Well the first of my US outline arrived today (Atlas O F9), courtesy of Ebay and probably paying too much LOL, but it's a start, not sure whether to go P48 or just stick to O-FS and make my flanges and track work a little tighter, dunno yet but just thinking I'll leave my S7 and modelling and US as a detailed train set sort of thing.
Things to do, first off a total strip down to bare plastic so need to source some sort of paint remover, Isopropyl Alcohol I read on US forums is just the kiddy for that chore, and, I'd like a cab door open so that'll mean new thinner cab doors and a cab floor and bulkheads at the bare minimum (zero cab at all at present), this may be due to the front bogie gear train tower so I may loose that and only power the rear end. Need to add a thin bezel to the cab screen surround to get near flush glazing and really want to thin the plastic inside the portholes to get glazing sitting much closer to the side skin, moulded grab rail removal is a given and might opt for some new fan grills, preferably see through though not sure what P&D offer as yet, or other suppliers for that matter. The gaping hole in the front plough will have to go and some rear end detail added as well.
Looks like the model is fitted with boiler vents and ports, wasn't sure F9s had them and it's too short to be a FP9 so not really sure what those vents at the back of the roof are. Door headlight removal might be in the offing as well, depending on prototype chosen. I can see a massive web research campaign looming over the horizon LOL.
The bogie side frames actually look pretty good, which surprised me so I'm definitely going to look out for some spare Atlas side frames for future projects as and when I can find them.
As for prototype, no idea at the moment.
May keep as UP
Though ATSF do some nice ones, not a real fan of the Super Chief scheme but there's some interesting hybrid schemes around.
Then BN Cascade green looks nice, simple easy scheme to apply.
Or SP which can be nice
Or not so nice
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Also procured a arm full of US box cars, all 50'ers but differing styles, three as kits to make up and three OOB Atlas ones, all will be resprayed and wheels changed from plastic to metal rimmed, those are in the post, all I need now is somewhere to play with them and kick cars back and forth and find a nice sound chip for my throaty 567 block