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I'm posting a few photos of a couple of athearn SD40-2's in my roster. I received the BN tigerstripe from a friend awhile back and don't know if it was a kit or something else, and more recently purchased the Milwaukee Road. The M Road was an athearn kit and doesn't include a lot of the detail that the BN has. Is there anyplace I can buy an accessory kit to deck out the M Road, or did the BN come with all these in a RTR form? They are both nice models but the BN has superior looks from the details.
I think Bowser offers a SD40-2 detail kit which looks to include almost everything besides the plow and beacon, are they fairly easy to apply? Figured I'd ask the "diesel detail freak"!!
The BN engine is an older BB kit that has had all the details added by the modeler you bought it from. As has been stated, you can get most of the detail parts from Details West, etc. The kit Bowser is selling is the old Cal Scale line they bought out and it would work fine for your MILW engine. Look close and you'll see the little dimples on the ends. Those mark where the grab irons go. Those are a sign of the later Athearn RTR line. You'll need several #78 and #80 drill bits since you'll break at least one or two on every job. The correct beacon type would be the Prime PM-8911. There's no exact match for this beacon I'm aware of but Precision Scale makes a beacon which is very close. Don't have a clue on the right plow. You really need to find a picture of the engine since the MILW used a bunch of different plows on the SD-40's.
details west makes a beacon that is super close to the prime beacon, I wanna say its thier 106 beacon light, has a alum base with a flat top amber lense. its actualy a model of the earlier Prime beacon light that had a slightly higher base than the later models, but it looks fine on the model. I actualy have a real prime 8911 beacon light from a BN GP10 in my train room. Cheers Mike
I was able to pick up a couple items for this model. Not sure how prototypical they will be, but they will dress it up nonetheless. I found a western cullen RB-126 beacon along with a plow PL-155 from Details West. I also picked up a Cal-Scale EMD detail kit. All the contents of the detail kit are very small. I assume you guys paint them prior to installation? If so, do you use an airbrush?
Thanks for any help!
personally, i install the parts, then hand paint them after... especially if the model is prepainted like yours... if its an undecorated model, then i would install all parts, then airbrush, and hand paint the touch up work..
