Ancient N Scale: Atlas C-liners

[MikeOwnby]

I ran out of yellow striping for my Midland Valley locos, so I guess I'll switch gears.

I'm fascinated by oddities, and the 5-axle Fairbanks-Morse C-liner is just odd enough to pique my interest. These were only made in N-scale by Atlas, and that was back in the 1970's. Now, if you haven't seen some of the N scale stuff from back then, lemme tell ya...it ain't pretty. Nonetheless, I decided I was indeed going to make these old-timers presentable and have some really nice items to run around the RR Museum/Excursion Line portion of my layout.

The most ridiculous aspect of this old Atlas loco is the air horns. Instead of being attached or extending from the body, Atlas actually made a HUGE dip in the front of the cab and the horns are nestled down in there. Take a look at the pic below of the original in its Santa Fe livery. The other two major problems are the front pilot being attached to the front truck along with a third of the nose, and the fact that there are no ladders extending down from the body. In the second photo you can see that I've proceeded to the point where I've fixed the first two problems. The roof line is now filled and smooth as it should be, and I've removed the bottom nose portion from the truck and attached it properly to the main body. I simply glued these on simply because the pilots of the C-liners won't be under any stress so I don't have to worry about them having adequate pulling strength.

My plan is to use the C-liners always in the front of the consist, with Kato F-units pushing them. This is prototypical, as I've found pics of both NYC (CPA+F7B) and CN (CPA+F7A) hooked up exactly that way, and by no small coincidence those are the two liveries I'll be painting these guys in. I'm adding diaphragms to the locos which will hide the two tiny wires I'll be running from the F-unit's DCC board forward to an LED in the C-liner. The two units will essentially be permanently wired together as one.

The second photo shows the progress so far, with both the C-liners (their dummy chassis in the background) and the Kato F-units (foreground) in primer. I'm hoping somebody finds this interesting and/or informative. Next up is drilling very precise holes upward through the loco body walls and installing metal ladders on the C-liners.

 

[Burlington Bob]

Nice so far, I'll be waiting to see the end results. Good luck.

 

[Cjcrescent]

A friend of mine had a set of these when he first started in N-scale, and needless to say, they were dogs. When he got a couple more engines, he took the guts out and turned them into dummies. They stayed that way until he passed a couple of years ago, and were the oldest engines on his layout. I think he got them in 1968-69. I like to see what everyone does to their locos, and I'm definitely interested.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Horns and Ladders

Drilling holes within the walls of an N-scale locomotive is nerve-wracking. But I did it, as you can see in the photo below, and the C-liners now have proper stirrup ladders. I also found out that Atlas was somewhat correct in what they modeled, as when I was tracking down more prototype photos it did come to light that there is indeed a slightly recessed area in the roof for the horns. So I got to gouge some chunks out of my beautifully smooth roofs. Ah well. Anyway, the original Atlas recessed area was greatly exaggerated from what I can tell, though it is a bit of guesswork since so many photos are from the ground looking up. There was just nowhere near that big a dip above the windshield, though, so hopefully this smaller recess I've done is at least very close to prototypical. You can see the new recessed area in the middle portion of the photo, along with seeing the ladders after they've all been inserted into those tedious, nerve-wracking holes and CA'ed into place. The final portion of the picture shows the air horns in place. That was difficult simply because I had no template to go by, and in N-scale it is REALLY difficult to get tiny parts like air horns lined up. But with the help of an extra stirrup ladder with which to kinda square things up within that horn recess, I did manage to get the holes drilled and horns installed fairly nicely.

I need to look up some photos again to see how the front pilot face looks on these FM units and decide what I'm going to do there. Frankly I have a feeling that they'll have to stay as is and I'll just glue a static coupler into place. We'll see. If that's the case then these guys are looking at heading to the paint shop now. If not, I'll post pics of the modified pilot faces soon.

 

[Burlington Bob]

Have you checked into the possibility of remotoring them with a Kato or Atlas motor? After all that work it would be a shame to end up with a nice model that runs like a clunker from the 70's.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Oh yeah, believe me...I bought two sets, both with a powered and a dummy unit. The powered units are just unusable even though they technically did run.

