In The Works: Building a Burlington Northern EMD SW1500 in HO Scale Part Two

In the first part I covered building most of the front pilot and most of the front of the switcher and in this installment I will finish up the front of the switcher and make my way down to the rest of the long hood, air tanks, piping, and fuel tank details. 

Front End of SW1500 with most of the parts in place.

       Continuing with the front of the locomotive, the first of the safety tread kit from Cannon and Company was used with the start of the front end walkway. Next, the 27 pin Multi-unit (MU) cable and receptacles were installed by drilling holes into the front pilot and first positioning the right side dummy plug and letting it dry. The “live” cable receptacle is on the walkway and the box is glued in using cyanoacrylate glue (CA). Once the receptacle box on the walkway was full secured, the cable itself was mounted with CA glue and stretch straight out and allowed a few moment to fully dry.

SW1500 with the 27 pin MU cable installed.

After letting the cable dry for a half hour, I carefully bent it with tweezers into the proper shape and then glued with CA to the open hole on the front pilot. Once the tread and MU cables were glued in placed, the drop step was mounted in the center of the end of the walkway.  One of the last items to tidy up on the front pilot is the bottom of the coupler buffer plate needs to be covered with Evergreen styrene. A small square of it was cut using my Northwest Shortline Chopper and then glued in place with a dab of CA on the inside.

The completed end of the SW1500.

Side view of grab irons with styrene insert.

     While the CA glue was setting up and fully drying, attention was given to the rest of the long hood of the SW1500. Using a number 80 drill bit, the holes for the grab irons were carefully drilled on the long hood as well as the conductor’s side cab body and end of the battery box. A tip to add to help with this process, cut a narrow strip of .040 styrene and place in between the shell of the locomotive and the grab irons, press fit the grab irons snugly against the styrene and glue the from the inside of the shell.

Finished grab irons.

       Once the glue as finished drying, cut the remaining length of the grab iron on the inside of the shell and slide the styrene from in between the grab irons and the shell, this will leave you with evenly spaced and uniformed looking grab irons.

   

Finished steps on the front of the cab.

 As the grab irons finished drying, my attention went to the beginning of fitting the safety tread kit from Cannon & Company, as mentioned above the first one in place was the front two pieces near the MU receptacle, for this step I focused on the walk steps leading to the front of the locomotive, these proved to be simple because you are just simply gluing the tread pieces on top of the step block that Athearn had designed for this switcher. The side kick plate is also replaced with a metal one included in the tread kit.

Details West air tank kit and air dryer parts ready to be glued into place.

  For the last bit of this part I worked on the air tanks and air lines on the long hood of the switcher, this process started by carefully scribing off the molded on tanks by running a Xacto knife with a new blade in between the air tanks and side sill. By making shallow passes, I was able to carefully remove the molded tank with ease. Once both were removed, I prepped the new ones from Details West, the pewter casted air tanks were carefully sanded to eliminate the mold seem and the ends were drilled out to accepted the air lines as per the included instructions for the kit. Shallow holes were drilled into the underside of the walkway and the tanks were inserted and a dab of CA glue was used to secure the tanks.

Air tank in place.

Gluing in the covers for the gap in the underside of the cab.

Hole drilled for air dryer. Frame was in place to check truck clearance 

When looking at the prototype photos, it was clear that the locomotive was ordered with two large air dryers, one for the train line and one for the locomotive brakes. With two air dryer kits from Details West, this modification can be replicated. The ends of each of the air dryers were drilled to accept the air lines for the air system. Before the dryers were installed, I had to fill in an opening beneath the cab to create a surface for the dryers to be mounted to. I used strip styrene to achieve this. Once all the airlines were installed, I considered this session done. In the next installment I plan to finish the long hood and start on the rear pilot and rear end of the SW1500. Stay tuned! TRWBM.

Finished air system.

Finished piping on the locomotives left side.

Finished piping on the locomotives right side.