Geeps Are In The House!

Greetings everyone! The APRR has been waiting for a delivery of some special engines and they have arrived at the Richmond Hill Engine Terminal. 

The guys have gathered around wondering who in the wide, wide world of trains had ordered them? Looking at the arrivals are 1:87 NJ John, 1:87 Norman, 1:87 Sir Neal and on the tracks 1:87 Sir John! He came all the way from Terminal Yard to see these engines. I wonder who gave him the inside scoop? So, who is the culprit? Okay, I admit, it was me, 1:1 Sir Neal!

These are Atlas Master Series GP40 engines that I have been waiting for. I think they announced them about 12-18 months ago and I received a notification from modeltrainstuff.com that all three road numbers are in stock; 3144, 3166 and 3182. Atlas makes them in 2 versions; DC/DCC ready or DCC with sound. Now sound is nice, but the cost of buying 2 sound engines doesn't fit the budget and it's cheaper to buy 2 engines and add a non-sound decoders. I picked up road numbers 3166 and 3182. 3182 has the 'Red C' on the body...

Here's the photo of 3166 courtesy of the Dennis Schmidt Collection from rr-fallenflags.org.

Here's the photo of 3182, courtesy of the Gary Everhart Collection from rr-fallenflags.org.

The engines are parked next to sister engines 3111 and 3141, which are Altas GP40 engines as well...

Out of the box, I added the decoder, which is very easy to install. You remove the fan section on top of the engine, remove the dummy 21 pin plug and install the new decoder. Takes less than 5 minutes. Changed the Atlas couplers to Kadee couplers, added the window shades and off it went to the test track for programming. 

These engines will sit in the engine terminal until our next PCCM and will debut at that time. More than likely they will be in consist together, unless I decide to put all four on a train, which would look real nice...

Thanks for reading!!