What I'm revamping are the dummies and they'll be pushed by powered Kato F-units, with just a couple wires running between the two so that the C-liners will have working headlights powered by the F-unit DCC board. Guess I didn't make that completely clear.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Front pilot done

I just couldn't go with the gap-toothed look, so I decided to go ahead and tackle the front pilot face. What I did was CA a Kato coupler into the old coupler receptacle to begin with. It didn't technically need that brass spring material that you see there (since it is just solidly glued in), but it worked nicely to hold the coupler properly in place while the CA was applied. Now I needed some plastic to fill in the gap in the front pilot face, so it seemed like a good time to cut some plastic away on the two chassis. I cut away enough in the front so that I can install actual windows instead of just having black plastic right up against them. Of course the windows will have to be custom made, and I'm not looking forward to that, but I've done it before for a Canadian cab I installed on a GP38-2, so it should be do-able. Let's hope, right? The two holes that were drilled in the back are for the same reason, putting actual window glass over the back door. I also had to cut a slope out of the rear. This is because the body will no longer slide straight onto the chassis as it used to. Once I glued the front pilot face onto the body, it now has to slide in underneath that, and THEN pop the back in. Well, that angle won't let it do that with the chassis still at full height, so cutting that diagonal allows the back to slide into place. The last hole is drilled through the front of the chassis for the LED to pop into the nose. I filed away a little bit around that hole in the hopes that I won't have to file the "nose" of the LED, but I may still have to a little bit. We'll see.

Anyway, now that I had my plastic bits, I cut them to size and glued them into place. A little putty to fill the gaps, some sanding, and voila. A completely non-snaggle-toothed pilot face for the ol' Fairbanks-Morse. Now I believe I am actually ready to start on the paint jobs.

 

[MikeOwnby]

The units are now ready to paint. I'm not going to bother posting pictures because they'd be just slightly more splotchy versions of what you see above for the most part. I did some sanding to make the glued-on bottom portion of the pilot face smoother and remove as much of the join line being noticeable as I could. Also noticed that the headlight bezel was damaged on one unit, and boy was that an annoying and frustrating find. I assume I damaged it when I was working on the horns somehow. In any case, there's just no way I'm going to start over and ditch all the work done on that guy, so I sanded the bezel down just a bit to make the damage less noticeable and we'll just continue with that imperfection in place. Black (or dark grey) tends to hide imperfections, so I'll make sure the damaged guy is the NYC. The red nose of the CN unit would just emphasize the damage.

Anyway...I'm sitting back for a day or two before I start on the paint. The decals are going to be a real challenge (NYC especially) on these riveted cab units, and the last couple of days have not left me with an abundance of patience.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Main portion of the paint jobs done. I've got some touching up to do because the solvent-based red-orange I had to use (only CN orange I could find) invaded my tape job just a bit around the front doors and the front coupler. Usually don't have that problem with the acrylic, but I had to use a lot more pressure than what they said on the bottle because my airbrush just wasn't spraying much out after the first couple shots. Probably had some tiny bit clogging something up. Anyway...the NYC got painted yesterday morning, so I'm going to begin decaling that guy while the CN's paint job gets touched up and has some time to cure.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Well, I've changed gears right as I was getting ready to deal the NYC units. It'd been bugging me that the F7B was going to be a complete anomaly since NYC apparently only had A-units in the F7. I wanted an E7B that was powered (and didn't cost a fortune because it came with sound I don't want), and such a thing just didn't exist. Until it finally dawned on me that I could most likely swap out the Life-Like E7A & B bodies between chassis. I have a Rock Island E7 set that I'd meant to repaint to begin with, but lost my nerve on the paint job I wanted to do. Checked the bodies and sure enough: Works like a champ, I had already installed a decoder into it, and it runs like a dream. So...I've already repainted the F7B in black and will make the CN units a CPA/F7B/F7A set. The E7B has been stripped of paint & will shortly be dark gray to make the NYC pair a completely prototypical CPA/E7B consist.

