Diesel I.D. Question

RobertInOntario

Active Member
Well according to the list of owners in the drawing, CN and CP had late GP9's. Add the dynamic brakes from an Athearn GP7 and paint away. Good luck with your project.

Greg

Thanks, Greg. Do you mean that I should buy an Athearn GP7 body ... or could I buy the plastic parts separately? For example, I just saw a packet of plastic fans for diesels at a LHS. Sorry if I'm asking basic questions! Rob
 

brakie

Active Member
Rob,The Athearn DB blister will not work..It will be to wide once you cut it off from the shell.The AHM GP18 has a scale width hood while the Athearn is a foot to wide.
Best to check Details West,Detail Assocates or maybe Atlas line of parts for the DB blister..A DB Blister is the 48" fan and both side grills.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
You can buy the Athearn dynamic brake blisters separately, but you'll need to build up the area of the roof between them with sheet styrene. Detail Associates has the fan casting, I believe.
Does anybody have a photo of one of these "late" GP9s in CN or CP paint? I have the Rail Canada, Volume 3, for the CPR and there are no pictures of the last-built (in 1958) GP9s. These were built by GMD, in London, Ontario. I'm wondering if they may have been built using the older-style fan set-up. Anybody?

Wayne
 

RobertInOntario

Active Member
You can buy the Athearn dynamic brake blisters separately, but you'll need to build up the area of the roof between them with sheet styrene. Detail Associates has the fan casting, I believe.
Does anybody have a photo of one of these "late" GP9s in CN or CP paint? I have the Rail Canada, Volume 3, for the CPR and there are no pictures of the last-built (in 1958) GP9s. These were built by GMD, in London, Ontario. I'm wondering if they may have been built using the older-style fan set-up. Anybody?
Wayne

Thanks, Wayne. This is helpful. I could build up the area with styrene or perhaps use this modeling putty that I have (or use a combination of both). I'll check to see if George's Trains has the Detail Associates fan casting.

Also, do you know, offhand, if any spray bombs are avaible for CN green? I don't have an airbrush. As mentioned, I just bought the CN decals so I've kind of started on this project already!

Rob
 

RobertInOntario

Active Member
Rob,The Athearn DB blister will not work..It will be to wide once you cut it off from the shell.The AHM GP18 has a scale width hood while the Athearn is a foot to wide.
Best to check Details West,Detail Assocates or maybe Atlas line of parts for the DB blister..A DB Blister is the 48" fan and both side grills.

Thanks -- I'm going to check this out (Details West, etc.) at a LHS then. Cheers, Rob
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
The blisters are actually just the humps on the top outside corners of the hood. On the prototype, these contained grids of resistors. The fan housing, in the centre, is best built up with sheet styrene: you shouldn't need any putty for this conversion. The Detail Associates part is the fan shrouding only, which sits on top of the raised area between the blisters. On the prototype, when the controller was put into the dynamic braking position, the traction motors in the trucks became generators, producing electricity which was fed through the resistor banks, where it was converted to heat. The fan sucked cool air in through the side blisters, where is passed over the resistor grids, then expelled the hot air up through the fan.
I just checked in my parts supply, as I had about 100 of those Athearn blisters, but I must've put them out in the recycling bin at some time. Most good hobby shops have a supply of these laying around, and you should be able to get a pair for about $.50. If you can't find any, send me a pm - I'm going to my LHS tomorrow and I'm sure that they have some. I can check for the fan, too, if you want. Once you have all the materials, this conversion shouldn't take more than 15 minutes.
I don't know of any CNR Green #11 in spray cans, but there are several versions available in jars/bottles. I believe Testors offers it in both Floquil lacquer-based paint or PollyScale water-based paint, and Scalecoat has a laquer-based version. My favourite is SMP Accupaint, which can be hard-to-find. All of these are best applied with an airbrush, although most of us old-timers managed this task with a brush at one time. :mrgreen:

