70_1065_2 small

Savannah_&_Atlanta_SD70_1065_3 small Savannah_&_Atlanta_SD70_1065_4 small

 

This is how this DCC installation was done. I usually point the speaker up through an open fan etc but there is really only 1 small opening for the exhaust so I pointed it down into the wide open shell space. The speaker is a RailMaster DLG8. I have about 60 of them in my locos. My DCC installations are rarely identical. Not shown here is a small bracket I made to hold the rear headlights in place.

 

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Updated 7-8-24

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