My Dark Diesel Side

[Schraddel]

Hello,

here i will describe my activities with Santa Fe Diesel locos.





The first one was a second hand purchased Kato GP35. The pre-owner has done a lot of detailing like lift rings, grab irons, Mu hoses, beacon, air condition and horns. The only work done by me was plugging in an DCC decoder (ESU Lopi Basic) and fit Kadee scale hear couplers. Meanwihle the missing sunshade is refitted and the yellow paint on the handrails were touched up. That was a nice bargain nearly ready to use.





Last improvements was replacing the antique 1,5V filament bulbs against warm white LEDs. Here #738 has LEDs and #715 has stiil to get them. See the difference. Couplers were replaced with Kadee scale head whiskers.







The very last task was to syncronize 3 screaming EMD Diesels.
Second a GP9 from Athearn Genesis, a bargain with a 33% reduced price which i could not resist. This loco is factory sound equipped and got the same attention as decribed later in this post.






In spring of this year i picked two more GP9s on ebay. Also Athearn Genesis and like new. Both also equipped with factory sound.





Here the shell of one of the units was lifted.





The additional weight removed.





Wormshaft cover removed.





Pay attention to the very fine details.





Both loco were now in parts.





All 16 axle end got additional wipers as pictured. A preventive procedure to avoid hassle with a current unreliable pick up when the loco sum up running time. Here in the forum were some threads and discussions about this problem with an getting more and more unreliable current pick up.





Also the locos got a 3-point suspension. The left ruck has it's somewhat halfmoons removed, the right truck is unaltered.
Each loco got a unaltered and an modified truck.





As replacement for the removed halfmoons a pile of washers cares now for the correct height on this end of the loco.
The purpose is to allow this truck free pivoting. The other unaltered truck prevents rolling motion.
As a result the loco has now a 3-point suspension and has lost it's diagonal stiffness. Also an improved safety against derailing in not so good laid track like on module transitons (aka "Sprungschanzen" from ski-jump) and other cases as they are a lot more than we like it really.


Cheers Lutz

[Schraddel]

As there are a lot of pictures, the post was divided.



The antique 1,5 filiament bulbs were repalced by warm white LEDs. Here in the photo #738 is equipped with LEDs while #715 has still its old bulbs. See thej difference.
Couplers were also replaced by Kadee scale head with whiskers.









O.k. my layout is still a construction site.
The last task was to syncronize all 3 srceaming EMD Diesels. My intention is the two zebra-striped GP9s, #706 and #715 will be permenently lashed up to a consist under the same digital adress with #715 as the leading unit and #706 in reverse direction as the trailing unit. As additional power #738 may be added to the consist.
There was some tricky CV configurating, that all three equal sound decoders did not sound exact equal, but differ a little bit as the prototype do.

Above also ATSF steamer #1129 is seen. These 2-6-2 1050 class steamers were the GPs of their time, more of this modell will be posted in future if you like.

Cheers Lutz

[Brakie]

I also liked Santa Fe's Zebra Stripe scheme as well as their 1950 class 2-8-0s..I had a United 1950 Class 2-8-0 back in the early 60s and it almost made me a Santa Fe modeler.

[kamerad47]

I like the crane!!!!!

[Schraddel]

The next chapter.
Long ago pre-confirmed, a long time waited for delivery, in summer 2016 at last delivered to my preferred model railroad dealer:

Altlas H0 Classic ALCO RSD-4 in ATSF zebra stripe livery. I ordered her in DC version to avoid hassle with ESU sound decoders. And no John Deere agricultural tractor sound wanted inside here
Analog drive tests resulted a smooth running motor with no cogging, so there is no need to replace the motor.





Instead the new Soundtraxx Econami Diesel with MTC 21 connector was plugged in. It has a pretty nice ALCO 244 engine sound which really sounds like an ALCO 244 Diesel engine and not like a tractor while plowing.
One of the weight has to be sacrificed to make room for the speaker box. This was in my grab box and have had to be slightly modified to fit unter the bonnet. Also the LED was substituted with a smaller type.

As this is Atlas Classic line, the modes are somewhat generic. In common the ALCO RSD-4/5s are designed to operate long end front. Not so Santa Fe which ordered them to operate short end front. This has influence to the arrangement of the cab windows.


To explain this her the photo of an ALCO cab interior. Front is on the right side of the photo, engineers seat is in the foreground. Here is a two pane window in the cab's sidewall arranged. On the fireman's side there also is the seat for the front brakeman. And here for the third seat a thre pane window is arranged.
That are clearly visible details even out of 2 meters [TM] distance viewed.
So what to do without destroying the painting?
Simply turning the cab around of 180° does not work because of the then reverse diagonal stripes and the battery box on the running board.
But it will be possible to turn a part of the cab 180°.





To enable this the cab was cut into 3 pieces. Here i used a very thin buzz saw blade, it has app. 0.1mm thickness. The cut was done in a machine which rotated at very moderate rpm's to avoid melting of the plastic material.
The cut was done just below the windows were the stripes were ending. The window glass insert was kept in place to give more stability during cutting.
Following the lower cab sides were reattached to their "right" sides by glueing.





The cab after glueing, the cut is clearly visible. A new bore for the end of the railing on this side has to be made too.





The loco was rocking a little bit sidewards, not much, but a little too much for me. So it was completely disassembled.
This photo shows a) the MTC21 connector and b) the balanced flywheels to avoid droning noises.





