Building the Illinois Central SD40A

[icrr3067]

I always wanted to bulid a SD40A but never had a way to make the frame. When Railflyer came around, I thought I was one step closer to making the model. Only to get screwed around by him, and again no model. But now that Athearn is making the SDP45 my dream is close to a reality.

In August of 1969 the Illinois Central purchased 13 SD40A's numbered 6006-6018. The IC wanted a larger fuel tank to make round trip runs between Chicago and the coal mines of Kentucky. The 5000 Gal fuel tank was only on the SDP45. The SD40A were also equipped with dynamic brakes, a first for the IC, and also featured a water sight glass, a spotting feature that becomes standard in EMD's -2 line. The SD40A weighed 413,700 pounds and were not allowed on the IC's Iowa Division and most branch spurs.


6007-Left-r by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

Some of the key building features of the SD40A. EMD use their SD39 Air Room Cleaner.


6008-3-r by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr


6007-2r by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

Also the body was a stretched SD40 45" was added behind the dymanic brake and before the radiator. All the EMD did was just welded sheet metal the the dymanic brake hatch. You can see it better in the picture above and below is another picture but after the IC rebuilt the SD40A and removed the dymanic brakes.


6008-2-r by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

Now the start of the project. First I had to make the sides of the engine. With the help of EMD blue prints and detail pictures I created the sides using Quarkexpress.


SD40Apt2 by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

My use for this is the template. I going to print this on stickers and cut it out on styrene. .010 for the base and .020 for the doors making it .030 when all said and done. But as I was doing research on the dimensions for the sides I saw that High Tech Details make SD39 sides, so I'm taking the SD39 sides and removing the Air Room Cleaner.


IMG_0398[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

Right now I'm still working on the Air Room Cleaner. Updates as I move foward.

[icghogger]

Nice Start, Tim, this is gonna be one sweet build!! Keep us posted for sure!!

[57603oh]

This looks interesting for sure, I am going to be following this build. Great work so far, looking forward to seeing the rest!

[icrr3067]

Did some more work over the weekend. First picture is the template of the side on the styrene, the back is on .010 and the template one is on .020.


IMG_0400[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

Next it the fun part start cutting.


IMG_0401[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

With the first side done here is the air room cleaner just placed next to the side. With this being the first time doing this, I didn't like how the side turned out so I'm going to redo it.


IMG_0402[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

[riss2509]

Awesome build! From a fellow local.

[bbrunell]

Not sure if you have read Brian's article on long hood builds, but I've found the article and posted.  I think there are some good tips outlined.  If you have read this already, apologies in advance...

www.6axlepwr.com/HOOD_SIDES_cover.html


-bill

[deez]

Tim, I also am very pleased to see Athearns anouncment and thats exactly what i thought to myself when i saw it. "Finaly I have a proper underframe for an SD40A model!".
I have a similar but different method for building the hood sides.
Yes the SD40A does use the same clean air room as the SD39 so the Hi-Tech details SD39 hood sides were the logical starting point. Just don't forget it takes the longer 40 series inertial filter instead of the 35/39 series inertial filters.
What I did different was to just remove the necessary vertical spacers between the engine/radiator compartment doors and make my own to corespond to the different SD40A door arrangement. Then I just lengthened the SD39 sides to make room for the added doors. Here's a pic:

The first radiator door btw is an 18"x65" Cannon #HD-1020

[icrr3067]

Aug 22, 2013 19:14:22 GMT -5 deez said:

Tim, I also am very pleased to see Athearns anouncment and thats exactly what i thought to myself when i saw it. "Finaly I have a proper underframe for an SD40A model!".
I have a similar but different method for building the hood sides.
Yes the SD40A does use the same clean air room as the SD39 so the Hi-Tech details SD39 hood sides were the logical starting point. Just don't forget it takes the longer 40 series inertial filter instead of the 35/39 series inertial filters.
What I did different was to just remove the necessary vertical spacers between the engine/radiator compartment doors and make my own to corespond to the different SD40A door arrangement. Then I just lengthened the SD39 sides to make room for the added doors. Here's a pic:

The first radiator door btw is an 18"x65" Cannon #HD-1020

Nicely done! And yes I do know that the intake filter is a sd40 and it fits good over the opening that high tech made. Hopefully I'll have more pics to post later tonight.

[stevef45]

That above picture of a hoodside, is that the hi-tech hoodside?

[icrr3067]

Well a little update. Tried again on the sides this time doing it the Brian Banna way.


IMG_0410[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

My first side that I build from scratch ever! Not bad for my first time! Still going to do it again to get everything perferct:


IMG_0409[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

And the whole side with the door just placed in there so I could see what it would look like:


IMG_0411[1] by Timothy N. Alund, on Flickr

The only thing that sucks right now is that school starts on Monday for me so alot of train building durning the week is going to be put on hold untill the weekends so updats may not be coming as fast but when some progress is made I will post it.

[Jack Napier]

Beautiful! Nice to see someone take the SD40A to task - as an Illinois Central fan, it's about time we see one of these bad boys done in model form.

[iomalley]

Are you using the RTR Athearn SD40 dynamic brake section? The only reason I ask is because it is just a cleaned up RPP mould and the side grilles are too tall and don't look right. Would hate for you to go thru all that work and add that crappy dyn brake section. I would use an Athearn SD40-2 section and modify the flares, or cut the grille out and use a see thru option. just a sug

[dtinut]

I'd use the DB from the Atlas SD35 (the version for the SDP35) which is what Dave Hussey and others use on some of their custom SD39/SD40 models. I bought 3-4 recently from Atlas, and it is a nice part.
Should be a cool model....