[MOC] Combining an Alco DL535 and an EMD GP-40

[Legownz]

I haven't posted on the forums in a few years as I got pretty busy and didn't have time to build a whole lot. However, I've found new free time and decided to come back to the world of Lego!

For the past few years, I've been trying to make a freight diesel for my fictitious railway, but I never was totally happy with my designs  which usually were simplified and "City-ized" versions of EMD GP-40s. With this attempt, I wanted to try something different. I always have liked the Alco DL535 and wanted to incorporate it into my design.

My reference photo of the Alco DL535 (Not my photo)

Reference photo of an EMD GP-40 (Also not my photo)

There are some big departures from the DL535, such as the fact that it is not narrow gauge, but instead standard gauge, and that it is now a 4 axle loco instead of 6. Anyway, here it is: A GP-40 (Or something similar) mixed with a DL535.

 

I used my fictitious railway's typical livery of white and blue, but tried to mix it up. Usually the car/loco is mostly blue with a white stripe, but with this one I tried making white the dominant color and having the blue come up at an angle. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

A rear view of the engine

The rear section of the roof pops off with access to the battery box and the forward section of the roof contains the IR receiver.

A big concern of mine was whether I was going to use PF or PU. Eventually I decided on PF since my other train is already done in PF and I can always tweak this one to work with PU. Since LDD doesn't have a lot of PF parts anymore, I mocked the battery box and receiver up with bricks and the train motor in the model is actually a 9v motor. I haven't looked at how expensive this would be to buy, but if I do bite the bullet, I'll most likely get one powered and one unpowered unit. If anyone wants the LDD file for whatever reason, here is the bricksafe link: https://bricksafe.com/pages/Legownz/dl535-gp40-hybrid (Note this contains files of both the powered and unpowered versions)

Thanks for reading!

Edited March 20, 2020 by Legownz

[zephyr1934]

To my eye it still looks mostly like the Alco, but regardless, nice work

[Legownz]

2 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

To my eye it still looks mostly like the Alco, but regardless, nice work

Yeah, it definitely leans more in that direction, but I like it.  Thank you!

[Legownz]

Hello all. It's been about a month since I made this model and I've gone back to do some more work on it. After my Skunk Diesel MOC, I realized that I can no longer work on LDD, so I made the switch over to Stud.io. I've been super happy with the results and I'm sure I'm years behind other people at this point for making the switch, but I'm glad I did. Anyway, I put the Alco into Stud.io and made some structural changes and minimized excess pieces. I also took a chance to try out the instruction maker feature for the first time.

I've uploaded a studio file of the model to my bricksafe page, along with a PDF of the instructions for the model. I'd love to hear what you think of the model or the instructions.

Bricksafe Link: https://bricksafe.com/pages/Legownz/dl535-gp40-hybrid