Thanks Giving Weekend Photo Fun 11-27/11-30


Great pictures everyone!

3064707339_4d26a51a64.jpg

I just got this one from a guy a few days ago. He claims it is a SW1500 but I don't know. The road number doesn't match up. I Don't know who it is made by either. Maybie Athearn? It runs a little rough. there is some rust underneath. Ill have to clean it up a little.
 
hotwinger said:
Great pictures everyone!

3064707339_4d26a51a64.jpg

I just got this one from a guy a few days ago. He claims it is a SW1500 but I don't know. The road number doesn't match up. I Don't know who it is made by either. Maybie Athearn? It runs a little rough. there is some rust underneath. Ill have to clean it up a little.
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Looks like the body of an SW7/SW9. UP had SW9's but they ended at 1866, 1870 only existed as an SW10 rebuild with a large dynamic brake unit mounted to the front. Think its an Athearn.
 
City trees

Good shot Jim and you remembered that cities have trees on the sidewalk. Most of the city models I've seen leave them out.

NYC_George
 
jbaakko said:
Looks like the body of an SW7/SW9. UP had SW9's but they ended at 1866, 1870 only existed as an SW10 rebuild with a large dynamic brake unit mounted to the front. Think its an Athearn.
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Here's one on E-Bay. Might be the same one. Is it possible that the D.S. 1870 refers to something else other than the engine number?
 
WOW!! Great show

Great pictures guys!

All of you without exception
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GrampysTrains your crossing rocks! Love that RS-27 too:)



Thanks for sharing
 
hamltnblue said:
Oops, here's the link
http://cgi.ebay.com/Athearn-HO-Scal...14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318
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Athearn mis-labeled those from the start. They are the SW7 calf and cow. They were called SW1500's on the papers and the box. Here's a picture of both side by side, you can see that they are totally different creatures.

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A couple of quick spotting features. The SW1500 has a nice big fuel tank, the cab has 4 side windows, the radiator screens on the top front wrap around the sides, the lights are flush, not sticking out and the SW1500 has full handrails instead of just endrails.

The SW1500 and SW1000 are almost exactly the same. The biggest difference is the SW1000 has 1 exhaust stack, the SW1500 has 2.
 
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That is indeed an Athearn "SW-1500", actually an SW-7. Athearn produced it based on advance drawings of the SW-1500 but EMD changed the entire design and Uncle Irv just couldn't admit he was wrong. Athearn finally changed it to the correct SW-7 designation a few years before US engine production stopped. The UP did use the "D.S" as part of the engine number to indicate "diesel switcher". The "D.S." was dropped in the mid 50's. It's interesting that both Mike's and Alco's units have the original Athearn paint scheme, indicating they are probably both part of the original production run, since the paint scheme was changed on later runs.
 
You will notice my model is really different...I have the bell that is mounted in a diagnal form and my trucks are metal...Mikes and Jeromes bell is mounted vetical not sure of the trucks....
 
Thanks, George. I do have a lot of trees on my sidewalks. It's kind of a Southern thing as well as what you used to see in a lot of towns before everything became one giant Walmart. :)

Josh, nice detail shot. I wish more people would do that since it's so dang hard to figure out where some of those things go on a model.

Jeffrey, cool video. Remined me of being a kid in Cleveland and watching the NKP and NYC race each other on their parallel mains. Kind of like train drag races. :)
 
Alcomotive said:
You will notice my model is really different...I have the bell that is mounted in a diagnal form and my trucks are metal...Mikes and Jeromes bell is mounted vetical not sure of the trucks....
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Alco, all the Athearn SW-7's have metal truck sideframes. For some reason, your's appear to be unusually corroded. That bell appears to be mounted wrong or something. I've never seen an SW-7 without the bell mounted in the usual manner unless it was mounted in error.
 
UP2CSX said:
Josh, nice detail shot. I wish more people would do that since it's so dang hard to figure out where some of those things go on a model.
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I'm working on it. I haven't gotten the option to crawl over much more then those GP60/60M's & Dash 8-40BW's. However it seems BNSF sold the rights to industrial switching in the San Diego area to a start up short line venture, so I might get to see more, if they leave them there like BNSF did.
 
very interesting jim and alco. thats all good info. Strange how all of the hand rails were metal. I wonder if it is possible to detail this little engine up to
make it look really nice.

wheeler and alco those are nice looking switchers. Wheeler how did you get the more detailed SW1500? was it a athearn BB?

I wonder if the rumor is true about Athearn coming out with a Gensis SW1500 with the same amount of detail as the MP15DDC.
I would buy a handfull of those.
 
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UP2CSX said:
Alco, all the Athearn SW-7's have metal truck sideframes. For some reason, your's appear to be unusually corroded. That bell appears to be mounted wrong or something. I've never seen an SW-7 without the bell mounted in the usual manner unless it was mounted in error.
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The bell is actually swing in motion or rather set in a 45 degree angle. I tis different and not it is not mounted wrong I think it may be the wrong bell that came with the kit. As for the side frames they are weathered and are diecast metal. No rust or corosion.
View attachment 11285
 
Airslide, that looks like it will be a nice backdrop structure when you're finished.

Mike, those SW-7's can be detailed out and look really good. You can see in Jerome's picture that his SW-7 has had some additional grab irons added and it looks like the cab windows have been upgraded. The basic shell is pretty accurate so it just depends how much work you want to put into it. As far as I know, it's the only inexpensive SW-7 available so you don't have a lot other choices. No idea about Athearn coming out with a new SW-1500 but it would make sense since they already have the basic tooling.
 
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