BNSF C44-9W # 781 "The Battle Bonnet"

[bcrmlw]

Last fall while out railfanning Marias Pass in Montana I bagged this beaten up C44-9W on the point of a westbound freight:



After chasing it up the hill, I knew I had to model it in HO scale.

So here's the starting point, a Kato Dash 9 factory painted Santa Fe:


After disassembly, the model ran into my grit blasting booth where the hood lettering was removed:


And the cab lettering:


And the striping on the AC unit:


Up next, most of the long hood sides will be repainted silver, and I am waiting for some parts in the mail. I will have to change the cab side windows to the BNSF 4 window style, as well as removing the stock Kato pilot face ditch lights.
-Trevor

[bcrmlw]

So I masked and repainted the air conditioner only to discover the prototype has a large panel of louvers whereas the Kato unit does not. I found some suitable louvers cut from Cannon radiator grills and glued them on. Then I realized I should have painted the louvers before gluing them to the air conditioner. Back to the mask and paint....
-Trevor

[dekon]

This is gong to be cool looking.

[iomalley]

Just leave the louvers as is grey, and weather them. there's bound to be examples of AC units with grilles replaced...