The latest release from "USA Trains" is the CP Rail GP38-2 diesel B-B locomotive in 1:29 scale. It's a very nicely detailed model, on par with the Aristo-Craft SD45. It also shares a number of inaccuracies due to the fact that most US manufacturers tend to model a generic US spec prototype to ensure a broad appeal with the largest segment of the market, which is within the United States.

The first problem with the model is that it represents an EMD (Electro-Motive Division Of General Motors Corp., La Grande, Illinois) built unit. These were manufactured from the late 60's right until 1972 and while CP owns a number of these units, all were purchased second-hand and none of them were built for CP and therefore none were ever painted in the multi-mark (Packman) paint scheme. Some of these ex US engines were painted in the "dual-flag" and some in the more recent "golden beaver" color schemes.

Most of the Canadian Pacific Railway's GP38-2 fleet (115 units) came from GMD (Diesel Division - General Motors of Canada, London, Ontario) between 1983 and '86 and these left the factory with the multi-mark paint scheme, including road numbers 3102 and 3103 which were used on the USA Trains' models.

Then there are also some glaring manufacturer's mistakes such as the road number on the side of the cab is oversized and bellow that is printed GP38-2??? It should've been the class number "DRS-20e" (Diesel Road Switcher - 20 [x100] H.P., e [5th order])! I suppose the picture they were using to copy the graphics from was too small. A little amount of research would go a long way in avoiding these mistakes.

The one good thing is that the model is much closer to another CP engine, the GP38AC (built in 1970-71 by GMD, total of 21 units were delivered to CP Rail). The conversion will still require a fair amount of work and custom made detail parts but the result should be a unique, personalized model that is far more prototype accurate.