We've been in the throws of continuous rainy days here in early April. Usually, I'd be outside for most of the evenings working on getting the yard in shape, but the yard is currently super saturated, and wetness continues to fall from the sky. Suddenly I find myself with idle hands down here in the basement and my Reading C630 kept catching my eye. I don't currently run that locomotive much, and it's not that it doesn't run well or that I don't like the look of it - it's just that almost all of my Conrail locomotives are weathered and detailed and I like running them more often. Anyway, it's time to change that.
I got looking for inspiration on the internet - taking a look at pictures from the early Conrail rainbow years, and ran across this picture courtesy of the Conrail Historical Society:
Unbeknownst to me, CR 6757 in it's years on the Reading was road number 5304, which happens to be the unit I own! My buddy from bigbluetrains.com, Charlie Bowyer also had a shot he took of the same locomotive's other side. I figured it was kismet! My Reading 5304 would also undergo the transformation to a Conrail patch out unit, CR 6757.
Here's the unit in it's semi-pristine condition as a Reading unit:
And of course, nothing much on my layout doesn't have a weathered look, so it's going to get a pretty full weathering treatment after the patchout.
First thing I had to do was order some detail parts. You may notice in the photo above that the locomotive lacks a front right handrail, a set of air horns, a full complement of air tanks, and a Reading-unique feature, rain gutters on the roof above the windows. The unit above is a Stewart Hobbies version of the C630, and Bowser's website has a good number of their parts and detail parts that will fit Stewart or Bowser Alco units. In addition to the railing (a full set), an air tank for the left side, and a set of Cal Scale 3-chime horns, they had a detail kit for a C630, so what the heck - I've just committed myself to quite a bit of work, but in the end, I really think I will have a special locomotive to run on my layout.
I also researched some ideas for creating the rain gutters over the cab windows. An internet forum suggested using 0.01"-diameter wire, bending and gluing to a scored area on the cab. I bought some wire from ebay. Another good alternative would have been to order part number 190-615 from Bowser - you guessed it, C630 rain gutter.
While I was waiting for all of that stuff to come in, I did what I could to get the unit ready for the patching. I removed all of the handrails and I masked off areas I was going to paint over (the diamonds on the front and rear plus a rectangular area under the cab windows and a black patch over the large road number on the long hood.
I did give thought to applying a "Bee Line" logo on the long hood and then patching over it, but the only C630 to get Bee Lines were the last 5 which had Hi Adhesion trucks which I do not have on this model.
Here's some pix:
You may notice that I also changed the number boards (both on the front and rear of the loco. I used my inkjet printer to print white numbers (Arial, 6 pt font) on a black background and I adhered the paper to the plastic number boards with Aleene's tacky glue. You may not be too impressed with the clean lines on my masked edges, but that's partly intentional - the prototype patchouts were often very sloppily done, I'm thinking with a roller and some black paint.
My detail parts came in from Bowser in a TINY, TINY plastic bag of TINY, TINY parts. Tiny parts are a challenge for anyone, but when you get older than 55 (like I am), it gets even harder. Between challenged eyesight and arthritic hands, I had to take my time and resist the urge to throw things across the room. Anyway, the tiny additions were grab irons at the front and rear, lifting eyes on the top, windshield wipers for the front and rear windows of the cab, an airline on the front and rear, and a new set of 3-chime horns. Pictures follow:
The picture above is the bracket I made for the horn assembly. I cut it out of a plastic wire jumper and sliced it on a diagonal and then painted it yellow. This is the approximate location the horn would have been, and you can see what I think are the remains of an old bracket that must have been snapped off by the previous owner. My horns came bent - I asked and received a new one from Bowser, but in the meantime I carefully unbent the first one and mounted it in the bracket by drilling a hole with my pin vise.
Here you can see the horns in place with the glue drying. You can also see the windshield wipers at each window - which were tricky to bend to the right angles and get situated before adding a dab of glue on the top arm with the end of a needle. The two back windows now have them too.
Here you can see the pin vise work drilling out holes in the body for the grab irons. Stewart Hobbies already had points on the body pre-indented for the grab irons, but I found it useful to point each one with the end of a pin to give the drill a place to grab.
Here's the other end drilled. A little bit back from the back edge are the holes for the lifting eyes.
Front end grab irons and lifting eyes are installed. I pushed them in, painted them, pushed them deeper and cut off the extra on the inside before hitting each with a dab of glue on the inside.
Here's the rear end.
After reinstalling the cab, it was time to decal. Used Penn Central Loco decals from Microscale, cutting out the "C" and "R" for the "CR" patches on the long hood and front and rear diamonds.
You may see that the rain gutters are installed in the photo. They were hard to get right, from getting the right length to the right bend to the right placement on the roof and getting them glued down. You wouldn't think two pieces of flat wire would be that complicated, but there were. However, this C630 now looks like a legit ex-Reading unit, minus a few small details. Next will be weathering this beast to make it look like the prototype photos above.
One thing I forgot to mention. I got a full set of new handrails for this beast since I was missing the one on the front right corner. I spray painted them green first and then did the horizontal railing and railing ends in yellow - brushing them on. I won't show them until the end of the weathering effort.