Frankly this is barely a delay, all things considered. Both paint jobs are just straight up "paint it all" paint jobs. I can begin decaling on the NYC CPA and the CN F7A while I wait for the paint to cure on the two newly painted guys. And I've got a very pretty Rock Island E7A dummy that'll look good in my railroad museum. I'm really happy it dawned on me I could do this just in time. Usually such epiphanies occur well after the decals have been applied.

 

[RGSfan]

Looks pretty good to me. One question though. Why the difference in where the red is between the Cliner and the F unit?

 

[MikeOwnby]

Looks pretty good to me. One question though. Why the difference in where the red is between the Cliner and the F unit?

You'd need to ask CN about that one

I honestly don't know, unless they were just trying out a different paint job, or for whatever reason decided that it was easier or better to paint the C-liner that way. The only two photos I've found, though, do have it painted that way, and I've not found any F-unit ever painted that way. Which, of course, is why I didn't also use that variation on the F-unit. Just another oddity that makes the unit interesting to me, really.

CN also seems to have had different paint schemes over the years regarding the flat face of the F-units (what you'd call the "rear" of an A or both ends of a B). I've found pics with all black, black with an orange door, and all orange. I chose to keep the flat ends all black because I both like it aesthetically and it'll help camouflage the two small black wires I'll have running between the B-unit and the C-liner for the LED. From what I can tell they started going to orange on both ends circa 1980 or so. Since the units are part of the "railroad museum" portion of my layout, though, I do have the luxury of choosing the paint scheme I like rather than being tied to one specific time period and there's also the fact that C-liners were probably completely gone by 1980.

 

[Sirfoldalot]

I've enjoyed your thread on the re-build.
Keep it going!

 

[NScaler]

Very good work there Mike. And way to pay attention to detail like a champ! What putty do you use?

 

[MikeOwnby]

I've enjoyed your thread on the re-build.
Keep it going!

Thank you. It didn't seem like the view count on the thread was going up much, so I was wondering if it was really something anyone wanted to see. I shall continue.

Very good work there Mike. And way to pay attention to detail like a champ! What putty do you use?

I just use Tamiya putty. It's so easy to work, I didn't trust it at first. Figured it was too soft & porous and would suck up paint and be difficult to finish properly. The only other real experience I've had with such things is Bondo (sp?) on cars, which is super-hard & takes paint well, or carpenter's type putties, which are soft & easy to work but don't. This is an uncanny combo of both the best qualities in one & works very well.

So...back on track now, so to speak. I've made it back to the "ready to decal" stage. That, and I put some of the removed weight back in the E7 chassis back by the decoder. I'd originally left it off completely, but under pulling load that lack of weight on just one end causes it to develop a little "hop" at times. Painted the sides of the weight where it'll show behind the windows and put black vinyl tape around the decoder so that the red and white of it aren't visible. And of course the major paint is done on all units now, as well as the touch-ups that were needed. In the "too damn late now" category, I also realized the CN F7's only had one headlight. With no exceptions, apparently. Except this one. This one is the exception because there is no way I'm sanding, filling and starting over on that guy. Mainly because that solvent-based paint I had to use for the orange is just a pain to shoot. It doesn't seem to want to go on well or cover well either one. It ended up being a lot thicker coat than I've ever had to use with acrylic, so there's no way I could just work on that one area and spray in a patch like I normally could. Without stripping it down completely and starting fresh it would just be this ultra-thick blob of plasticity on the nose by the time I was through. Not gonna happen. I also know I'm definitely sticking with acrylics as much as humanly possible for the next forever or so.

I'm not gonna try big decals until they've had a little more curing time, but I may start with some of the smaller ones. Still have to paint the trucks silver for the NYC units too. Getting there.

 

[NScaler]

Those are going to look very cool. I love that color scheme.

 

[RGSfan]

You'd need to ask CN about that one

I've not found any F-unit ever painted that way. Which, of course, is why I didn't also use that variation on the F-unit. Just another oddity that makes the unit interesting to me, really.

