Life Like C-424 sub frame improvement

A bit H beam goes a long way

As the upper level of the layout is at eye height, the space between the body and the trucks on the LifeLike Alco C424 is larger than most other locos, I decided it was time to do something about it.

After some experimentation with various size Evergreen H beam, I found just the right size with some basic modifications.

Looking at pictures of the actual loco, the main sill is fairly high compared to the trucks. So the model is fairly accurate, the only think missing is the sub frame.

Here is a picture of what I was aiming for.

Here is a picture of one of my 4 Life Like C-424's with no work done on it from a frame point of view. Ie, out of the box.

Here is a modified loco with a sub frame to fill the gap. There is enough space for the trucks to rotate a pivot forward and back. Once installed, I simply painted them black and added a bit of mud brown to simulate a bit of weathering. I completed this modification on 3 of the 4 that I have and will now complete testing before I do the last one.

This is the great thing about this hobby. If I get  bored doing scenery, I can move to JMRI, building brass signals, to electronics to setting up car cards and schedules.. So different things we can do.

Adding Weight to rolling stock

Correct weight??

In order to achieve a good running layout, I think it is wise to bring all the rolling stock up to a standard in weight. I chose to fairly closely follow the NMRA weight standard for rolling stock.

I have spent the last few days weighing each car on the layout. At this point probably 300 cars in total.

I found most of the newer Microtrains 50ft cars and some 40ft cars are on spec, but all the Atlas cars are under as is older rolling stock from Minitrix etc.

I have had a tub of lead shot (from 12 gauge shot gun cartridges) in my drawer for many years and decided to find the best way to add weight. In the majority of cases 2 x Zinc plated 5/16th hexagon nuts super glued to the floor of cover hoppers, coal cars and box cars did the trick. In some cases 2 x 3/8th nuts for the lighter cars. For the gons I either added a load that has some weight about it, or added the lead shot to the underside of the car and super glued it in place. For tank cars, I simply loaded them with lead shot up to the right weight and reassembled them. For the Atlas 90t coal hoppers with coal load, the load has 2 internal posts so I just placed the nut over the post to stop it float around in the car and placed the load back in place.

Here are a few pictures showing progress.

Here is the web page I used to do the calculation for me

As I have 2% grades on the layout and most newer loco's don't pull well, I have adopted the idea of a car to motive power ratio. I had read about this somewhere on the web.

The idea is that to add the right number of loco's to the train you count 2 cars per traction motor of the loco. As most D&H loco's are 4 axle then this is basically 8 cars per loco and my trains are up to 20 cars long and longer in some cases. For a 6 axle loco, like a C-628, or a U30C or a SD45, the ratio is 12 cars per axle.

This works out well as a lot of the early to mid 70's 4 axle diesels are only 2000hp to 2400hp and some only 1800hp. As I have a number of loco's and like big lash up's most trains have 3 loco's on the point.

If a train is made up of 40ft cars then it will be lighter than a train of 50ft cars or 90t hoppers.. So the appropriate motive power needs to be on the train. If the chosen loco's cant get the train up the grade I will just add another loco or do what the D&H did and use a set of helpers on the back end of the train.

Now for some testing to make sure I have not gone overboard. Most weights (nuts) are removable.

 

Why the D&H

Welcome back.
In todays update I will go over the reasons for choosing the D&H as a prototype to model.

First I need to go back some 25 years. As a child and a teen I was always into model railways and picked up the hobby from my father. I can always remeber we had trains in the house and or in dad's shed. Now back in those days my father modeled US prototype HO and most of his equipment was brass. I grew up running those nice brass loco's and when it was time to have my own, I decided that I liked N scale rather than HO so made the switch.

In the following years I collected anything that "looked nice" and had a number of the older Bachmann loco's along with Rivarossi E8's etc. After a while I found that the Japaneese models ran so much better than the US models so sold up all my US models and went Japaneese for a period. Then I decided I actually liked the US stuff better. So sold up again and moved back to the US based models.

Again, I was back to just buying what looked nice and ran well. Soon my collection was getting out of hand and I decided I had to concentrate on a road name. So I did some recearch and as I already had some D&H U30c's from Kato, and I wanted to keep a lid on spending, I found that the D&H only had a total of 16 different types of loco's. This sounded perfect, plus the scenery of up state New York (from books, pictures, Video's) looked to have enough different type that it would be a nice place to model.. So I settled for the D&H based on the fabulous D&H Grey and Blue lightning strike paint scheme.

As the D&H also was mainly a Alco and GE road I favoured these types of loco's over the EMD's.

The D&H had...
S2's and S4's
RS2's and RS3's
And this is all they had up until the early 60's and these 4 types replaced all steam on the D&H.

S2

RS3

Then the D&H expanded and purchased RS11's (high nose) and then low nose RS11's and RS36's, plus C628 and U30C's.

RS11

Later on the D&H again expanded with U23b, SD45's and U33C's.

U33C

This U33C has been made from a Kato U30C and a wide radiator grid added from a older Bachman U33B.



The D&H kept most of these loco's and retured the S2, S4 and RS2's by the late 60's.

As most know the D&H went thought a phase where 4 ex SantaFe PA1's were purchased along with 2 Baldwin RF16 sharks.

Then by the time the mid 70's came along and the failure of a number of Eastern roads and the creation of Conrail. At this time the D&H obtained a number of ex Lehigh Valley C420's, GP38-2's and GP39-2's and then later a number of C424m's.

GP38-2

GP38-2

With the purchase of the LV and Reading loco's in the mid 70's a number of colour scheme variations came about and added to the colour of the D&H and I have attempted to capture this with some of my loco's and rolling stock.

GP39-2

This GP39-2 I made from a early series GP38 as made by Atlas and changed the exhaust configuration on the roof of the loco so that it represents a GP39-2. The number of engine room doors may not be correct byt close enough for now.

C424m

As you can see there are a few of the colour scheme's and there are a few I have not pictured here.

In terms of my fleet, the only models I dont have examples of are an S4, RS11/RS36 low nose.
I am eagerly waiting for Altas or another manufacturer to make these.

All my loco's have been converted to DCC using DZ123's or DZ125's. One of my U30C's has a locsound sound decoder installed and it sounds great!.