Mike1083

Hey Gary and welcome to the forum. Awesome first post and great build. The engine looks superb. This post nails a bunch of questions i was having for an sd45 build so thank you. Mike

Thank you both for the helpful info. Ill be sure to check that northwest motorblocks option out.

The wheels and box, which im assuming is the motor block in the diesels? Will a dash 8 Wheel motor block fit in the aristo sd 45 area for instance. Or mth on usa or usa on aristo. Hope that makes a little more sense. Mike

I have been searching for an answer on the ability to switch out motive power between aristo usa and mth and i keep coming up with nothing. Im trying to figure out if the mth dash 8 or usa sd40 will fit the aristo sd45. If anyone has any links to discussion on this or any helpful tips i would greatly appreciate it. Mike

The center cupola caboose is what i was looking for but the extended vision looks very similar. Do you happen to have a photo of the extended undecorated? I have not been able to find a photo of the undecorated version.

Upon further review these sd40-2s appear to be sd45's labeled as sd40-2's. I think i am actually going to need to locate the aristo sd45's now, kinda puts a spin on things, and there will definitely need to be some modifications to the body.

Thanks for the great links Joe. I am an artist and was thinking about a paint job but with the tiny letters and numbers involved and the amount of engines i plan on doing up im thinking decals, although i will look into the stencil job. I am also debating if i want to go the dirty clay look. There are 11 engines 4 gp38s 4 sd40-2 and 4 sd40-m2 rebuilds, and i think i wanna do the whole fleet. I was thinking I would use a planter liner as a way to soak the body in and get the paint off and then maybe use a coat hanger to spray the body with an even coat. Im still looking into the best paint to use and the best removal option. I am really hoping to find something on the green side, as i try to keep away from harsh chemicals if i can. I will document my progress on here, and im sure will have more questions.

Looking for a new or excellent condition used cupola caboose undecorated in red from usa trains.Hoping to have this to use as my xmas train caboose. Mike

Sounding like stainless is the way to go. As far as not having to use flex track goes is the polk stuff gonna be my only choice?

Alright well now that i have chosen an area for the railroad i have to start slowly buying track. My biggest concern is debris from the tree above and the insect poo (a lot of people call it sap unknowingly) and the amount of moisture in the air all the time. Im in the mountains and actually on the side of one and well it is pretty much a moist fest. I have been reading about brass and stainless and the positive and negatives and I am trying to figure out which is the best direction to head. I did look at the svrr track but it appears i have to do a lot of bending on my own, and i think to start out i want to just buy it and lay it out. Im guessing there will be a couple hundred feet of track involved and will involve a lot of trestles being on the side of a terrace( i have been eyeballing the bridge masters redwood trestles and such). From the looks of things i will be running piko mth and usa on this track so i need something that will work for all 3. Any advice or recommendations for my type of environment would be great. Mike

That would be great news!

Glad they finally mentioned something on their facebook regarding g scale, the shells look nice. Trying to think of how i could incorporate a few dash 8s into my future plans. What are the odds they will release a 2015 catalog in g since it is their anniversary and all?

Oh wow so they sell just the shells with Tno power? I need to hop on that for sure, and thanks again! Mike

Thanks for the helpful info. The grey loco appears to be very hard to locate so i may just search out a used engine that doesnt even run just so i can have a chance to see how it goes and if all else fails i only lose a shell. I most definitely will contact Stan as i will want the decals to be exact. Thanks for the info. Mike

What ya testing?

I am thinking about attempting to create the new Blue Ridge Southern line and had some questions about repainting an undecorated usa trains model. Does the shell come completely blank or do i still need to remove the gray color? Also on the numbers that light up. Is there a way to put new numbers in there very easily? It appears the undecorated has no numbers. Also how does one go about obtaining decals to scale? Here is a link to a photo of their scheme if anyone was curious what it looked like. Mike http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=11933

Nice shots!.. its quite an impressive engine.

I have been eyeballing the engines they have listed and if you look at the bottom on the description it says the engines have not been tested but they can do an engine tuneup, this to me seems like a red flag. Essentially they are saying the engines may not work. Between that and the 441 Negative reviews i would be very cautious.

Hmmm I may have to see if aristo made the cars im looking for, then try and locate them. Thanks for the info

Yea im really digging the usa trains cars but double negative on the price and the size difference. Thinking accu is gonna be the only option if i want to run passenger cars in that color scheme.

Looking great! Gotta love the UP color scheme.

Now that i have a NYC Hudson I am going to need some passenger cars. I see accucraft has a set of 6 on pre order. Has anyone used or seen their passenger cars? Any thoughts on them? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Mike

Thanks Jerry for weighing in with the helpful info. After a lot of talking with Ray I also discovered a broken front middle post. I was able to run the engine and everything else checked out. This first purchase of just an engine sort of being used was a great learning process as it appears I will still have a usable engine. I may have been a little too excited about actually finding one of these that I just ignored any red flags that we're waving, saying hey this may be too good to be true. may check out the sunset valley track and just keep the Piko track for my euro stuff. I'm going to have two layouts in separate areas of the yard. One euro and one North America.

Man that is some serious work you are going to be undertaking. Looks fantastic and definitely has a very interesting feel to it. So i am kind of curious. What process do you use to get from computer to 1/32 models? Do you use a 3d printer? Is there some sort of technique? Definitely would love to see the progress being made on this through time. Mike