Was looking to see what the finished paint scheme would look like and stumbled on this on Railpictures. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=353943&nseq=16


What I find interesting is the ditch lights on it in 1967. Other than losing some white stripes CN hasn't really changed there paint scheme much have they.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Was looking to see what the finished paint scheme would look like and stumbled on this on Railpictures. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=353943&nseq=16


What I find interesting is the ditch lights on it in 1967. Other than losing some white stripes CN hasn't really changed there paint scheme much have they.

Ah, so they DID put that paint scheme on F-units also at one time. Wasn't a single pic on rrpicturearchives.net that had it

That's okay, though, I don't have to stab myself in the brain because the pictures I all ready found were taken very close together and therefore the two paint schemes did overlap. So I'll have one of the "modern" paint jobs on the F-unit and the legacy paint job on the C-liner. Heck, why am I even over-thinking this? I mean, it is a museum piece on my modern layout, so a little leeway is allowed

You have to wonder if the changing paint jobs (this was fairly early in the switch from the green paint) and the ditch lights were part of some safety study that CN (at the time fully govt. owned) was conducting. What was most visible (orange or black over orange?), whether the ditch lights enhanced visibility and so forth. I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to find information about that, though.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Windows!!!

I was dreading having to completely scratch-build the windshields for these C-liners. Biggest reason is that the plastic which will block the light from shining back from the nose and into the cab comes RIGHT up to the bottom of the windshields. So anything I built would have to be ultra-precise. Difficult to make, and also difficult to glue in.

I actually had a brainstorm and decided to see how well the Kato F-unit windshield might fit. It's a hair too wide to just slide right in and I didn't force it, but I did then look to my non-running museum collection. To my utter glee, an Atlas E7 windshield slides in VERY close to where it needs to be. I can go back later and build some scratch windows for those non-runners and that will be much easier since I don't have to worry about fitting them quite as closely as I would have these running units with their pesky lights

It did need some modification, though, and one big drawback was that one of the E7 windshields had been pretty badly abused and had both glue and scratches all over. Always do the hardest one first, right? I mean, sanding a plastic windshield back to smooth and CLEAR definitely doesn't fall under "easy". I started with 1000-grit sandpaper until I seemed to have it all smoothed out (turns out I didn't quite, but...), then began wet-sanding from that 1000 to 2000 to 4000 to 6000 to 12000 grit.

It took probably close to an hour of wet-sanding all together, but it brought out a pretty decent windshield from the mess. You can see that there's still a scratch (brakeman side) and a bit of rough from the glued spot (engineer side), but all in all it's okay. The boo-boos are far less noticeable in real-life N-scale than in this blown-up picture. Now all I had left to do was file a notch in the middle of the windshield for the center post (otherwise it sat too far back in the cab) and remove the excess material hanging beneath the windshield. I did this very slowly by using repeated passes of an x-acto blade. It did take a while, but it was a much cleaner and more accurate cut than I would have accomplished with a saw. Now they fit in just right, and the full structure of the piece allows me to glue it in easier than a tiny scratch-built piece would have. Mission accomplished

The altered and sanded piece is on the left. The one on the right is the second windshield that I just need to cut and file down.

 

[MikeOwnby]

Minor Progress

Had to take a couple days off, but back on it now. I know I keep threatening to start on the decals, but I decided to get the diaphragms done first so I wouldn't have to be handling the units more than necessary once the decals are on.

I also got the MTL coupler conversion installed in the back of the C-Liner, and as you can see the trucks have been properly painted & wheels put back in also. You can see that the C-Liner already has one of the working diaphragms mounted, and you can see on the E7 where I've scraped away the paint so that the styrene cement will bond properly. I'm not sure how much those diaphragms were even used beyond the first few years of cab units' lives, especially once they started getting mixed with hood units, but at one point they were used and they come in quite handy for hiding the wires I need to run between the two units.

I was going to decal the CN units first but then realized I still need to order decoders for them, so NYC it is