Big Blue has inspired some purchases

[TMo]

Thanks, Charlie.  I had given some thought to purchasing an old blue box Athearn, a yellow box Atlas or even an AHM with the same truck setup that was aesthetically beaten but ran well.  The gutting would consist of removing the full powertrain and replacing the trucks and gear towers and figuring out how to integrate same and then add DCC.  

One of the nice features (and after some research turns out this unit is an RS2 not an RS3 as advertised) of the unit I bought is the light towers on each corner.  I'm thinking of drilling them out and installing a small LED in each one and adding some extra lighting effects.  In terms of real Conrail, this unit was quickly sent to the deadline and probably never put into service before being sold for scrap.  However, I'm going to take some liberties and pretend someone had an affinity for this unit and saved it for locals.