Susquehanna SD60 Sextuplets!

[stevef45]

I will be slowly working on these 6 units.  All will be starting off life as Athearn RTR SD60's in csx, ns, kcs and emd lease.  2 have been stripped down so far with minor details added as of now.  I still need to add details to the front and rear pilots.  So far i've added the nearly accurate DW K5LA low profile horn and stand, DA SD60 winterization hatch and custom made dynamic brake hatch lift rings (antlorch).  Those lift rings make a huge difference!!!  Right now plans are to have 2 of them get sound from 2 SD90MAC's I did a while ago that im probably going to sell on ebay in a few weeks.  So the tsunami's will be going into these and if i can, i'll do leds.  I'll also be doing smokey valley stanchions and railings.  I've got 3 kits so far and 1 stanchion kit that's for my already painted unit. 

This will be a slow project but will get done before my NJT kitbash project as that im awaiting something to help building hte entire longhood.

So here are a few pics.
What 2 started life out as


And now


I will be attempting to make the decals for the sides of the cabs and numberboards.  I was able to find out the correct font to use and downloaded it.

The custom made lift rings

Horns and winterization hatch's

[stevef45]

And here is what they'll all end up like.

[Randy Earle]

I love the Susie Q!

[stevef45]

Its a classy paint scheme that looks good any most loco's. I grew up 5 minutes from there souther division terminal and used to ride my bike over as a kid.

[Randy Earle]

They used to run through Conneaut on NS.

[Deleted]

Feb 20, 2013 12:56:01 GMT -5 Randy Earle said:

I love the Susie Q!

I'll second that. Love the black and yellow and I think the big 60's wear it well.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using proboards

[stevef45]

This is the one I did last year. I made it right after the official announcement was made that NYSW acquired 6. So details and certain things were added with what's been done in the past. I used the wrong antenna's, horn and didn't shave the marker lights from teh front or rear. These next 5 units will be correct.

[T]

Wow! Nice to see a model of the yellow jacket roads -N.Y. S. & W. SD60's.

T

[stevef45]

Thanks. I've custom painted 2 SD40-2's that aren't made by anyone and a SD40T-2 to be painted in NYSW, but of course athearn now announces that they will produce the 4th tunnel motor that wasn't made back in 2007.

[antlorch]

Very nice. They are going to look incredible when completed. Lift tabss make a hugh difference on the dynamic brake housing. I am building a BN SD60M and adding brass handrails right now and its a slow process (at least for me) the end result is pretty cool. Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing them come together.

[stevef45]

3 more SD60's are in the "dip" getting the paint taken off.

[stevef45]

OMG, I thought after sitting in 91% alcohol since Friday afternoon till now that the paint would've just came off.  The 2 emd lease (maroon/grey) some of that paint just peeled off in large sections, most had to be scrubbed.  The KCS unit, forget it.  It was a major PITA to get off.  But now they are all drying off and some work will start tomorrow.

[stevef45]

Did a little scrapping to get the dried up flaky paint remains and did a little detailing to them. As of now the long hood is not glued down to the walkways. Im going to leave them this way to make painting the smokey valley stanchions easier. Since they will be black and the entire walkway is black it makes sense. The nose and sub base are glued to the walkway though.

Anyway, here's some updated pics. I'll work on them more tomorrow. But I need to get more DW horn stands and waste retention tanks eventually.

[stevef45]

Boy i need parts. I ran out of the DW tall horn stand for the 3 without horns. I need 1 more horn, a pack of firecracker antenna's. Most importantly I gotta get 6 hi-tech details waste retention tanks. Found out they have them a few weeks ago. Oh and I really think i wanna do DW plows instead of the athearn ones.

Only update is I took the remaining three and sanded down the dried up squadron putty where the marker lights were. I will try and get some pilot details done. I have DA MU recepticles that i'll add and I think cal scale trainline hose.

[stevef45]

Got some minor work done today.  I added the "dummy" MU recepticle to the front pilot.  Still wondering if I want to add the whole MU cable and plug part or not.  I also found a horn stand in my lil kits bin and added another horn.  So I only need 2 horn stands now and fire cracker antenna's.

[stevef45]

Well I had emailed a company about custom decals for these engines as I didn't want to bother printing my own and then find out that the black wouldn't be dark enough. Plus I didn't have the white numbers for the numberboards or enough "S" balls for the front and rear. So I email them, then send a PDF I had gotten from the company that did the actual rebuilds of the prototype. A few exchanges back and forth with some revisions and bam, I order a set of custom decals for these SD60's using the actual font on the prototype, correct spacing for initials/road # and sd60 for cab side, correct white for numberboards and enough "S" balls to do future loco's. Plus I was able to order more horn stands and another K5 to finish the major parts. The waste retention tank will have to wait as I cannot get good pics.

[stevef45]

DECALS ARE HERE!!!!!

[keiffer]

I would love to buy a set of those!!

[emd16645]

What company did you get the decals from?

[stevef45]

highball graphics did them for me. I had supplied them with the actual paint diagrams i got from VMV Paducah who rebuilt the real nysw sd60's.