Minor Conversion

[MadHatter]

Hi All

As is probably known now around the forum, I model railways in South Africa.

I decided that I would like at least one set of diesels in Spoornet's "Traction" Scheme (Locos that are leased in Africa and Brazil are in the following colours and say Spoornet Traction/ Spoornet Traçion).

I don't have letter decals yet so the numbers that will be applied to the cab and the word Traction/ Traçion will come later, or I might just leave them like this because not all of the diesels say those words with it.

I'm a great believer that it's sometimes the smaller details that count on a layout and make it interesting.

So here goes:

The Blue Diesel is the original, the shot next to it is after I painted the shell, and the last shot is the last stage.

 

[Kevinkrey]

I like those. They have that heavy duty drag freight look. I don,t know much about African Railways other than that they are in Africa, what will they haul?

 

[MadHatter]

Well, the railways in South Africa have always liked locos that can be used in every duty.

They are actually mainline diesels and can be used on passenger, fast container services or even heavy haul coal trains.

 

[CN_Fan]

Who is the builder of the prototype?? GE, GM or somebody else??

 

[MCL_RDG]

I'm glad...

..you dropped by and showed some stuff.

Mark (still lurking)<--------inside joke.

 

[MadHatter]

Those are GE, four stroke diesels. U26C's

 

[Triplex]

Who is the builder of the prototype?? GE, GM or somebody else??

Look at the cab side windows, the nose, the trucks. You can see essentially the same features as a North American U-boat.

 

[MadHatter]

The real deal...

Thought I'd post a picture of the real version. This picture was taken by a gentleman by the name of André Kritzinger. His son produces a few SAR/ Spoornet kits himself.

Note that mine is the version without a dynamic brake grid. Also, sorry for the blurry pics earlier.

 

[Kevinkrey]

It kind of does resemble an LS&I loco, except for the color of course.

 

[Spawn of Chaos]

That looks like one of EMD's export models...they were like about three feet shorter HEIGHTWISE than US locos...weird things...

Then again, speaking of weird things...

DD trucks under an SD45, and...

U50-style BB span bolster trucks under a Dash 9-44CW.

This is in Brazil, on "meter gauge." The rules for meter gauge require that these powerful locos be on at least 8 axles, so yeah...

 

[green_elite_cab]

cool south african U-boats! its nice to see the U-boats still run elsewhere in the world. even though there are different cabs and vents, you can still see the pug nose and some of the rear radiator having commonality with north american U-boats.

 

[Kevinkrey]

That would be an easy model to detail, there would be no extra parts needed. It looks very basic, I like it.

 

[MadHatter]

That would be an easy model to detail, there would be no extra parts needed. It looks very basic, I like it.

Well......

I need to buy: Two- chime airhorns x 2.
Someone locally is going to make a "clip on" dynamic brake grid.
I will need to add hand rails along the top part of the high- hood.

I need to drill out where the red marker lights are and install very small LED's.

I've got the yellow hand rails seen connected to the chassis, will add them when proper layout is up.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Triplex]

its nice to see the U-boats still run elsewhere in the world.

They do, but it should be noted the export models retained the U-series designation through the era where domestic models used Dash 7 and even Dash 8 designations.

 

[Spawn of Chaos]

Some people in Brazil even use Dash 9's!

See my pic above!