BHP GE Dash-8 Diesel locomotive

[jonwil]

Here is a close up picture of my General Electric Dash-8 Diesel locomotive in BHP Iron Ore colors with the unique "Pilbera Cab" (used out there to keep glare from the faces of the train drivers)

Here is another photo taken from further away that shows a better view of the front of the train (including the BHP sticker on the front) as well as the matching hopper car I built (with more BHP logos)

The other 2 hopper cars are just the stock LEGO blue hopper car.

There are also BHP stickers on the other side of the train matching the door sticker and the 2 on the side panel although I dont have a usable photo of those.

Its based on the locomotive from the 60052 Cargo Train and then modified to look somewhat like the Dash-8 following pictures I found on the internet.

I am planning to take some more pictures of the loco (although without the BHP stickers since I have now removed them and done my best to clean up the sticker gunk without remembering that I wanted to take more photos) and also re-create it in LDD.

I will be posting the ldd file here if anyone is interested and I can also post the custom stickers I did.

For those who don't know, BHP was the largest mining company in Australia and mined a lot of iron ore in the north of Western Australia (the Pilbera region) and disappeared when they merged with UK company Billiton to become BHP Billiton.

If you want more photos of the train layout in general (including the steel mill that the BHP train was built to go with) visit

https://picasaweb.google.com/jfwfreo/GoldCoast

https://picasaweb.google.com/jfwfreo/Strathpine

[THERIZE]

very cool! What are those pieces you used for the horns?

[jonwil]

This piece:

http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=71182#T=C

[LEGO Train 12 Volts]

Very nice locomotive

I like see this diesel train with so many hopper wagons!

[dr_spock]

Nice work. Did you print the stickers yourself? That's an interesting cab on the GE Dash-8. I don't think I've seen one like that before (at least not in North America.

BTW, is there a video of the event somewhere?

[THERIZE]

Nice work. Did you print the stickers yourself? That's an interesting cab on the GE Dash-8. I don't think I've seen one like that before (at least not in North America.

well, its Australian so North America would not make sense.

[jonwil]

Yes the stickers are custom-made by me.

No I dont have any video of the event.

And yes, the cab was specially made for Australia and for the unique Pilbera conditions.

[michaelozzie]

Here is a photo of the real locomotive showing the cab design with the old BHP livery. I believe they are all in dark green and orange now with the BHP-Billiton livery.

[Dread Pirate Rob]

You did not pick an easy prototype by any means! Not to mention the prototype trains are usually over 200 wagons long! You have some nice details on that blast furnace too. It really looks the part.

[Younge]

I have cousins that lived up near Paraburdoo, so I guess they would have seen these trains all the time!

Great work, jonwil!!!

[jonwil]

As promised before, here is an LXF file of this engine (I forgot to take more photos before taking it apart so the LDD file will have to do)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9idqO9KygGseWxkdWdQU3BmTWc/view?usp=sharing

The following things are different due to parts I cant find in LDD:

1.The hose nozzles should be this part http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=71182

2.The train motor should be this part http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?P=87574c01

3.The black curved pieces on the underside should have the stickers from 60052 cargo train on it

4.The face and torso of the train driver should be from this figure http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?M=trn235

and 5.The brick at the front, doors and side panels need the custom BHP stickers applied.

If anyone wants to build their own, the 60052 Cargo Train will give you a large amount of the needed parts.

The custom stickers I created are here

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9idqO9KygGsRS1lbVJMQXk1bEU/view?usp=sharing

They are in SVG format (if you need a good program to edit SVG files, I recommend Inkscape which is 100% free)

If printed via Inkscape onto a piece of A4 paper (or A4 sticker paper) they should be correctly sized to fit the parts they are meant to go on.