One of the trucks get it's bolsters completely filed down. A stack of washers will replace the original bolsters.
Note the the axle spacing of the 3-motor trock is unsymetricla, but the pivoting is symetrical. There for the somewhat excentric lookalike.





The other truck. The bolsters on the trucks were a little bit too low to take really action, thus causing the rocking.
To eliminate this two thin stripes of 0.3mm styrene sheet were glued onto the underside of the main frame, just left and right of the pivot point.





The trucks were completely disassembled.


Continued on next posting

[Schraddel]

Prosecution of posting before.


One reason was to make a redistribution of grease. Very often, so in this case too, the grease was applied by the worker into the gearbox, but it sits just in a pile in a corner were it is useless. The bearing stud of the gears are running completely dry and in some cases the worms too. This circumstance max be the mysterios case why some lose are running noisy.
So i took a small screwdriver and replaced the grease to that locations were it belongs to.





Next was creating a better curent pcik up. As deliverd the Atlas RSDs habe current pick up only from the wheels of outer and middle axles.
Fortunately the axle bearing inserts are able to rock a little bit around their center holes and create in this manner a sort of equalizing.
So i soldered 0.3mm bronze wire onto the bearings.





They wipe on the wheels of the inner axles. So a 12-point current pick up was made.





Some brass parts made their way onto this loco.















After all, not a to 100% perfect loco may be originated, but a hassle free running loco for running on the layout and for FREMO meetings.

Cheers Lutz

[Schraddel]

Next i found by random this RSD-5 in e-bay:


The seller, i presume out of the Märklin corner, did not know exactly was he was offering. "Loco, metal, does not run on Märklin hi-rails". And a wrong box increased the confusion too.
On the photos in the offer the cab was properly fitted for short hood front and the loco looks well detailed. The price was very interesting also, because do not run factor. So why not click on the buy immediately button?
At least i was enjoyable surprised.
















It turned out this loco is an ALCO RSD-5 from Importer ALCO Models manufactured by Samhongsa. Nothing bend or broken, paint and decals were in pristine condition, no chipping was found and the cab windowas were glassed.





My luck it is the 1982 run of this model with all new motor and drive train and improved detailing too. At least the detailing is better than the Atlas RSD-4 in the previously posting, but this bargain was cheaper too.
First test running resulted in a smooth and quiet motion.
But at a second glance the gears were dry and running somewhat stiff.





So the loco an gearboxes were disassembled.






The stiffness was caused by an very tight fit of the bottom plates which resulted in insufficient play of all of the shafts in their bearing seats. To remdy this i filed an little bit material of the bottom plates to easen the bearing seats. The gears are now running freely.
All bearings were greased with new Molykote grease.





Also the worms, wormshafts and worm wheels were dry and were greased.





Motor shaft bearings and worm shaft bearings got each a little drop of oil.





The builder's plate, or better named the importer's plate, a play on words: ALCO from ALCO
Mean while the loco got makeshift installed a decoder to get expieriences with it. One of this was to improve the currrent pick up.
At this time there are no lights. I plan to install lights, sound and some detail improvements like Marker lights and Mu hoses.

cheers Lutz

[sailormatlac]

Very nice locomotives Lutz. It's always impressive to see you ressurect locomotives so they can perform mechanically at their best. That Alco's Alco was definitely an excellent purchase!

Matt

[Schraddel]

The next step in the life of the ALCO RSD-5:


Here i prepared warm white 2mm LEDs to fit into 1.5mm bores by filing them down. They are intended for the headlights. The massive brass castings on the model patters dual style headlights. And drilling 2mm bores into them will deface them, 1,5mm is the right diameter. And for not having LEDs with 1.5mm diameter, i have had to reduce the diameter. Two of this reduced LEDs will be fitted into one headlight casting.





The it was time to chose a speaker an the mounting place for it. Here in the hollow tank is enough space for an Knowles Dumbo type speaker mounted in a larger enclosure.





After some grinding of the upper edges of the tank the speaker enclosure fits neatly. The fixing was made with a piece of double side sticky foam tape.





Under the shell space is scarce. Onto the motor bracket a kind of decoder carrier made out of 0.4mm waste brass sheet. The decoder was also fixed with double sided foam tape. I made several bores into the motor bracket and decoder carrier to guide the wires to fix them in place. A huddle of wires will be very bad in this brass case. You remember this is no plastic shell, but a brass one and brass is electrical conductive and so you have to made some extra precautionary arrangements in the limited available space.
On the chassis above on the left side a 3-pin socket is fitted for the lights. This enables me to demount the shell lateron without soldering actions.
Right is an capacitor with 2200 microfarad capacity.

Cheers Lutz

[Schraddel]

Hello,

meanwhile i managed it to squeeze all the components under the brass body shell of the ALCO RSD-5 without to produce any shorts.



Next was adjusting the decoder so that this RSD-5 #2160 will run in a consist with the #2101.





The two LEDs are very bright.

Made a short video, be forgiving it is my very first attempt and my camera is one of those which are intended for taking mainly (static) pictures and also has an movie function too. So the movie quality is not the best one.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9S-mAwaOnQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9S-mAwaOnQ</a><!-- m -->
Also to see and to hear is D&RGW K-59 mikado in a short sequence.

Cheers Lutz