A couple of years ago I bought a GE U25B
in Erie Lackawanna livery. It was a Stewart Hobbies model and I'd always had good luck with their products, most of which were purchased by Bowser Trains who still support with parts, etc.
When I got the locomotive (#2513) I noticed that not all of the handrails were supplied - it was used and I got it on ebay, so buyer beware. You'll note in the photo above, my model has a double front windo and the handrails are deck-mounted in holes in the frame. However, I thought I'd just check out the Bowser website and buy an extra set of handrails.
Lo and behold, they didn't have the handrails in stock and after a couple of email exchanges I found out that they might have the parts in about a year. Disappointed, I delayed doing anything about it until a few weeks ago when I visited the site again and found that they had handrails! $10 + shipping and they were on the way. I got what I thought was a pretty substantial package and in it were two types of handrails - one deck mounted, the other sideframe mounted. Interested, I started doing some research on the U25B and the spotting differences. Turns out the windows and handrails go along with each other. The Phase I and II U25B's had a single front-center window and deck-mounted handrails, while phases III and IV had double front windows and sideframe-mounted handrails. There is a great discussion on these phases on https://dieseldetailer.proboards.com/thread/15306/u25b. Great research there, and upon further review, the Stewart body I have has a sloping nose which would have made it only for a phase IV locomotive, but it has phase IIa boxes on the right side under the cab and an early Phase exhaust stack. I think maybe the new Stewart U25B offerings might be better reflections of actual prototypical U25Bs, but I'm fine with what I have for now. It just goes to show you that the model you buy isn't necessarily completely representative of any particular locomotive unless the manufacturer makes a lot of different versions of each locomotive and is particular about what parts to include with each offering. Bowser currently offers more prototypical models, but you pay for those little details.
So what did 2513 have? When I looked at a lot of photos, I discovered that 2513 SHOULD have double windows (check!) and sideframe-mounted handrails (Nope!). Now, to make things even more interesting, the Erie Lackawanna bought both Phase II and III U25B's. If I picked anything between 2501 and 2512, those would have a single center window and deck-mounted handrails. However, this would mean procuring a new cab and painting it, etc. whereas if I wanted to be realistic with 2513, all I really needed to do would be drill a bunch of holes for the side-frame mounted handrails I already had in hand. This was going to be a project.... not that I really needed one.
I also decided that this was going to be a "CR" paint out. During the first years of Conrail, not everything got painted Conrail blue, and sometimes it took many years before blue paint was applied. In some cases, the locomotives were retired before ever being painted blue. In the meantime, maintenance facilities painted out the old logos and slapped a "CR" stencil on a couple places on the hoods and sides along with a new number. I have a "CR" stencil locomotive (A C628 Penn Central that I created a few years ago starting with an undecorated model that got Penn Central logos that I painted over and added "CR" stencils), and I thought this EL U25B was another candidate for a paint-out. What I'm headed for would look something like the photo below:
Since this is a pretty good picture, I thought I'd try to replicate it. Note the double front center windows and the side-frame mounted handrails. Someday we'll see this project completed and I'll update this blog as we complete the transformation.
I got crackin'. Pulled out my pin vise (you can see it just above the locomotive on my desk) and a 0.026" bit (that's just a bit bigger than the pins in the stanchions of the handrails). I laid the long handrail on the left side of the locomotive and started scoring the plastic in the locations that would have to be drilled. Then I had to drill. For the long rails on each side that's 8 holes and you have to be pretty precise or the verticals don't look vertical. It takes patience, but persistence pays off!
After finishing both of the long rails on each side, I took the same approach to the short rails on the low nose and for the front and rear rails, but ended up using the predrilled holes - no drilling necessary there The front and rear handrails were different and needed holes drilled on the ends. I started lining everything up and locating each of the four end hole locations and then got to thinking.....
If I wanted to hold the short railing sections on permanently, I needed to glue them in place. It would also be easier to drill holes on the ends of the locomotive if I had the whole thing in pieces. I decided it was time to disassemble the whole locomotive in preparation to finish drilling the holes, weathering it and doing the "Conrail Patch" job.
So, in the photo above you can see where I've drilled 4 holes near the top of the frame (gray dots). The front and rear handrails have pegs that slide into those holes and pick up the lower set of two holes low and outboard. I also decided this was a good time to mount MU hoses on the front and rear. I'd bought some Cal Scale hoses a few months ago and it was time to open them up. You can see that there are 4 nubs on each side of the front frame, and I drilled two holes, one between the outermost nubs and one between the innermost nubs - that lined up pretty well with the MU hose mount pegs. I glued the posts on the back side of the frame with some quick-setting CAA.
It was then time to paint out all of the Erie Lackawanna logos. I tried to pick a maroon color (Ceramcoat Barn Red) that didn't exactly match what was already on the locomotive to mimic the picture above. Believe me, it was hard to paint over the lettering of a proud railroad - I guess that's probably what a lot of the people felt at the time as well. Conrail was just starting, and I think the prevailing thought was that the new government-supported entity was never going to work. Even though a bunch of equipment got scrapped and a lot of duplicative lines were eliminated, eventually the company got it right, and by the mid 1990's was a very healthy railroad system that was bought out by two giants - The Norfolk Southern and the CSX.
...and there she sits - denuded of logos. As you can see in the paint out picture I'm going off of, there were "CR" decals on the sides, front (inside the diamond), and back. Most of the early CR decals (and the ones in the picture) were derived from the "C" and the "R" from the Penn "C"ent"R"al logo. Fortunately, I have some leftover Penn Central decal sets that I can cut into (sample shown below). That's next - decal application. I'll also use the numbers from the same decal sets, but they're white, so I'll have to paint the number boards black before I apply the white numbers. I painted out the number boards in flat black and started adding decals the next night. I also noticed from some good closeups of the pristine factory delivered locomotives that each step on the locomotive had a yellow front stripe as a way of warning the engineers. I added all of those stripes with a little stripe of yellow on the front of each step.
Next step is to weather this model and paint those new railings. By the end of the weekend this loco should be finished!
While the paint was drying on the railings (I decided to paint them a base gray and then add the yellow paint at the end rails later), I got my PanPastel Artists' Pastels out (black, two shades of gray, rust) and got my makeup brushes out and laid waste to the virgin gray on this model. I probably overdid it, but Conrail in the rainbow years was never a pretty railroad. There was a point where I decided that I'd added a bit too much grime - I simply dampened a paper towel and pulled some of the PanPastel power off of the plastic. When I was satisfied with the look I hit the whole thing (first covering the windows with masking tape) with Testor's Dullcote.
Next I added the handrails, but against the distressed and weathered locomotive, they were a bit too nice looking.
Hit the rails with more PanPastels, put the couplers in and except for relocating the front and rear lights, this project is finished. Here's the finished CR U25B (Road number 2589) taken in the same location as Erie Lackawanna 2513 before the project started....
...and here she is leading the coal drag under I-80 in White Haven.
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