Three repainted 1990's vintage Lionel industrial switchers. All of these have the circuit board removed, so that I can add more weight instead, making them much better runners. I have the option of running my layout on DC current for locomotives such as these.
The Conrail unit has a K-Line decorative horn, which come solid, so I hollowed it out with a Dremel cone-shaped grinding bit. The simplified "suggested" front / rear handrails are bent steel wire, mounted in a piece of basswood and attached to the Delrin frame with black double sided adhesive foam tape.
The Reading unit has a Lionel decorative horn in front of the smoke stack, with a smaller Lionel bell from the 4-4-2 steamers. To do the lower stripe along the side, I painted a piece of blank Microscale Film, cut with a razor blade, so I could get a nice straight line. That would be a tough spot on the engine shell to do a paint mask.
The last one I put up on one of these threads a couple weeks ago, but post it here again so one can see the difference (and the increased painting/decal options) by removing the vent detail from the long hood end. I also covered the smaller two upper cab windows on the LV one, and put a decorative horn there.
All three have actual headlights put in them as seen in the photo of the LV unit. All three were repainted with spray cans and all have Microscale HO scale decals on them.
Being I have a small layout, I'm not too bothered about not having electro-couplers or any of the other more recent features. With the added weight they easily pull a dozen train cars, and running on DC current, they do run slowly if need be for yard work.
I do have a RMC Sound Station which gives me some basic locomotive sound effects when I want, and I let my vivid imagination do the rest.
