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[ full gallery] Here's my take on the classic SW1200 yard switcher, this time in NP colors. I chose my subject from the MTM collection for several reasons, (1) my son is fond of this specific locomotive in part because it is featured in several episodes of the Choo Choo Bob Show (if you've got railfans under the age of 8 in the US I highly recommend this show), (2) I am fond of this specific locomotive because I spent way too many hours running it and maintaining it as a volunteer 20 yrs ago. On a side note, I know of at least one earlier build of the same subject by the folks at GMLTC. I built this locomotive as a gift for my son. He like's his 7939 set but although he is barely in the recommended age range he much prefers his dad's trains. So I wanted to build a very realistic train for his birthday. Since he is still young, it had to be kid tough, which meant one or two compromises, the biggest one being the cab. I managed to get a lot of great details in the cab, I am particularly fond of the back, getting the windows pretty close to correct. Shortly before building this I was commenting to a friend about the reintroduction of 1x1 trans clear bricks and how you could almost always substitute the much cheaper 1x2 bricks... oops... I needed four 1x1's for this and the photos predate my acquiring them. I also like the fact that I was able to work in the all weather cab windows. The thing I don't like about the cab is its length. It is 4 long and I would much prefer to have done it in 5 long, but all of the designs I came up with would have been a lot weaker. As it is, the 4 long cab is the weakest point on the locomotive (plenty strong for AFOL use, but you can't stand on it), I've had to rebuild it a few times ("now remember, the most important thing is that if it breaks, you collect all of the pieces"). To keep the structure tough, I used a lego train base. I also wanted to keep some flavor of classic trains, so I used the train railing on the ends. My son likes to push his trains around, so no motors on the stock build, but I made the trucks the same size as a motor so one can quickly swap in a 9v motor when desired, e.g., The hood is 5 wide, mostly snot. I am particularly fond of the stacks, I think I got the look pretty good (as original, not with the spark arresters that were subsequently added to the MTM unit). I borrowed the hood doors from my GP20 The taper at the cab was inspired by Jeramy's BN kit (the production of this kit reportedly consumed all of the available 2x2x3 double convex slopes in black at the time, though now they are becoming more common). With instructions now available for free here. At the time of the build I contemplated building a second one for myself, but I did not want to take away from the magic of my son's locomotive. In spite of some of the compromises, there are a lot of features on this build that are among my most advanced. I really wanted to give it to him and have him build the set, but in the end (sadly) I built it and presented him with the completed model (in a few more years I can give him the bricks and instructions, just not yet, this build took me a few hours to assemble). Some point in the future I will likely revisit this prototype to incorporate a few changes- 5 long cab, slightly longer frame, replace the train baseplate with regular plates, and motorized from the start. [full gallery]
