For giggles and grins, I picked up an unpowered GP9 Lionel loco, found a power truck for it, cut the chassis to take the power truck using a standard powered Lionel as a template, added LED lighting, and removed the dynamic brake blister since this was a Florida East Coast red and yellow loco, and when I lived down there as a kid 55 years ago, never saw a diesel with dynamic brakes. Of course, under the DB blister was unpainted plastic, but the exhaust stacks were there. I also took the horns off the sides and relocated them to the top, that was something odd to me, that Lionel didn't put the horns on top. What railroad had them on the side that Lionel thought side mount was universal? Did Lionel take literary license on this model? It contains most of the features of the GP7, but it has GP9 battery box louvers. It has four 36inch fans on top, when they should be two 48's, but there was railroad that did a GP9 rebuild where they installed the 4 small fans. The side grill work on the radiator end is pure GP7. I am not a purist for accuracy, but wondered if Lionel added a dynamic brake to their GP7 and called it a GP9.
Charlie in NC