diesel locomotive suggestions


brubakes

Member
Looking for some suggestions on diesel locomotives. time frame of 1940 - 1960. What is out there. NKP would be best, or painted but unlettered would be good too.
 
For the NKP, you have a very wide choice of everything but F units, since the NKP never had any. The most common models painted for the NKP are GP-7's GP-9's, SD-9's, SW 800's and SW 9's's. These are all made by Atlas. PA-1's are available for passenger service and you can still find some Athearn units in the Bluebird scheme. In the more exotic realms, there are Alco S-2 and S-4 switchers. Alco also made DL-701, RS-3's, and C-420 roadswitchers for the NKP. Just after 1960, the NKP also bought GP-30's and GP-35's until the merger with the N&W in 1965. The GP-30 by Bachmann can generally be found on e-bay at a reasonable price. There were also a few odd Baldwins that I think were only made in brass. So, you can usually find the GP-7, GP-9, GP-30, SW-8, SW-900, and PA-1 pre-painted in the NKP scheme. All the others you'd have to do yourself. Getting a black undecorated unit makes things pretty easy since all you have to do is add the road names and the stripes. Thae later simplified stripe scheme is very easy to decal. The earlier full striping scheme will need some patience since there are a lot of stripes.
 
Modeling the Nickel Plate, (I do) :) involves putting Mars Lights on just about every locomotive you purchase. Everything from RS-3s to the last GP-35 have them. The NKP had GP-30s (numbered 900-909) and one GP-35 (#910 a wreck replacement unit), these locomotives had low nose mounted flush Mars Lights and nose mounted Bells. The Bells on the GP-30s were mounted in a recess below the Mars Light, and the Bell on #910 was mounted in a square recess on the Engineer's Side of the Low Nose. Also, there were no diesels on the NKP with Dynamic Brakes.
 



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