Interior for Williams Scale GG1

I'd be interested in knowing as well.

I did a "roll your own" simple interior for one, but if those parts fit, I'd like to do it for the second one I have here waiting for an upgrade.

I'll be watching to see how this develops.  What parts are you specifically looking at?

I put a Lionel cab into a WbB E7. It only took a slight amount of trimming. I see no reason why (with a little trimming and glue) that this wouldn't work.

Gilly

I have the parts and the engine.  It's next up on the conversion list.  I'm finishing up installing K-Line/Lionel EP-5 truck side castings on the Williams EP-5.

From photo's and diagrams of the prototype there isn't really much to see.  That was a very small cab and it was cramped.  The windows aren't exactly panoramic which makes looking for us as hard as it was for the crew looking out on the real thing.  The Lionel interior for the scale G is pretty bare bones and will need a fair amount of additional detail work, at least at the upper levels.  I may have to cut down or remove the floor area as I'm not sure how much space was taken up for the control boards/sound boards/ and speaker.

I assembled this list of parts from the Lionel scale GG-1, anything else I missed?

6108354026     CAB CONTROL PANEL / INTERIOR / RIGHT     11     $2.50     (need 2)
6108354025     CAB INTERIOR / FRONT / SCALE GG-1     12     $3.00     
6108354028     CAB INTERIOR / REAR / SCALE GG-1     13     $3.00
6108365016     FIGURE / ENGINEER / FIREMAN / TAN SHIRT     27     $2.50
6108354015     FIGURE / FIREMAN W/ SEAT / BLUE SHIRT     28     $2.50

Parts will fit in the shell.  They match the interior profile well.  They PROBABLY will clear the motors BUT the cab pieces may need modifying because of the speaker mount (rear cab) and I will have to reroute the wiring harness and move the RS boards for the front cabin.  Other option is to split the cabs on the long axis and attach to the inside "sides" of the shell.   Despite the engines size, there really isn a lot of extra space that is truly useable.

Since I haven't mounted the boards in mine yet, I can configure it to clear things.  This one is getting PS/2 as I have one that has TMCC.

I think the price of the cab figures is $4.00 each but I'll check the Lionel site.

Also, if you install an LED for the headlight you might need to add some additional ones to light up the interior. Since I used a 10volt incandescent bulb it not only lights up the headlight and marker lights but also the cab interior.

Just checked and the figures are only $2.50. The pricing I had was from a couple of years ago and the description indicated that the figures included a seat.

Looked at the photos of the parts and the interiors and control panel are a drab gray color. I think you would need to paint them a little to give them some character.

I'll try to snap some pics this weekend.  The PS-2 boards should drop in between the motors and leave most of the space "in front" of the motors open for the cab interiors.  

The only problem may be the speaker which is mounted on the frame just "in front" of the rear motor.  It rises about 3/8"?  You could cut the base of the cab and create a new spanner above the speaker to stabilize the left and right sides.   I think the cab insert continues forward of the real cab area so this area isn't be seen through the windows.

I think I'll order the parts and see how they work out.  It's certainly cheap enough to give it a go.  I'll probably do something about the bare bones panel detailing before installing it.

I'd love to see the pictures Chuck!

 I got those prices off the Lionel site.

I install LED's all around, I feel they look much better than the incandescent bulb for headlights.  I also mask off the headlight totally, the cab lights will be separately controlled.  I have a module I install that turns the cab lights off as the locomotive starts moving, the same module turns the headlight bright for Rule 17 lighting.  I might even make the cab lights directional, haven't thought about that yet.

Mine already has the TMCC boards installed. They take up most of the middle of the engine. I also replaced the stock speaker with one I had from DD that made a great difference in the sounds. When I get the parts I'll see how much I can get inside. Not really concerned about having an interior in the rear section mainly just interested in the front.

My cab lights are already directional since the 10 volt bulbs installed in the same brackets as the original ones. One issue with the TMCC boards is the space they take up and including any additional control boards for lighting would prove very difficult. There is already too many wires.

One concern is whether the interiors will fit around the motors since they are in a different position than the Lionel original.

Extra wires are not a problem, I like proper lighting.  I don't use the Williams bare lightbulb for lighting, I don't like the effect it gives.  The markers also get their own LED's, with the PS/2 upgrade they have separate drive as well.  With the cab interior installed, I'm not sure I see how that light bulb is going to light the cab interior anyway.

I checked my upgrade candidate, and I think the cab can be made to fit, looks like the motor will be behind those panels at the rear of the cab.

Not everybody is an electronics wiz like you.

As far as the effect is concerned I took a photo and the headlight is very bright, illuminates the markers as well as the interior. Cost $2.50 for both bulbs. Too many electronic items to go wrong that's why I adhere to the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.

Here are a couple of photos. It's hard to tell but the headlight is very bright white light and also lights up the red markers. In addition although it did not photograph well the interior lights up as well.

The "wings" hide the motors which is nice.  The parts match up with the interior of the Williams shell.  Worst case scenario is that I'll split the pieces along the long axis and attach to right and left side of the inside of the shell.  

