Retro 1970s & 1980s N locomotives

[nkalanaga]

Doug:  That could be.  That does look like a door at the extreme right side, which would be an odd place for one on a B unit.

The only time I saw a Lima FP45, in person, was in Laurel, Maryland, in 1973.  As a teenager, I didn't have the money to buy it, so never had the chance to kitbash an F45.  Instead I bought four W&R brass F45s in the 90s, and promptly repowered them with Kato SD40 mechanisms, as they wouldn't stay on my track.  From what I've since read about Lima locomotives, I didn't miss much!

[randgust]

Ah, Lima FP45's.   There was an article in RMC way back when about chopping them into an F45 and I ate it up as a Santa Fe modeler.   Did my first one about 1974 and put it on a Trix U-boat mechanism.   Fast forward and I've done this four more times; leaving an FP45 shell on a Kato SD40-2 chassis, two F45's on Kato SD45 chassis, and one more FP45 for a friend.   The shell needs more side sills added, but it's really not bad, its the chassis and mechanism that was a POS.   But put them on a Kato drive, do the detail and modify the side sills, paint and decal work, and you've got yourself a locomotive.   I loaded up my FP45 with more weight and it's now my tractive effort champ.

ATSF had two only two FP45's that evaded the blue and yellow warbonnet by mid-72, the 5944 and the 5942, this is the 42, and the slight orange fade shift on the paint color is deliberate. 

These are all Lima shells, not Athearn.   Micro scale decals, and the FP45 light package is custom by Richmond Controls.   That's the thing about some of these old shells, the body die work was all over from really bad to pretty good.

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Since I built these I've seen the Athearn ones and mine look better and run much quieter, as well as pull stumps.   That's a heavy train as there are several cast-metal N scale kits flats in there, no wimps need apply to that assignment.

[Nato]

                    :|Doug G is correct. The cab was carefully removed from that UP FP 45 and mated with a Bachmann Santa Fe high nose GP 50 to create a SF Wide Cab GP 60 M. I took photos of it and wrote up a construction article for the very first issue of N Scale Magazine. Then I made the mistake of sending a single photo of the locomotive to I believe "Rail Model Journal", in their letters section in response to HO GP 60 M article. I guess Hundman saw this and then decided not to run my article even though I had received the final page artwork that was going to run. I never contacted him to find out why. I thought the Trix box in the photo was hiding that end better, until I looked at the closeup view. Now I will have to get out my kiboshed (kit bashed) GP 60 / 50 M and get Bob to photo graph it.                            Nate Goodman (Nato).   

[Doug G.]

"Does the procedure require a voodoo doll, or just some eye of newt and hensbane?"

Yes

Actually, it's mainly a matter of realignment/mesh of the worm and gear and getting the wobble out of the wheels, sometimes using a lathe with a cutter to make the grooves for the traction tires concentric. Most noise in these is caused by the worm/gear mesh.

Doug

[nkalanaga]

"The shell needs more side sills added, but it's really not bad, its the chassis and mechanism that was a POS"

That's the case with a lot of early N scale, locos and cars.  The body is actually quite well done.

[OldEastRR]