Wayne
 

msowsun

Member
They were built with the older style fans and then later they were modified and the dynamic brake was removed. (notice the filled in grills on the side blisters)

CP%208826-2.jpg


CP%208837-1.jpg


CP%201693-1.jpg
 

brakie

Active Member
Wayne,Actually they are grills..The complete DB is called the DB blister or DB exhaust fan Assembly.
 

brakie

Active Member
I called a acquaintance thats a retired locomotive maintainer and ask him since I wasn't sure and thats what he called them.
He doesn't call a locomotive a locomotive..He calls them "motors".I heard that term used before on the scanner by the NS locomotive shop in Bellevue but,never by a old railroad man.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
Larry, I think that the use of the term "blister" in reference to the bulges at the top corners of the hood stems from the modelling press, where articles on removing the evidence of dynamic brakes from the Athearn GP7 (probably the most common version, in HO, for many years) directed the modeller to "pop off the dynamic brake blisters from the hood and fill in the holes...". The articles would continue with removing the raised fan portion, which was how that area was referred to.
As modellers, we often have names for things that aren't the same as those used by real railroaders. A really common example of this, recently discussed elsewhere, is modellers' use of the term turnout: all of the railroaders that I know and the ones that I worked with called this device a switch, and the use of it was "lining the switch". A few also used the term "points" on occasion, with almost all of these guys having a British background. (The use of "turnout" is generally to avoid confusion with an electrical switch, in model railroading)
My favourite prototype had GP7s and GP9s, (including the very first Canadian-built GP7), but none of them had dynamic brakes. I built and painted a couple of these, for myself, from the Athearn GP7, and ended up doing about 50 or 60 more for a LHS: hence my one-time large collection of these "blisters". :mrgreen::mrgreen:
GP7
other_locos_005.jpg


GP(
other_locos_010.jpg


Wayne
 

RobertInOntario

Active Member
This is turning into quite an interesting thread!

Thanks for all the info and pics. Details West, etc., do have the brake fan parts that I need, but I still haven't totally decided whether to add them or simply fudge things and paint my GP-18 in CN green & yellow -- even though CN never had any GP-18s.

But if I do decide to add the brake fan, msowsun's blueprints should be accurate enough to follow, right?

Thanks!

Rob
 

msowsun

Member
Check out this Forum posting:

Tyco Collector's Forum - Need EMD dynamic brake blister?

Is anyone interested in obtaining resin cast brake blisters? I made these to fit on AHM GP18 shells as well as Tyco/Mantua GP20s. They should fit well on all other early model Geeps with a scale width hood. They are molded in creamy white resin. You can see one on my NdeM GP18 in the AHM section. I was thinking of selling them for about $3.00 each, plus shipping. Anyone need 1 or 10?
 

RobertInOntario

Active Member
Check out this Forum posting:

Tyco Collector's Forum - Need EMD dynamic brake blister?
Is anyone interested in obtaining resin cast brake blisters? I made these to fit on AHM GP18 shells as well as Tyco/Mantua GP20s. They should fit well on all other early model Geeps with a scale width hood. They are molded in creamy white resin. You can see one on my NdeM GP18 in the AHM section. I was thinking of selling them for about $3.00 each, plus shipping. Anyone need 1 or 10?

Wow -- thanks again -- that could be exactly what I need! Rob
 

Triplex

Active Member
He doesn't call a locomotive a locomotive..He calls them "motors".I heard that term used before on the scanner by the NS locomotive shop in Bellevue but,never by a old railroad man.
I've heard "motor" used... for electrics. Technically, since an electric doesn't have its own power source, it isn't a locomotive.
 

N Gauger

1:20.3 Train Addict
I've heard "motor" used... for electrics. Technically, since an electric doesn't have its own power source, it isn't a locomotive.

I wonder if that's derived from "MU" -- Motor Unit for cars... Same idea, electric, so they don't have their own power source...
 
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