The Lionel parts are a good starting point but I'll be checking my spares boxes for pieces to enhance the interior.  There are a number of photo resources especially for the engineers side.  I've seen a few pics of the fireman's side and it's definitely bare.  I think all he got a set of signal light indicators and a seat.  There was a walkway between the sides (through the arch).  There was a set of tap switches that were part of the motor control in a cabinet behind the engineers station and a narrow walkway between the front and rear cabs along the outer skin.  Center of the engine is where the main transformer (behind front cab) and steam generator (rear cab) were located.  There was a lot of equipment hiding under that shell.

Chuck, I look forward to your pictures of the installation.  The pictures looked like the wings would neatly hide the motors.  I figure to see what I could add to up the level of detail a bit.

Another point to consider, on the Lionel JLC models, the cab interiors are actually mounted to the frame.  Not to the shell itself.

That's right. One of the parts is the mounting crew for the interiors.

I'm sure it's probably going to be pretty easy to glue them to the shell in any case, even if they originally where frame mounted.

I'm going to slice and dice to get the cab into the shell.  If that means gluing to the sides/roof, so be it.  The Williams EP-5 "cab" is a piece of bass wood magic markered black running across the shell that the engineer figure's but is glued to.  There was no way to put a cab in these as the vertical can motors are actually inside the cab.

If you ever get a chance to look into a real GG-1's cab, you'll be astounded at how tiny it is.

I thought the motor would fit into the opening in the interior just like the Lionel version. Why would you have to slice it in two?

If that's the case I'm not going to bother.

Last I checked, they were also pretty unexciting in the decoration department 

Yep, and pretty spartan as well, I thought there'd be more "stuff" in there.

Wouldn't it be fun to use fiber optics to light up the position light cab signals?  There is quite a bit of detail in the cab of a GG1, it is all just cramped into a really tight space. 

Here is a decent shot of the interior on the RR Museum of PA's website:  http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/what.../gg1washington.shtml

This is the only picture I find, can you identify the various indicators?

Here is a graphic of what the PRR Signal Aspects stood for.  The cab indicators would replicate these. 

Also, here is a shot into the cab of my 3rd Rail GG1.  Not a great shot, but it has nice detail.

I put the railsounds boards in the area in front of the forward motor.  The "floor" of the cab insert will intrude into that area.  If you don't use the front zone it shouldn't be a problem.  The speaker is in the way of the rear cab insert.  Since Lionel's design had these parts attached to the frame they aren't an exact match.  I actually don't care what they are attached to, I just want to see something other than the wiring harness when I look in the window.

If you think the engineer side is sparce, you should see the fireman's.  They got a chair and an abbreviated signal indicator.  There is a full description and layout of the engineers side on the Classic Trains site.  I think its a pdf that can downloaded.  There was a nice write up on the loco in 2009 Classic Trains.  They had a nice 3D cut away.  That shell was packed tight with stuff.  The frame is nothing but wheels from one end of the frame to the other.  

here is the signal indicators;

Originally posted by Chuck:

The frame is nothing but wheels from one end of the frame to the other.  

actually, the "frame" was a bridge on wheels!

Chuck, do you have a link to that cab description?

The TMCC and ERR Cruise boards are installed between the two motors. I should be able to slip the interiors over the motors themselves but won't really know until I get the parts. The front should work but I'm not sure about the rear because of the speaker. I replaced the stock one with an upgraded DD speaker which is a little larger.

One thing I do plan on doing is pulling the two motors and replace the grease in the gearbox. That should be sufficient for about 50 hours of run time.

Actually, this is the frame:

GG-1 with the "top" off

Download site for engineers side with "keys"

John, I found one photo of the fireman's side of the cab.  It had a vertical signal indicator with only four positions instead of five that the engineer saw.  That seemed to be it.  I'll see if I can pull it up again.

Chuck,

When you get the shell off the engine post a picture of the inserts installed.  Why did you put the TMCC components in the front? I thought they would fit better between the motors in the center of the frame.

Thanks Chuck, that's a great shot with descriptions too!

Ditto

I installed the electronics package about 9 months ago?  Long before I had access to the cab interior parts.   Having never seen them I had no idea how much space the assembly would take.  

The command boards are in the middle between the motors and are out of the way.  The sound board would only fit if I tried stacking it on top of the command boards which I really did not want to do.   I don't like to butcher the Williams connectors and I make up an adaptor to tie the two motors together and feed the ERR board.  This uses RC car harness parts and makes up a wad of wire about the size of a ping pong ball.   I had considered putting the sound board there in a vertical mount but decided there was plenty of space in the front of the shell.  Technically there is plenty of space, just not enough to use the Lionel parts the way Lionel intended them to be used.

The actual cab area is pretty small and I have no problems cutting it up even farther to do what I want to do.   Kitbashing plastic parts isn't that big a deal to me and it may be easier than moving the electronics around since those are actually working.

I have no compunction about removing pretty much all the connectors when I do most upgrades.  Since I replace all the lighting, about the only wires that are left after stripping out the conventional stuff are the ones from the pickups.