Post by Raeder on Jun 17, 2009 2:31:37 GMT -5
Hi all,
Here is my idea of a switcher. It will be a Burlington Northern TEBUC6 and the SD38P slug mother associated with it.
TEBUC6 stands for Traction Enhancing Booster Unit C-truck with 6 axles driving. They are rebuilt SD9's with a lot of weight and rely on their slug mother to provide electrical power to drive the traction motors. Mostly used in hump yard duty due to their ability to move heavy trains over the hump slowly.
SD38P "slug mother" started out as an SD35, and was converted to an SD38 and equipped with power couplings to transfer power to the TEBUC6 they were paired with. The prime mover can be wound up higher on this engine because some of the generated power is being siphoned off to the TEBUC6, so the SD38P's traction motors won't burn out when attempting to move a lot of tonnage at once.
A very unique locomotive, to say the least. This project started out with a Proto2000 SD7, an Athearn Blue Box SW1500 shell, and the last of my styrene sheet.
Still to come: At this point it still needs some sort of sand hatch for the cab end of the unit, sander doors for the opposite end, and a load of handrails bent up. LED lights are already here, resistors on their way, and a beacon will be installed with a 1.5v bulb when the paint is on. A Digitrax DN123 DCC decoder and most of the original Proto weight still reside under the long hood, along with the full drive train. I had to cut the decoder down a little, but nothing too bad. It was easier to do that than to grind the weight down! Coupler pads at both ends have been cut down and replaced with Kadee boxes and some block ABS, tapped and drill to screw the boxes on. The cab is also in need of some attention, as the walls do not sit on the unit correctly, so I have gaps at the bottom to fill in. Not sure how I'll be fixing that yet. The cab interior was finished after finding out a member of the club I belong to had actually run these units, and he was able to give me a rough idea of what the interior looked like. The cab was so open, I needed SOMETHING in there to fill the space!
The SD38P has most of it's work done for now. I'm holding on getting the handrails sandblasted, probably the whole shell, really. It was a Conrail unit at the store, but it has all the fans and grabs I wanted, so that's what I got. It's due for a decoder as well as three beacons, air conditioner, and a door on the filter box. I still need to figure out the issue with the long hood and cab not coming down and seating properly on the walkways/cab subbase. Haven't looked into it yet, so I'm not sure what is going on there, yet. Most of my experience with the other Atlas units in my fleet has been that they are really well built, so I'm not sure what happened here.
Couplers: Kadee couplers are mounted on the noses of each unit, with Sergent Engineering couplers mounted between the units. You actually could step from one unit to the other, if you had to. The Kadee's are for running with club equipment. All of my personal stuff runs Sergent Engineering couplers.
Paint: Both units will be painted in the BN white face scheme, as that scheme is really pretty when it is clean. Decals will be Microscale, I think I have everything I need on hand already.
Future plans: These are Proof-of-Concept models. Once I have them finished, and I know what mistakes I made, I'll go back and build another set, but without all the trial-and-error mistakes that come from building a unit you have no measurements for! Once I have the second unit finished, the first will probably go up for sale, but I'm not sure on that at this point.
Total build time: About 20 hours and counting
Any other questions, ask away.
Here is my idea of a switcher. It will be a Burlington Northern TEBUC6 and the SD38P slug mother associated with it.
TEBUC6 stands for Traction Enhancing Booster Unit C-truck with 6 axles driving. They are rebuilt SD9's with a lot of weight and rely on their slug mother to provide electrical power to drive the traction motors. Mostly used in hump yard duty due to their ability to move heavy trains over the hump slowly.
SD38P "slug mother" started out as an SD35, and was converted to an SD38 and equipped with power couplings to transfer power to the TEBUC6 they were paired with. The prime mover can be wound up higher on this engine because some of the generated power is being siphoned off to the TEBUC6, so the SD38P's traction motors won't burn out when attempting to move a lot of tonnage at once.
A very unique locomotive, to say the least. This project started out with a Proto2000 SD7, an Athearn Blue Box SW1500 shell, and the last of my styrene sheet.
Still to come: At this point it still needs some sort of sand hatch for the cab end of the unit, sander doors for the opposite end, and a load of handrails bent up. LED lights are already here, resistors on their way, and a beacon will be installed with a 1.5v bulb when the paint is on. A Digitrax DN123 DCC decoder and most of the original Proto weight still reside under the long hood, along with the full drive train. I had to cut the decoder down a little, but nothing too bad. It was easier to do that than to grind the weight down! Coupler pads at both ends have been cut down and replaced with Kadee boxes and some block ABS, tapped and drill to screw the boxes on. The cab is also in need of some attention, as the walls do not sit on the unit correctly, so I have gaps at the bottom to fill in. Not sure how I'll be fixing that yet. The cab interior was finished after finding out a member of the club I belong to had actually run these units, and he was able to give me a rough idea of what the interior looked like. The cab was so open, I needed SOMETHING in there to fill the space!
The SD38P has most of it's work done for now. I'm holding on getting the handrails sandblasted, probably the whole shell, really. It was a Conrail unit at the store, but it has all the fans and grabs I wanted, so that's what I got. It's due for a decoder as well as three beacons, air conditioner, and a door on the filter box. I still need to figure out the issue with the long hood and cab not coming down and seating properly on the walkways/cab subbase. Haven't looked into it yet, so I'm not sure what is going on there, yet. Most of my experience with the other Atlas units in my fleet has been that they are really well built, so I'm not sure what happened here.
Couplers: Kadee couplers are mounted on the noses of each unit, with Sergent Engineering couplers mounted between the units. You actually could step from one unit to the other, if you had to. The Kadee's are for running with club equipment. All of my personal stuff runs Sergent Engineering couplers.
Paint: Both units will be painted in the BN white face scheme, as that scheme is really pretty when it is clean. Decals will be Microscale, I think I have everything I need on hand already.
Future plans: These are Proof-of-Concept models. Once I have them finished, and I know what mistakes I made, I'll go back and build another set, but without all the trial-and-error mistakes that come from building a unit you have no measurements for! Once I have the second unit finished, the first will probably go up for sale, but I'm not sure on that at this point.
Total build time: About 20 hours and counting
Any other questions, ask away.
