New Engine Additions To The Railroad

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

I had three engines that were in original paint schemes that I bought many years ago and wanted them in paint schemes that I currently model. 

All three engines were painted by my friend Ted in Dedham, MA. He's done all of the AP engines and some CSX engines. 

The first two were a pair of Athearn Blue Box GP40 engines. I gave him the road numbers as well as the images of the Conrail engines I wanted.

Here's Conrail GP40 3269

And here's Conrail GP40 3214

In order for these engines to run on DCC as well as to run together in consist, they were given to NJ John, who hard wired the decoders into these engines. When Athearn made their 'Blue Box' line of engines, there was never anything that resembled DCC back then. He's great at installing decoders, especially for engines that need a little more work than most.

A little video on how they run for a few minutes...

They look great, and run well together, although they are loud and sound like they're grinding thru rocks. I'll let them run laps around the railroad to get them broken in. 

Next engine that came back from Ted was a Walthers Trainline Dash 8-40B. This engine I had him paint in my Atlantic Pacific Railroad Paint Scheme. I assigned it #2370. A DCC decoder was added by NJ John. This engine is quite heavy and when I put it in the track, ran very well out of the box. 

I decided to put this engine with AP U28B #2360 and consist them up. Here's a short video of how they run together.

They ran well together, although it looked like the U28B had a quicker start up. Once running at a reasonable speed, they ran fine together. I'll work to get them speed matched shortly. 

Thanks again to Ted and to NJ John for their work on the engines. The engines had been with John for a while. We were talking the other night and John said the next time he goes out to run an errand, he would swing by and drop them off. Well, the engines arrived here today as John backed up on to the driveway, opened up the back of his minivan, and I removed the engines as well as gave him a few others that needed a tune-up as well as a decoder replacement on one of the engines. Thank you again John!!