Accurizing a vintage Athearn Blue Box locomotive

I've often felt that skills acquired in one hobby find application in another. In this case, adding additional detail and correcting inaccuracies in an old RTR locomotive. I have an Athearn SD-45 in Santa Fe livery that was bought new in the early 80s and run many miles on my old layout. It has literally survived a flood and still runs well. But it needs a bit of TLC to run in the 21st century. 

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As delivered, this classic has some issues.

The nose should not have twin headlights, these will have to go. The numbers on the cab are not correct for any real prototype. Those cast on grabirons will have to go. The yellow paint should wrap over the top of the low hood. The foot boards need to come off and a plow pilot put on. For starters...

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FYI, the recommended reference work is "The Santa Fe Diesel, Volume 2", by Dr. Cynthia Priest. A treasure trove of prototype photos.

I selected ATSF #5610 as it appeared in 1972.

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We'll begin by removing the headlights and filling in the "nose".

Lenses removed, railing removed and set aside.

Old Squadron Gray Putty will do. Grabirons nicked off with the exacto.

Masking with Tamiya tape, primed with Tamiya gray primer. I had received a recommendation to use Tru Color paint as being a best-match to ATSF yellow. It's a lacquer that needs little thinning to spray right from the bottle, and goes on smoothly. 

Side by side with the (aged) Athearn yellow, it's a bit lighter but looks acceptable. 

Now we need to fix those cab numbers. Using a sanding stick followed by increasingly fine grades of modeling sandpaper, the old numbers were removed.

I smoothed the surface by masking and spraying a coat of Modelmaster Insignia Blue. It goes on flat, but we'll take care of surface finish later.

It appears that ATSF used different fonts for can side and number board numbers, and varied from prototype to prototype. As I'm using 5610 as my basis, a railroad roman font for the cab, and some sans serif block font for the number boards. Rather than make decals, I wanted to employ my wife's Cricut machine to cut some vinyl stencils and spray them. I used a free download font called Railroad Roman 1916 set to 18 pt and stuck them on either side, using Tamiya tape to finish the mask.

You'll also notice I've removed the old decals from the number boards. A Q-Tip dipped in Isopropyl alcohol and some rubbing will dissolve it all and not harm the surrounding paint..

The ATSF herald on the nose is coming from Microscale decals, "HO Santa Fe Diesels 1960-1972 #87-12".

Now let's correct the paint on the back end. Like the front hood, it should wrap around the corners and across the top of the loco. I masked everything but the now-blue-to-be-yellow area and shot it with white primer,  removed the mask over the already-yellow, and sprayed the Tru Color, blending the two shades into one.

I'm not planning on addressing the grabirons on that end, at this time. Back to the front, to deal with the pilot...

ATSF began doing away with footboard pilots and installing plows in the early 70s. I like that look, so ordered up a Cal Scale pilot plow and some MU hose sets from an online vendor. Generic parts, they'd  need some massaging to fit. 

(footboard pilot-before)

(Footboard removed, gaps filled and extended downward with sheet styrene)

I had to remove the footboard flush with the face of the pilot, fill the gap with styrene, extend them down below the bottom of the original pilot, and drill holes to a accept the locator pins on the cast metal pilot. Also had to trim off the three "bumps" where the MU hoses attach, and drill two holes for their pins, and trim off some of their cast-in bracket to get it all to fit, as shown below.

Now to get those number boards updated. I would print decals on white decal paper, white numbers over a black background.  I could not find a font that matched in all particulars. The 5 and 6 are ....; the 1 and 0 are... . At scale, you can't tell they're different. 

Now, what else needs changing. The ATSF logo on the nose, obviously (microscale sheet 87-22, ordered). But wait, there's more:

The MU receptacle, the fold down step, the pilot handrail, the coupler lift bar, the grabirons, the classification lights needed to be drilled out and lenses installed. Windshield wiper, cab sun shades. Air hose next to the coupler.  The rooftop ground plane and radio antenna. For starters...

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My decal sheet arrived. A couple of observations. 

1. Microscale decals are uniformly excellent. If they have them for your prototype, get them.

2. I could have used these for my cab numbers and number boards. D'oh!

3. Lots of little "bonus decals" I can use to increase the detail level. 

But first, let's get that logo on the nose...

There. One of the biggest inaccuracies,  corrected. :-)

Next up, I'm trying out some new dynamic brake fan/housings. If these work out, I'll upgrade the radiator fans as well.

First, drill a large hole in the center of the existing fan. Use an exacto to slowly,, incrementally increase hole diameter until the old fan housing is gone. Check fit with the new fan base. Assembled the new fan per the (non-illustrated) instructions, and dropped it in the hole. 

That provides extra detail and room.for sound to escape if I ever get that far...

But first, back to the cab and pilot details.

cast on grab irons were removed with the tip of a sharp exacto, drilled out and brass replacements fabled and installed. The pilot-wide handrail (still in brass, above) was added. A MU stand was added. I managed to damage the paint and nose decal in the process...

Added the drop step, coupler lift bar, and adjusted the plow height to provide as much rail clearance as possible without modifying the coupler pocket.

Had to pause and do a bit of research and ask those more knowledgeable regarding antennae on the cab roof. My 74 dated photo of 5610 shows a ground plane and antenna peeking over the top of the cab on the left. How much more is there that I cannot see?

Online help from the Facebook group Midwest Santa Fe Modelers was quick and valuable. 

Here's the roof of sister ship 5612:

All antennae are "can" type, the 2 forward on the double size ground plane are for RCE (remote control equipment) signals, the rear plane and antenna off set to the left on top of the dustbin is the radio.

I bought the first ground plane and used it to help me build the larger RCE plane out of sheet styrene.
 I added coupler lift bar, mu stand, drop step, mu hoses, and pilot handrail to the rear deck as well.

I drilled out the classification lights, and used some home printed decals to replicate the blue outer circle present on 5610  in photos, based on the photo in the Priest book. Fiber optic rod was inserted,  and less will be added later.

I added air system hoses and glad hands to the right of the coupler front and rear. All.that remains is windshield wipers which are on order, then it's on to weathering.