UP 3230 "Save Fuel All Ways -- Always"

Here's a project that started out from trying to figure out what to do with those odds and ends in the part box that weren't used on previous projects. I was in the middle of turning a Rail Power SD45-2 shell into something respectable by Cannonizing every part of it I could. The final product would be a former Clinchfield unit and in my mind it was going to be awesome. Then a friend showed up with his brand new Genesis SD45-2 in Clinchfield paint and I knew mine wouldn't be that nice, so that was the end of that. The shell wound up going to a friend to become a Santa Fe model, but I kept the cab/nose/subbase.

At the 2014 Plano train show I picked up a Centralia Car Shops UP cupola caboose wearing one of the safety slogan placards on the sides. When we got invaded by the UP in the early 80s, some of these cabooses came along with the big GEs and EMDs. One of them ended up on a team track near my grandpa's house and there it sat rusting away for years. That was my inspiration for getting the caboose, but just a few days later I was already thinking of building a UP SD40-2 to go with it. Once I started looking for prototype photos, I found this one that was taken about a mile from my childhood home at one of my favorite train watching spots:

www.rr-fallenflags.org/up/up3230awp.jpg

I was always fond of the SD40-2s with the slogans on the sides, so my choice of prototype was settled. Here are some photos of the model once I modified the nose and attached the cab/nose/subbase to the correct shell:



The drive is an Athearn RTR SD40-2, but it didn't have a fuel tank. My attempts to locate one ended in failure, so I just spliced two Atlas GP38 tanks together.



At the time I had taken the photos, I had sort of pieced together the path the horn conduit took on the prototype. Instead of originating between the radiator fans, the conduit originates from the dynamic brake hatch. Anyway, I got it wrong and for some reason I used 0.019" wire, which is a little oversize. Once I found the right photo, I pulled the wire and replaced it with 0.012" wire.



Fast forward several months and I painted the model and built up handrails using Smokey Valley stanchions and 0.012" wire:







In that last photo you can see the corrected horn conduit. In the next photo you can see the notches on the pilots are filled in and little 0.010" styrene circles have been glued to the pilot faces. I drilled the circles out to create what I suspect are lifting lugs:



Finally, here is the model today with paint and decals finished. You'll notice the sunshades, doors and windows are missing, but I'm waiting for a nice day to finish those. Also not added are lights, a decoder or couplers (no point attaching the shell without a decoder). Anyway, it's far from finished, but with the bright sunshine days we're having now, I figured it's as good a time as any for a photo session: