Custom Illinois Central (Gulf)

Way to go. Worked for them (ICG/GM&O-side) for 15 years. Never though the orange and white was very attractive, but it brings back some good memories and I've come to, if not "like" it, at least to "enjoy" it. I've wanted to do an ICG F-unit. Maybe this will get me to do it.

 

I do have an orange/white MTH ICG SD-40 and a Williams ICG NW-2.

Also, their later gray/orange lettering scheme was really sharp, but short-lived.  

Thanks for sharing your engine pictures .  I like ICG myself only in HO SCALE .

 

 

D500 and WRGMILW thanks for the comments, anyone has to be nervous about posting their own work, but it makes me comfortable putting up some of the other work

 

Here is a heck of a chop shop diesel which I thought was a fantastic inspiration

 

 

Here is a 33K tank car which MTH looked to design but never produce.  If anyone actually has a prototype I would be interested in purchasing.  In the meantime I re-purposed another to mimic the original design.

 

 

Nice work. It's good to see somebody painting and kitbashing to get what he wants, rather than just complaining that L and M aren't making it. Rock on!

To get the ILLINOIS CENTRAL GULF ACF Center Flow 3560 Cu. Ft. 3-bay covered hopper they will have to strip and repaint the Lionel Erie-Lackawanna and ADM BioProducts ACF Center 3-bay covered hoppers made by Lionel in the 1990's. Those schemes had several errors in graphics and were road numbers for larger cars. The ADM BioProducts scheme is not even a real ADM scheme.

 

So, everybody, which is the safest material to strip the paint off a Lionel plastic body ACF Center Flow 3560 CU FT 3-bay covered hopper. First the trucks have to be removed.

 

 

 

 

I've used a product called Wash Away before with good results.

 

BTW, I really like your patched GP9. Cool idea.

Scalecoat II Wash Away paint remover is what I was going to get from Weaver Models, but they ran out.

 

Now I will have to get it elsewhere.

 

Andrew

Here is one which I did not do myself but acquired.  A nice looking work caboose.

 

 

I've seen this photo online in a few places, it's a nice unique looking car.  If you get the repaint done please post some photos.

 

My technique of painting over original paint schemes is not great, and instead of using a brush I should go buy an airbrush and learn to use it.  To date I have not stripped any paint off, instead have just painted over.   Some fine detail on doors etc can be lost owing to buildup of paint coats, but it has not been detracting enough for me to be concerned.  I find many newer cars with printed graphics can be painted over once in black and then in color.  That's how most of these are done which I have posted.  Early Lionel cars with raised paint graphics tend to work better if sanded prior to overpaint.  A paint stripper in that case may have worked better.  

Of the ICG paint schemes my favorite is the grey and orange and before I found out that Weaver offered the paint job below, I repainted an old Lionel IC GP9

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here I left the IC orange cab original and it was a bit tough to match the orange with commercial paint, doesn't look terrible, but it might lead me to repaint with a better match down the road.

Your work looks great!  Thank you for sharing!

Each shot reminds me what a joy it is to redo or do your own scheme based on a RR you really like. I also get a lot from painting. I owned an airbrush a long time ago, and getting back into it a couple of years ago found me using spray cans. A lot of caution needs to be used that way, but EASY OFF oven cleaner will get the paint off shells without harming the plastic, so spray 'bombs' can give a satisfying result. I'm going to get an airbrush one of these days, tho'...Easy-Off is cheap and works well with a stiff toothbrush to get the paint off.

The latest inspiration was a photo showing a line up of various IC paint schemes with the trailing diesel having an all orange paint scheme with low profile ICG.

 

 

 

 

While I have not ever seen any manufacturers offer an IC calf, I wanted to incorporate one somehow, so painted an MTH original to look like this:

 

 

 

Here's one in real life:

 

 

Easy off does work well. The cheaper "oven cleaners" seem to remove paint and dont harm plastic. Watch out though, as some "degreasers" will even eat into die cast metal! I've used say a broken cheap caboose shell or the extra plastic from a building kit and put it in whatever you plan to use to make sure it won't soften or melt the plastic.

The Lionel ADM BioProducts ACF Center Flow 3560 Cubic Foot covered hopper.

 

 

 

The Illinois Central Gulf ACF Center Flow 3560 Cubic Foot Covered Hopper.

 

The paint needs to be removed on the plastic body of the model using Weaver Models Scalecoat  Wash Away. 

 

The 3-bay hopper has to be repainted very light gray.

 

Decals have to be custom made for this O Scale model.

Andrew

Andrew

That's a nice looking car, I wouldn't mind making one myself, if you end up making the custom decals or commissioning someone to do so let me know and I will share the cost with you.

Ed

Saw a similar item on ebay but lost out on the auction.  Purchased an older Lionel model of another line and painted it to match my overly orange theme

 

 

Daniel Kohlberg makes HO Scale ICG decals.

 

It would be possible to have him custom resize and print on an ALPS the ICG ACF Center Flow decal set in O Scale for $30.

 

 

Andrew

I'm not sure if this will work. I've always thought of trying to model these cars. It wouldn't fit through tunnel portals, so I never stuck with it.

https://flic.kr/p/dYXQ5d

I really like that F unit. Brings back memories of going to visit my grandparents in Jefferson Heights, LA.  The road passed over a large ICG yard that was full of white and orange locos.

Awesome work! And it looks like you are having a lot of fun along the way. Very cool projects. Thanks for posting all of the photos. It sure is a great inspiration.

This is a nice idea also, your link shows

 

 

 

 

 

This reminded me that Weaver had advertised this car:

 

 

 

 

and it further reminded me of an HO custom job I had seen on ebay a long while back which I really thought looked fantastic but as I'm in O, I passed

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the note, it's nice to hear of people who have real world experience with IC/ICG.  I grew up in Monticello which is  where the Illinois Railway Museum is and they have some IC stuff there.  Was out of the hobby for a long time and now being out of Illinois, this is a way for me to stay connected to my roots.   During collecting I have come to realize that the line has heavy ties outside Il to other places like LA which leads to your memories.  Very cool.

Ed, I like that orange/grey GP.

 

What was the timeframe for that paintjob?

Some really nice paint jobs and modeling.  Thanks for sharing.

The orange and grey probaly took 2 days total but would be more if you did a bit of work here and there over a longer week.  The original Lionel factory raised IC lettering had to be sanded off which is a quick job, and now I know to put a base coat of black over the entire body which I hadn't done at the time on that specific job.  This helps with overcoats of lighter oranges.  I left the cab orange from the factory and the color was a bit hard to match for the rest of the orange, though it was close enough for me.  I use acrylic paints with brushes (optimally not the best choice, but again works for me) so the orange takes between 6 and 8 coats to not show through, and the grey takes about 4-5 coats.  The trucks and undercarraige are painted grey, and the body was grey also.  The lettering for ICG was done by printing out several ICG fonts and sizes and then cutting out the letters from a piece of paper leaving the outline of the letters on the paper.  I then taped this cutout stencil to the body and carefully painted the ICG orange over the grey body paint.  There was the need to touch up a bit to make true, but I think it came out as good as decaling.   All told I would say the project could be completed in a weekend if you are painting once an hour when the dries.  I work fast since I have a short attention span for projects and like to complete them. I then coat the entire thing in matte varnish to protect the paint and mask any shine from the decals.

MTH has not yet produced the ICG open-top 4-bay hoppers in the Centralia Quad scheme. It is most likely going to be in the next production run.

 

 

That's a slick looking paint scheme.  I do not recall having seen this orange circle before, thanks for posting.

Here are two items I did not paint myself but purchased from other collectors, a Lionel caboose which was repainted.  Not sure whether you would have ever seen a black and orange caboose like that but it was unique.  While you can get a black NW2 from weaver or MTH, the guy I bought this NW2 from had redone another Lionel

 

 

The other one for today is a deconstructed MTH Illinois Central box car as inspiration for a Lionel water tower repaint.  Guess I should have gone with the green diamond decal

 

 

 

 

 

 The photos below show a custom Alco which I purchased from a guy in Illinois who had repainted I think a weaver engine.

 

 

 

 Here is a minor repaint/decal of an MTH plow car which now fits the IC theme

 

 

 Before MTH came out with the IC stack car I had taken some of the lionel dual car sets and repainted in an entirely fantasy version of IC/ICG stack cars.

 

 

Does anyone know whether any of the manufacturers offered an IC/ICG stock car?  Did stock cars ever run on the IC lines?  This is a repaint of an MTH car