All Photos unless noted ©Copyright 2004 Chris Palomarez All Rights Reserved.
How can you model mid to late diesel era SP without Tunnel Motors? One of the biggest challenges offered by this project is the see through radiators. I tried the technique presented in the January 1987 Model Railroader Workshop. Making the rear truck a dummy presents a whole new set of problems. I sought out an easy solution that did not rob the project of significant time but also be as complete as possible. Like with any of the prior solution, this one requires some compromise. The solution is to use two forward powered trucks, or two rear powered trucks in the same direction. In order for this configuration to work, there are slight modifications needed to the bolster to flip around the gear tower in the rear. The compromise is if you want all wheel drive the center axle on the rear truck wheel be off set in the wrong direction. The alternative is to turn the center axle into a dummy and move it so it centers with the bearing detail on the HTC side frame. This hard choice is because the HTC does not have symmetrical axle locations. There is another alternative that requires more work then just essentially turning the truck around. Steve Orth described another method that involves scratch building a new underframe in the October 2001 issue of Railmodel Journal. This corrects the Athearn desrepancy in their frame length which is 1 scale foot shorter to accomondate a smaller minimum radius.
5/4/04 In Progress Frame Photos (Photos by Harry Wong)
Rear Top
Rear Side
Rear Bottom
