A pair of KCS white ghosts

[Allen]

Fresh out of the paint shop.
I've been wanting a third KCS SD40-2 to go with the two units I have.
So I decided to take the plunge.

A fellow modeler on another forum has been hoping that several of the manufacturers would do one each time they announce their SD40-2's but to no avail.

When I started planning mine, I figured why not do another one at the same time.

I have a SD40-2 snoot and a SD40 already, so I wanted to do a SD40-2 with a standard nose.
The one I'm doing for my friend will be a SD40-2 snoot.

I'm going to be doing the KCS #666. It's been so long ago that I can't remember if it was an illustration or an image of the real thing, but it had a pentagram and the words "The Beast" on the fireman's side of the long hood near the rear. I've got the decal made up, but it's so old it may not be any good?

[JerryZ]

Proceed with caution with that locomotive number 666. I used that for my Diamond Scale turntable drive decoder when I first installed it. The decoder let the smoke out in 10 minutes. 😬

Replacement decoder and elimination of turntable drive bind fixed that problem, and the new decoder got an address of 9999. I don't know if that qualifies as an exorcism or not.

Regards,
Jerry

[Allen]

LOL! We’ll see what happens when I install the decoder…

[Paul S.]

Best fade job ever!

[Allen]

Made a little more progress over the past week.
The majority of the decals have been applied, the grilles have been darkened with black panel liner.
The cab shades are the only details that have been applied so far.




Micro Scale makes the striping for the handrails, these are proving to be entertaining to apply...

[Greg]

My eye are crossed just looking at the handrails

[Paul S.]

Those handrail decals appear challenging, Allen.

[Allen]

At first yes, but I found a way to make them a bit less challenging.
Cut them out in strips the length of the handrails, apply solvaset and lay them along the length and wait a bit.
Then slowly apply more Solvaset until they start melt. Then they start folding around the railings.
Keep applying Solvaset until the settle down. I just finished the last of 16 of them. Siiiiigh

[Steve H AC&Y]

I've wondered how those handrail stripes could be modeled. Just plain crazy. Nice work.

[Michael Whiteman]

Youn should get an award for patience my friend. Those look really nice.

[Allen]

LOL, thanks Michael

[Greg]

I agree! We will call it the “ AH patience award”
Awarded for excellence in showing patience or just never throwing in the towel

[Allen]

You don't know how many times i wanted to...

[Allen]

OK
I got the first one done.
This is the 683 for my friend.
It's a bit more weathered than the pic, but he wanted more as he's modeling in the Gray era: late 1990's - early 2000's

I still need to wire the headlight and apply the cab roof details on mine yet, maybe later this week? I'll post it then.

[Greg]

Great job!
I wish I had the patience for weathering.

[Russ C]

That's some really nice work Allen, especially the step rails.

[LorenC]

That turned out really nice and I love the more weathered look.

[Paul S.]

Allen, does this just about describe you right now?

[Allen]

Nah, not that bad. LOL

[Allen]

The weathering looks great. I have never understood what KCS or SOO was thinking when they painted their locomotives white.

Thanks Brad! Yeah I hear ya.
Even though most of the SD's that rolled through Lincoln on coal trains were not as dirty as mine.
Now their GP's, those things were much worse.

Looks good, Allen. Your friend will be pleased.

He saw the pics last night and was tickled pink and can't wait to see it in person.

Great job!I wish I had the patience for weathering.

If you can wired your N scale locos for DCC/Sound I'm sure you can handle weathering Greg?

That's some really nice work Allen, especially the step rails.

Thanks Russ!

That turned out really nice and I love the more weathered look.

Thanks Loren! Due to being white, they did get a little darker than what I wanted on mine, but my friend is happy with the amount I applied to his.

[Allen]

Found a few minutes to put the finishing touches on my KCS SD40-2

The Beast.
KCS SD40-2 #666




Just to prove they actually did have one numbered 666, but it's a bit cleaner than mine.



I tried to keep mine a little cleaner as mine will be used in an earlier time frame than the 683.
I made the decal on the end of the long hood years ago, but time took its toll and it crumbled when I tried to slide it off, so I quickly made up another one.

Still not sure where I came up with the idea for the decal? I either saw someone else do it, saw and illustration of it or just heard someone talking about it.
Either way I thought it was a cool idea.

Yes JerryZ I did have a few issues with this unit.
One was the decal crumbling and the other was when I went to install the LED for the headlight.
First attempt failed and I thought I damaged the pads or tracing on the board as the LED would not light up when attached to the board. If I removed it from the board and tried with direct track power, the LED worked fine.
What I figured out was that I had the wires reversed. Doh!

When adding the LEDs to my previous loco builds, I thought the black wire was to be attached to the pad with the in-line resistor, when I soldered the red wire to the resistored pad, it worked like a champ.

Then I had issues trying to get it programmed, the JMRI Decoder Pro kept freezing up.

Maybe I better keep some holy water handy?

I'm going to play around with them for a few days trying to shoot some videos of them before sending the 683 off to it's new owner.

[Allen]

Thanks Warren!

[Steve H AC&Y]

When I first saw that handrail treatment on the prototype years ago I thought "Now how ya gonna do THAT in N scale!" But you pulled it off nicely. Well done.

[Allen]

Thanks Steve.
Yeah I was wondering that myself years ago when I decided to do one up, but someone tipped me off.
Those decals are a lifesaver.

[LorenC]

“She’s a beaut Clark”.

Sorry for all the recent cheesy movie references.

On a more serious note, a diary for “The Beast” just might be in order. You could call it something like “666: trials and tribulations”.

[davefoxx]

They look really good, Allen. About that number 666, I’m reminded of a Life-Like release of HO scale SW9s in the early 1990s. The two Atlantic Coast Line road numbers were 666 and 711. Too funny. As you can imagine, No. 666 was the problem child. It even arrived with a broken headlight!

[Allen]

Well at least it measured up to its name, or in this case, number...

[LorenC]

That’s a riot Dave. Even more so with your personal experience with owning them.

[Allen]

I just caught the KCS units with a detour over the Little Rock Line.