High Tech Details GE high nose question

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Just curious if anyone has used a High Tech Details GE high nose conversion kit? Is it a one piece assembly or individual panels? Any fitment issues adding it to a Atlas HO shell?

[lyled1117]

It's multiple pieces. A complete face piece and two sides and top that mesh to it. The top piece overlaps the sides. I can't comment on every Atlas shell, only the B23-7. It takes some manipulation to make it fit the sub-base and flush it to the cab on that model, but it's doable.

Any chance you're looking to use one to 'chop-nose' a B23-7? (I recognize your avatar photo, have it on my PC as well) I've got two of those in progress for the Illinois Railnet/Railway and am getting near completing the modeling of the units. #6 and #7 in my case, the Camas Prairie units didn't appeal to me as strongly

Lyle

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Thank you for the info Lyle!

I am looking at doing a trio of the ex CSP units for my freelanced road and have three factory Atlas high hoods and was debating on whether it would be easier to chop them or cut down a High Tech kit.

Do you have any pictures of your under construction units? What are you going to use for IR decals?

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Another question. Depending on what picture I look at the paint looks like black, dark green or blue. What is the actual color for these units?

[lyled1117]

I don't have photos yet, but have been meaning to do so. This post will prompt me to do so I suspect. I can only describe what I did to create my version, maybe it'll help you decide.

My own opinion is that replacing the entire high hood and using a short hood cab are easier starting points. I used the Hi-Tech high hood and short hood cab of the B23-7. The cab gave me windows which seem to match the prototype. There are some subtle details on the Atlas models that make a Hi-Tech cab a bit clumsy (but not impossible) to fit. And ... the Atlas cab is more correct than the Hi-Tech one.

The number boards and headlight on the prototype have been relocated from the high hood to the cab. If you look at the light/number board assembly, the 'boards are lower than the horizontal center line of the headlight, so a Hi-Tech or other headlight number board assembly will need modification of you want to copy this feature. The arrangement matches that on the High hood, but I don't know if it's possible to extract it and build it up to fit on a flat cab face. I took two Atlas headlight/board assemblies and merged the number boards from one to the headlight of the other to get the arrangement.



The color on the Camas units I'm not sure about. It's blue with a hint of green. On units #6 & #7 the blue is Santa Fe blue or extremely close to it. The Camas units were a different blue in the photos I've seen. It's possibly SF blue that's weathered a bit and the yellow underneath might be shifting it to a greener hue, but I think it started that way. It's definitely NOT black Here's an image of the two parked adjacent:

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

I thought the number boards were slightly lower than normal. I wonder if the boards were trimmed off of an Atlas assembly and reattached would right?

Any idea what the pipe going through the bottom of the headlight assembly is for?

[lyled1117]

Just to add something I find mildly amusing about the logo on #6 & #7. These two units came from Livingston Rebuild (LRCX). When they went to remark them for IR (Illinois RainNET at the time) they took the company's herald and stretched it horizontally to create a decal large enough to cover the large road number on the long hood side. To do decals for this (still in progress) I needed a good image of the stretched version. A friend of mine is a BNSF engineer who I knew occasionally saw these units and I asked him to get a photo if he ever could. He succeeded. One day on a slow roll by he got a shot out of the cab window of his own locomotive of enough of the image for me to create artwork

What the company logo looks like (as Illinois RailWAY):



The logo as stretched (as Illinois RailNET)



The logo as shot out of the cab window:

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Lol I never noticed that on the IR units. Better than most patch jobs.

Ordered some decals and parts including a HT hood kit from Highball last night. I'll going to start a unit today and see what I can do by chopping the high nose. If I fail then I have the back up plan in the mail.

[dtinut]

Dec 26, 2012 20:06:22 GMT -5 Canadian Atlantic Railway said:

Any idea what the pipe going through the bottom of the headlight assembly is for?

It is a vent for the toilet.
Some Chessie units had these also, but on EMD's. I don't recall seeing this feature on a GE before.

I think it may have been that they installed some type of incinerator for the waste.

Brian

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Thank you for the explanation Brian.

[santafemikie]

Any idea what the pipe going through the bottom of the headlight assembly is for?[/quote]

It is probably a conduit for the lights/antenna on top of the light housing. Santa Fe did this to most of their GP-30u's when they converted the V-windshields to flat.

Mike

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Ahh that makes more sense since the number boards/headlight were on the nose before. Is that a can style antenna on the plate above the headlight?

[annarborfan]

Yeah I would say its a conduit, the Incinolet vents I've seen are larger diameter pipe. Plus the toilet compartment on the GE U Boats and -7's were on the back wall of the cab. Details West #276 is the correct antenna style.