Time to paint and repaint PA's

GM&O

I'll get a great shot for you next week of a GM&O PA.... stay tuned

Did you just get those at a Stout auction?

SO! does the Central Locomotive Works PA qualify as a door stop ? With a little work they can look great,maybe its time to pull mine out and finish them !    Great pics too thanks.

Stephen from Down Under      (cTr...Choose the Right)

The two in front I did. The other three I bought from Bob Smith many years ago and then had Lew repower them with Pittman 9x motors.

I would say no. Most door stops are all one sand casting. The PA etchings are very good and the trucks are some of the best even today. Now the nose casting.... could hold a few doors

I like them.  In my fantasy world (the model train one that is) diesel just didn't work out but I'd keep these big Alco engines just because they're so pretty.

Jay

Doorstop?  Actually, yes and no.  CLW originally produced these in all cast versions with a fairly accurate nose and one piece truck sideframes.  The whole story is interesting, and involves Alco and the Waldorf Astoria in New York - but for now, suffice to say the doorstops are more accurate in outline, and the etched models have much better detail work.  The doorstops have absolutely no rivets.

Doorstop under construction.  Ignore the trucks; they are from the elusive Erie-Built doorstop.

Just checking I've seen those many times. They were my Uncles. He's 83 and decided to dispose of his trains so his kids don't have to deal with them. His Indiana Eastern RR was featured in O Scale News. He also had an ABA set of CLW BP 20 Passenger sharks in IE. I wonder where they went? I did get his Lobaugh Challenger. I know he'll be glad they went to a good home. Please post a photo when you're done. I'd like to show him next time I see him.

Hi Mike,

I put in new decoders (NCE) as I could not get those Lenz to respond. They run beautifully. Let him know these went to a very good home!

All Alco all the time

Here's My Central PA I messed around with the front windows and side gutter, the grill around the headlight has been recessed, there's still some work to do as you can see.

Beautiful..i love PA's..

Looking good. I was also going to try and reshape the front casting to be more like the prototype.

Hey, I talked to my Uncle today. He said that the Lenz decoder was a 2 digit decoder. That might be your problem if you tried to get a 3 or 4 digit ID in it.

Motivated by this thread, I grabbed a spare nose and tapered it.  The windows need to be cut out, and I am thinking of going thicker on the overlay so I can further reduce the windshield height.

Bob    The taper helps, but the lack of depth in the top area makes the CLW nose seem to wide hence not long enough, Its hard to deepen it since you would have to deepen the side windows, or maybe it would be better to build up the edge, I assume the nose on the left is MTH.

Stephen from Down Under   (cTr...Choose the Right)

They did look old   I just replace them with NCE decoders for now.

Heading over to Harman Monk's today to see the GM&O PA he did. He did extensive work on the nose and I want to see just was involved. Pix at 11

Tell Harmon I said hi - it has been too long.

Stephen - that nose has many flaws.  You are correct that the nose is simply too short, and it appears that a new hood ( the horizontal part ahead of the windshield) might help.  But the biggest flaws are the huge windshield openings, the height of the windshield surface including mullions, and the absolute lack of taper.

That is indeed an MTH  nose, and is the only one in existence cast in nickel silver.  As far as I can tell, the MTH nose was the most accurate ever in O Scale before the new Key units hit the market.

Harman's PA with modified nose.

He did a beautiful job on that.  Don't tell him about the taper.  Makes me want to do one in GMO..

May I steal your beautiful photos and post them elsewhere?  I know Harmon won't mind, but I always ask.

Now that is what a PA is supposed to look like. There is no paint scheme more handsome than the GM&O on a PA-1.

M alcolm

No problem :-)