Oof! I see a whole lot of work in those projects, Larry! The scratchbuilt C855 is amazing, you're a better man than I.
Interesting progress on your DDA35. I noticed the same slight warp on my shell. I think it's an artifact of the 3D printing process due to the lack of a process brace bridging the walkway gap.
The Bestine soak on my DDA35 shell is done, and I sprayed the first coat of Tamiya filler. After inspecting details and judging the effort it will take to get to a running model of reasonable accuracy, I'm setting it aside for a while. One unintended challenge perpetrated by the designer - no grilles represented on the 48" fans. "Sure, use some BLMA fan details, no problem!" Uh... problem. These are now made of unobtainium. It's interesting that the 36" fans have "grilles", but not the 48", and wouldn't it figure, you can get the 36" grilles from Atlas' BLMA stock. This is a nit, but an important nit. Fixing the bigger fans will require a fair bit of sacrificing of Atlas shells.
The shell generally is pretty good and stands up better in comparison to prototype photos than the sill piece, but there are a couple of things that should be fixed on an accurate model. First is the walkway step-up representing a traction motor blower duct in the rear. There is - or was - no such duct, the artwork evidently duplicated from the front half which had one. Hacking it off cleanly is going to be a trick. Very minor but noticeable from certain angles are the missing cab steps. Obviously something that could easily be scratched out of strip stock, or stolen from a GP35 shell. Also, the handbrake is missing. The niche is there, but empty. Probably something else that can be taken from the Atlas shell. Actually, this and the missing window frames make me wonder if I might be time and effort ahead by just chopping off the cab and nose from the GP35 shells I have lying about, and call it done! Big plus to doing it that way - it makes windows, headlights and illuminated number boards much, much easier.
