2020 Lionel Southern E8s

Matthew, thanks for the good news!

Scott

My guess is these units are too new for anyone to have tried or probably nobody wants to.  I want to remove the Southern Crescent lettering from the nose flanks, this additional lettering while correct, really limits the time period for these units.

I've used magic eraser before and it leaves a dull area.  Anyone done this yet or ideas?, Or just suck it up and leave alone. 

I also want to eventually add brass wire to simulate the piping connecting the air tanks on top.

Gray Lackey

@NHVRYGray posted:

My guess is these units are too new for anyone to have tried or probably nobody wants to.  I want to remove the Southern Crescent lettering from the nose flanks, this additional lettering while correct, really limits the time period for these units.

I've used magic eraser before and it leaves a dull area.  Anyone done this yet or ideas?, Or just suck it up and leave alone.

I also want to eventually add brass wire to simulate the piping connecting the air tanks on top.

Gray Lackey

My go to is a solvaset soaked paper towel and some scotch tape. It can take a while to work and you need to keep the towel wet, but if it works, it generally doesnt leave much of a mark of what you did.

Sometimes you may have to rub at it to get it going (once you get a hole in the graphic for the solvaset to get under it goes easier)... my tool of choice there is a wood toothpick, held at steep angle (work with the side of the point, not the tip) It might leave some rub marks, but nothing major.

Hi Boilermaker1

Can you explain the scotch tape?,. Lift the softened graphic up or some type of mask?

@LionelLegend posted:

Just brought these back from the train store and I’m super impressed with these units. After hearing about the color being off on the Pennsylvania E8s I was worried that it would be the same for the Southerns but I can confirm these are the right color and I am thankful for that. I also noticed that both these units are slightly different from each other like how they are in real life which I wasn’t expecting. Kudos Lionel. Here are some quick pictures I took of them since I got back home late.

I love both the Lionel and MTH E-8's.  It does seem like Lionel's E-8 upper headlight is about 6" longer in scale dimensions from the front of the headlight to the the nose than an MTH or prototypical E-8.  The door headlight does also look somewhat prototypically long on both MTH and Lionel.  Just an observation.  Does anyone have a nose to nose picture of both MTH and a Lionel E-8?

There does seem to be a slight variance in the door headlight length in the picture below.

@NHVRYGray posted:

Hi Boilermaker1

Can you explain the scotch tape?,. Lift the softened graphic up or some type of mask?

if you can soften it up enough, the tape will lift it right off. Sometimes the tape works, sometimes you need to work it off.  Seems to depend on the original process used by Lionel.

Referencing my post above about removing lettering.  Used the Solvaset method from Boilermaker1 and it worked terrific.  Let soak for 25 min with a rewet about 15 min.  lettering came right off.

As an experiment I tried this method on a K Line plastic (old Kusan) hopper and the lettering must use kryptonite ink or something similar, let soak for an hour extremely wet and the lettering just laughed at me.  Lettering finally came off using very aggressive working with the toothpick.  Am going to repaint so no big deal about any finish mars which you could still see the lettering outline.

Thankfully the E8s worked super.

Gray Lackey