I started in N (leaving Lionel) in 1967, still in high school. My first goal was buy at least one of every car/loco listed on the back of the Atlas jewel boxes. The passenger car boxes had the longest list. Only one car of my original train set is still in my possession.
And rolling through the '70s I bought  steamers and diesels: Minitrix, Bachmann (those monstrous F units), AHM, Model Power, more Atlas, MRC, ConCor (U50s!!), Rapido, I think from almost every company that made locos .... no brass locos, tho. Freight cars of all kinds from everybody, and was blown away when Kadee (nee MTL) made N boxcars with doors that opened!! And suffered through the awful crap motive power of that time, into the '80s. Until in 1988 I decided N scale was just a lost cause if 20 years after it started the locos still were too fast, too noisy, and had mechanical problems of all kinds. I began selling off all my N scale stuff: locos, cars, kits, buildings, vehicles, all except a string of MTL ATSF Billboard boxcars I set up as a display on a bookshelf.
Since that looked so nice, I decided I'd build some nicely-scenicked static displays of railroad scenes in N scale. Like the run-down bankrupt scenarios that were the norm of American RRs at the time. I still had some freight cars that I could weather and beat up, but all my locos were gone. I needed a somewhat modern loco in one of the new merger paint schemes. Looking over the field, I saw KATO had just introduced the U30C in some of those modern paint jobs. Perfect. I bought one (think it was in Family Lines colors) because I'd always liked my Trix U28s, both how they looked and ran.  Of course, once I bought the loco, I wanted to run it a little, even if it was going to be a static display, just to see how it worked.
I was in a RR club at the time (those were the guys who bought most of my N stuff), so I went one night with the loco and some cars to try it out. After running it for five minutes, from fast to a slow crawl w/o stalling or shorting (on the universal plastic frogs), and listening to its nearly silent running, I was reborn as an N scaler.
Of course everybody knows the KATO U30C is the engine that blew away every other N scale loco ever made up till then, and introduced all the standard features of construction nearly all N locos use today.  I had it custom painted in ConRail colors (not sure why, I didn't model CR) and built a enclosed front pilot with a MTL coupler (this was before MTL came out with the adaptor kits). And even tho I've since only built layouts set in earlier eras than the U30 I still ran it on those layouts.
So it was by a strange quirk that I sold off all my old locos for decent prices just before the U30C came out and obsoleted them all -- their market values crashed. When KATO came out with the upgraded DCC-friendly U30C I got that, but replaced both the shell with old one AND one truck with couplers. But the old loco was still a great runner when I replaced it. It's my personal favorite because it's the loco that brought me back to a scale that I had thought was never going to go anywhere.

[randgust]

It's interesting you credit the Kato U30C with saving you.   Those are still just an outstanding chassis in terms of performance, as well as the original C30-7, SD40 and SD45 series.    That chassis design is the backbone of my layout now, 12 six-axle and 1 four-axle Kato-built GP/SD, plus five Kato F's.   Still going strong.   I can have fun with other locomotives, but all the longer and heavier trains get that pool.    So much of the new Atlas looks great but can't fight it's way out of a wet paper bag.

[OldEastRR]

Yep, the damn things pull a lot too. Even tho I model NH in the early '50s, once in a while you can see a ConRail U30C hauling a freight  that's too long and heavy for any of the (single) NH locos to pull*. I'd put sound in it but don't want to lose the weight of the frame that would need milling.

*Tho since NH's DL109s also worked as freight units, one of the LL versions could prototypically probably match the GE's effort.

[peteski]

Since we have shifted from just vintage locos to all sorts of vintage N scale, here are couple from my collection.





Notice that the list does not mention road names - just a single part number for each car.

[Doug G.]

I have the same C&O 50 footer in the Bachmann branded box. I've always liked the looks of that car.

Doug

[learmoia]

Ok.. Here is my submission.. (A few locos)
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Minitrix U30CG and U28C

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Atlas lead sleds

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Bachmann Northern (modified to an NYC Niagara)
And some Atlas SW1500s and an FA

Now Freight Cars:
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Atlas Variations..
Including 4 FEC Box variants if you include the print pad being used on the AHM combo door boxcar.

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More variants and PRR sextuplets.

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and finally.. Vintage Conrail goodness from Con-Cor..
Still need a U50 or PA for power..
but I've been keeping an eye out for an SD40-2 and SD50..
Or I could paint a Con-Cor Hudson

[OldEastRR]

You gotta wonder where those mfgrs in the '60s/'70s got the weirdo road colors, lettering styles, and logo placement/sizes/colors from for their models. Or were they all copying Lionel stuff (or each other)?

[Albert in N]

This 1980s set of Bachmann NS SD40s with blinking roof lights plus C&O box car and N&W caboose (both probably from 1970s and no brand name on bottom) came with a lot of estate items that included the ConCor Rivarossi locomotives posted at the beginning of this post.  Does anyone know if the odd red caboose with the big lantern on the roof was MiniTrix or Arnold?

[OldEastRR]

Young N scaler in 1979: "Jeez, I wish we had some DECENT locos in N instead of this junk."

Old N scaler in 2019:"Oh wow oh cool I get to run N locos from the '70s again!"

Inexplicable.

[Albert in N]

 . It's nostalgia plus the scent of ozone.