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I am considering repainting an old Athearn SD9 I picked up at the show today into out clubs home road name and colors. The club rosters several SD9's already that belong to the president of the club. I have always wanted to paint up one of my own. I have custom decals already made up for the club engines. The older paint scheme on the exhisting units is Southern sylvan green, CSX yellow frame stripe, and lettering is either yellow or white with white being the more common color used. The clubs name is Clinchfield Cumberland & Western, spelled out on the long hood, the lines nick name is "The Coal Haulin Route". A logo on the nose has CCW in a upside down triangle shape with a double pin stripe around the triangle. For my SD9, I am wanting to update the paint scheme from just a basic look to a bit more modern. The nick name in the past has only been on the cabooses on a white stripe just below the roof level ala NKP Cabooses and the roof's on the caboose's are black. I am planning on having a Prime Stratolite beacon centered on the roof and the air horn back between the two dynamic brake fans and offset to one side, winterization hatch on the front of the 4 rad fans. Unit will retain its high short hood during the rebuild process as the crews prefer the high nose for easy restroom access. The yellow frame stripe seems dated with units today sporting checkerboard or other reflective striping to aid in the units being seen. Pilot face Ditch lights will be installed on both ends and a snow plow on the short hood (front) end. What to do with moderizing the paint scheme is what I cant seem to decide on yet. Taking the basic colors, white road name lettering ect. Does anybody with good graphics ablities have any ideas on a knock out looking unit? Lets keep it in the relm of easy masking for painting purposes, ie no SF Warbonnet style striping here, I am not that good of a painter. Thanks in advance. Mike
The units heritage would be an Ex Burlington Northern unit bought second hand. Maybe a Southern green body, black roof and some kind of frame striping. The beacon and ditch lights will be functional. Just trying to keep the unit from looking so plain jane, which is how the rest of the clubs SD9 fleet look.
do you have photos of the other SD-9s to get a better idea of the other units that are there
No I dont unfortunatly. The one pic I have of the main engine terminal, the 2 SD9 lashups are burried behind other power and you can only barely make out the roof. They are basicly a "green dip" job in southern rr sylvan green, yellow frame stripe, road name in white RR roman lettering spelled out on long hood, CCW in an upside down triangle on each nose and a 5 chime airhorn. Very simple and basic. The older units have Champ custom decals and since you cant get those made anymore, I had a gentleman make me about 25 locomotive sets on an ALPS printer. I have both white and yellow lettering, but yellow is mainly for passenger units. I am thinking along the lines of painting the roof black, easier maintance as green would really show the grime and diesel soot, black trucks and fuel/air tanks, green body, black walkways, either red/white or yellow frame dashed striping, yellow hand rail ends and step edges. Mike
I'd do a black roof and frame, yellow dashed frame stripes and maybe a mo-pac style nose stripe in yellow along with yellow lettering as esspe's SD9s were used in dual service.
That might be intersting looking. I have been looking at modern day operators of SD9's to see what some of the shortlines and regionals are doing paint wise.
the AC&W was red and black they looked really sharp
yes they are, so are the Squaw Creek units in thier Illinois Terminal inspired paint scheme. We have run the daylights out of the old Athearn units. There are 3 teams of SD9's, First lash up are 2 custom low nose units, upgraded with turbocharged diesels with a Southern RR green unit in between them. Second lash up are three standard high nose CCW SD9's. Third lash up are two standard CCW SD9's and either a NW or SP black widow in the middle. The third team spends more time with just 2 units on general freight transfers between the two yards. We also have a couple teams of Proto 2K SD9's but they have had many issues, definatly not as bullet proof as the old fat body Athearns. Here are some pics of club to enjoy. Mike
If you look close, you can just see the 2 unit SD9 CCW team poking out of the roundhouse, look for the green unit with yellow frame.
Nice paint scheme, simple but nice. Unfortunatly the lettering sets I have wont work as they are either white or yellow lettering. I got the green paint laid down today before work. I will decide what to do next in a day or so when I have time to sit down and work on it some more. I did get the numberboards done and the stratolite beacon mounted to the roof, along with the 3 chime air horn. I put ditch lights on the pilot face on both ends, both ends are drilled to accept micro bulbs. If I could find a decent supply of correct size fiber optic material that is the same size as the micro bulbs, that would be even better, but no luck so far.
I have most of the decaling done. I would love to barricade stripe the pilot face's on each end, but not sure whats the best way to apply the decal with all the molded on details and the opening for the coupler as well as the foot boards. I have presized barricade stripe decals for diesel pilots, but they dont have the cut outs for the coupler slot ect. Any suggestions and help to do this? Thanks Mike
Here is a current pic of the shell on the bench. I rationalized the lack of yellow frame stipe as current FRA regs require all the decaling to be reflective now. So I deleted the yellow frame stipe for a candy cane style reflective band along the frame rails. I also made this unit a operation lifesaver unit, this side is a bit hard to see at this angle as the lifesaver logo is black, the other side is white. I stole those decals from a CSX caboose decal set. Still aways to go, but she is starting to take form.
looking good, as for the decals on the pilot, you'll just need to take your time and cut them to fit
I decided to leave off the barricade stripes. With the ditch lights on both ends, she is more than visable to motorists. She is gloss coated and drying now. I will take new pics once I get her back on her power chassis and handrails installed. Cheers Mike
I just put the decals right across the coupler pocket hole. When it's good and dry, use a sharp #11 blade to trim off the unneeded decal material.
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