Well the 'package' was delivered today and I've had a quick look to see what I've got.
Some good, some very good, some bad and happily no very bad.
First up the cab unit.
Pretty well all here, some damage ti handrails and from the quick look, no castings missing.
I do have an issue with the dynamic brake enclosures and grills, they're very fold up plonked on affairs, not like some of the other etchings which are much better in design and execution. I think they will have to eventually go.
The underside is a little spartan but the fuel tank and battery box will cover a lot, a false floor under the sill rails will help as well as pipework and the usual gubbins found in under here.
Speaking of the fuel tank and battery box appendage.
Yes well, not sure what's going on here. People spend years trying to achieve this level of patina and I have it all here for free. A quick dunk in thinners should remove most of it, then we'll be able to better assess what's underneath.
The cab is simple, the real things are remarkably spartan as well.
Some nice castings but needs a little tweaking to make things sit flat and square and it looks like it's been primed with a load of dust and dirt trapped underneath.....more thinners!
Moving back down the locomotive we have the power house, the actual turbine unit, originally 8500 HP, later up rated to 10,000 HP.
Once again pretty much everything seems to be here.
There are some issues with the number of gearboxes and the Ebay photo showed more in a cardboard box, which seem to have not made it into the final packaging. There is a complete motor and gearbox in another package, along with a representation of bearings (not counted them all yet) etc, so it can be powered if required.
I'm not overly concerned as there are deeper fundamental issues here that could mean most of the gearboxes and wheel sets are moved on as spares for other budding OMI enthusiasts, I'll explain more right at the end.
The only casting that jumps out as missing is the middle axle box on one of the trucks.
That's a niggle that frustrates, I'm sure (I hope) I can find a replacement, failing that I'll draw up a 3D CAD one and get it printed and cast, I'll be needing quite a few in the future so a batch job of 13 ( 12 per loco and one spare) at a time will pay dividends in the long run.
The close up also shows the other great flaw (in my opinion) with OMI or any other brass import frankly, the springs. The models all use outside bearings and are fully and individually sprung, in this case equalized too; a very nice touch....until you look at the springs which honestly do not transcend scales at all.
In the UK we tend to run with inside bearings and spring accordingly, the outer frames being cosmetic and more scale looking, I'm not sure where to go here to be honest, develop a new internal frame work for inside bearings and springs and then replace the external ones with better scale alternatives.
Either way I don't want to tamper with the OMI originals much, if at all, they're too valuable to hack around and convert; so whatever alternative is used it will have to fit in with the minimum of distress and pain for the original structure. This all then falls back to the wheels and gearboxes noted above.
Externally the body appears intact, again the dynamic enclosures are letting the rest down, the intake box also suffers from a generally poor assembly in the odd place. Sadly there's no internal model turbine that some of these kits come with. Actually I've yet to see one without a turbine model in which is making me think this isn't a production run, it's looking more and more like either a second or a factory test build.
The chassis is present so negating the axle box it's pretty much all there at first inspection. The sliding doors appear to have been fixed in the closed position so I'll have to look at that if I want to add the turbine model later.
Moving further back we come to the tender, a 24-C-GTE no less.
Once again it all looks like it's there, the trucks are brand new and never assembled, there is a tender chassis, even though the original owner wasn't sure there was; that's one job less to worry about. There is a box of sundries like screws and springs etch to top it all off and one of the axle boxes has come adrift but is easily fixed.
There's a couple of areas where the brass hasn't been joined nicely, a fault that seems to beset most brass import models in one aspect or another. Sadly the only way to fix the tank end areas is a near total strip down with blow torch, I'll strip the paint and then see how much work is required to do that.
Okay that's all the turbine bits, or so I thought, I'd done a quick check on the Ebay photos and there appeared to be another chassis in there, the photos were not overly clear and rather than tip my hand and ask I just winged it. Well lo and behold there was a second cab unit chassis, and this is the very good part.
Other than the brass aging it looks almost brand new and virtually intact in every aspect.
There's no motor or gear box present and I think the frame rails have a few more details on than the actual cab unit. Now this is where I'm suspecting this is a clear out of no stock models, despite looking like a GTEL can unit chassis...and it most certainly is....it does not fit the cab shell. The rear of the chassis is the end with the large notch cut into it and the front the squared off part, the front end does not fit inside the curved pilot; it's not far off but would need a few mm taken off each corner.
I think this chassis is designed to fit a shell where the coupler pocket is attached to the shell, the one that fits has the coupler pocket attached to the chassis, there are up and down sides to each version.
Either way I have a free cab unit chassis and it's the whats one to do with it that's interesting. I could transpose across the best bits to the main model, modify this chassis and simply fit it to the main model.
I could keep this one as is and clean up the main chassis and upgrade as required. On top of that I could make a new etch up for a cab unit, I do plan (the master plan) to do that one day.
However, short term I think the trucks will be pulled and added to a new model, see these trucks are identical to what followed the GTELs in real life, the trucks were traded in on the replacement engines. In this case the U50C which is another long term must model for me, even if they're just used short term to set the other engine up it's a big leg up for that project. This chassis will then probably be put into storage and may yet become my second turbine.
Right, now we get to the bad, wheels and gearboxes.
These are the gearboxes on the spare cab unit chassis, they're shot, totally useless, just touching them makes the cracks bigger. These are by far the worst but most show some signs of deterioration and to be fair in the photo on Ebay several halves were broken in two for the turbine unit power train.
I'm sure replacements are available, but will they suffer the same in ten/twenty years?
Next up are the wheels, they are really thick and I suspect are nickle plated, so turning them down is going to show the core material which isn't much of an option.
There's basically three options:-
Replace all like for like with new factory fresh OMI units, if you can even get them.
Replace all with a new source of gearbox and wheel with outside bearings to fit in the existing sprung axle boxes.
Replace all with a new source of gearbox and wheel with inside bearings and sub chassis to support them.
The last option is the most work but will also allow the truck frames to have decent replications of the springs fitted and the new gearboxes must be enclosed, possibly like the Slaters FD01, small compact but not cheap; you could probably get away with only powering the outer axles as well.
I'd also like some sort of 3D traction motor shell down there as well, not just for the GTEL but all my US models, they're really obvious on the hind end of trucks near the fuel tanks.
Lots to ponder and lots to do before I get near the drive train issues, for now it's all packed back up as I have more pressing jobs to finish first.
MD