ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.
Anyway, the question I have (and reason for the thread) is about SD70's. Are they all the same length? I started with an SD70ACe for this when I made it and I am wondering if I could not use some other variation in the SD70 series because ACe's are a little cost prohibitive still to go hacking one up.
I would personally recommend (by the looks of the sketch) if you can get your hands on a Athearn Genesis SD70/70MAC/75 frame. Some railroad that you don't care about the body at a good price of ebay or something. There SHOULDN'T be much of length difference between them and 70ACes, and will be a lot cheaper. Then get ahold of 2- F59PH shells, and "cut and paste" accordingly. But, those, I have no idea on prices those are going for, or if you can get lucky enough to just find the shells themselves.
Looks like that will be a fun little project. Good Luck!
**hmmm, looking at it more after my original post, I think the trickiest part of the build even with F59 shells, will be extending the truck area/moving the leading edge of the skirts back so they fit.
***another edit- I am seeing that the proto length of a SD70ACe is 73'4". SD70M is 73'4", and SD70MAC at 74' even. I wouldn't imagine Athearn making the 8 inch difference in their model to force 2 different runs
Athearn did make 2 different frames to account for the difference in length. This is why they SD70MAC is still in production while the SD70 and SD70M are not although they may be re-run in the future with the SD70ACe frame. The SD70, SD70M, and SD70MAC's frames were not built with sound in mind as they do not have an on-board speaker mount, where the SD70ACe's frame does.
Athearn is also working on a truck redesign as the current design has the tendency to warp.
