PRR E44

They were black when I saw them; late PRR, PC, CR. Conrail did at least one in CR blue, btw.

The official PRR color is DGLE.  We often forget that DGLE is mostly black with a little green mixed.  Just like Pennsy steam where the the locomotive boiler, cab, tender, etc. was DGLE with a black chassis, wheels, and undercarriage.  If you were to place a 1960's GG1 next to an E44 the color would be the same.

Granted, these are restored in Strasburg, but the locomotives are photographed under the same lighting conditions and the historians there know quite a bit about the PRR. Add some road dirt and it looks black to the eye.  1960's PRR was not an era synonymous with the wash rack.  I think model paints tend to bring out the green too much when it comes to DGLE.

Of course you could also paint it for Amtrak One got painted in silver and black.  Quite attractive even if it never saw service.

Is your casting a Duddy, Alexander, or other?  What are you using for Faively pantographs?  My unedited photos below and links to web photos under that.

E44 new in 1962

Compare Lead E44 to Second GG1

In reading about these locomotives over the years, I have never heard of the locomotives in black for PRR. Always 'Brunswick' green. MTH, Alco Models among others always was dark green.  About eight years later (1968) most got the black Penn Central beauty treatment.

Bob, I've found the best representation of DGLE is an undercoat of black paint, topped with Scalecoat Brunswick Green.

I recently restored a Wolfer GG1 and bought decals from John Franz at Mt. Vernon Shops. His artwork is HO but he scaled it to O for me. His decals are excellent. Cannot help with the Faively. Though the former Trackside Specialties did offer them.

@GG1 4877 posted: ...snip...

Is your casting a Duddy, Alexander, or other?  What are you using for Faively pantographs?  My unedited photos below and links to web photos under that.

Compare Lead E44 to Second GG1

I am not really sure whose casting the body is, here is a shot of the bottom:

As far as the pans, it is an old Walthers diamond style. I have yet to find a good reasonably-priced Faivley; I know that Atlas uses one on their AEM7, but I do not know if it is electrically (or even reliably mechanically) functional.

As to the GG1s in the photo, note that their pans are down. An interesting photo.

@PRRMP54 posted:

As far as the pans, it is an old Walthers diamond style. I have yet to find a good reasonably-priced Faivley; I know that Atlas uses one on their AEM7, but I do not know if it is electrically (or even reliably mechanically) functional.

The Atlas pans are too short in my opinion.  I have all the Atlas AEM7 / ALP44 variations.  MTH did a nice Faively pantograph on their E44, but parts aren't available.  The Lionel HHP8 also has short pans.  I'm looking for a pair for a almost scale E60 project I'm working on.

Thanks.  Scale Coat Brunswick over black it is!

Yes, I have the Faiveleys, but no instructions.  I think I see how they go together, but not sure yet where the big coil springs go.  Wilco on the decals.

MIne are aluminum castings, maybe Penn-Erie.

Thoughts on rotating bearing caps?

Bob, cannot tell but the lighting in your photo makes the paint look flat and washed out. Is it deep black?
That helps bring down the Brunswick tint.

No - that was zinc chromate.   I shot it black Monday.  Needs 400 sandpaper and another coat.

Thinking of drilling vertical holes for the handrail stanchions, then soldering a brace to the stanchions where they go up beyond the walkway.  All the horizontal holes are drilled.

During my GE career, I received a phone call with a request to "host" someone who wanted some info.  (We Marketing guys received all of the inquiries no one else knew what to do with......)  The visitor introduced himself as Ed Duddy, and he wanted to access some E44's in our scrap line.  (As I recall, all of the E44's in the line were black, and I am sure I would have recognized Brunswick Green.  I also remember that one of them, I believe 4453, had been completely rebuilt with a new control system, traction motors, etc. in anticipation by GE that we would retrofit the entire fleet and thereby extending their lives and that of the PRR electrification.  I thought about trying to save this unit since it was essentially brand new, but there was no support for that activity at that time, so I had no support.)

Ed was on a single mission.  He wanted to inspect the chain that was used to connect two units together so a crew could walk from unit to unit with no safety risk.  We readily located a few units and he climbed on each, and counted the chain links per foot of chain.  He told me that he wanted the correctly sized chains on his E44 models.

(This was my early introduction into the nuances of O scale...)

This must have worked out pretty well.  At about the same time, I hosted a work group from the Buffalo area who climbed all over a Niagara Junction electric (we had several) and removed a lot of items, and told me that they made a request to have GE donate one to their organization.

Working on the Faiveley pantographs.  So far, it looks like I am missing an easily fabricated rod, but I cannot figure out how the pneumatic cylinder mounts.  Does it just rigidly mount on the frame?

Per Chris's comment, I thought Vince Waterman offered a Faiveley in one of his listings, glad to know that's not my memory shorting out yet, as I recall they were fine scale too like his GG1 pantographs.

Bob, Jim has a Penn-Erie car body with Faiveley's, he's posted a mug shot of it on one of the forums too, maybe he'll help you out.

Where did you dig your example up from?  wow.....  

Mine is like Jim's on the Wolfer.  They are mounted.  I soldered the cylinder casting in place - the extra rod forms a parallelogram to raise the upper arm equally with the lower.  I think I "got it."

Now the trucks.  I could really go for a set of Wolfer/Duddy trucks.  Nobody seems to know who got the masters.  Barring that, I shall add journal caps and fake springs to my homemade trucks, and press on.

Probably would be better to just cut this in as an edit.  The front Faiveley is complete except for springs and electrical wire.  Turns out there is a parallelogram that makes extension split between upper and lower arms.  I had to make the final part of that.

@bob2 posted:

Now the trucks.  I could really go for a set of Wolfer/Duddy trucks.  Nobody seems to know who got the masters.  Barring that, I shall add journal caps and fake springs to my homemade trucks, and press on.

Those trucks would have gone to they who purchased Ed Duddy's estate. Probably covered in one or both of the O Scale mags, that on the assumption that Ed passed before Greg Heier.

Ed didn't get the credit he should have for all the stuff he brought to O Scale.

Simon