I was playing around with passenger trains and made a video for the heck of it.

Nice Casey...maybe one day you and I will get our railroads off the floor

I picked up the three RDG covered hoppers offered by Athearn and completed the weathering on one of them.I know the units aren't correct for the RDG but they are nice looking.
I replaced the trucks with Athearn's 70 ton roller bearing trucks and painted them gray.Added Kadee's and weathered.
Top view of 78988

Side one

Side two

Finished with the final touches on my 3620 this morning.


The unit just completed a two hour run on my carpet layout pulling 35 loaded coal hoppers plus caboose.The unit ran both lead and trailing teamed with P2K 3618 and both ran flawlessly together.

The re-released Kato model is basically the same as before with changes to the cab,i.e. holes for mounting sun shades and wind shield wipers included with the model.Since the RDG operated without ss's I used strip styrene to cover the mounting holes and the obvious gap above the side windows.The modeler needs to drill holes for the mounting of lift rings and mu hoses which are not included with the model.As before,you will have to add the truck details.They are included but the speed recorder is not.
The hand rails,grabs and lift bar are made with the same slippery plastic.I treated them with an automotive paint adhesive before painting.I was hoping they would have revised their drop step to a separate piece instead of the molded on up position drop steps.I tried removing it and adding my own in the down position,but it didn't work out.Glad I had an extra set.
My model was painted using SCII RDG green and PS RDG yellow.The pilots,steps,window gaskets and number boards were painted FQ engine black.On the trucks and fuel tank I used FQ weathered black.PS oily black was used on the grills,shadow effect for the door latched and fuel spills.The weathering was done with pencil,white and black powders.
Details added were lift rings,mu hoses,sinclair antenna,horn,drip strips, air deflectors,arm rests,crew and Kadee #158's.All decals were from Microscale.
More views of the finished product.

Three pics of the power used on this mornings coal train.




Sorry for the picture quality.What I wanted to point out in these views is the difference in the shade of yellow.On my last eight engine projects (4 P2K 30's 3618 included,2 P2K SD45's,1 P2K GP7,1 Athearn SW1500)I have used poly scale RDG yellow with the red label.When it was announced that the PS line was being discontinued I picked up all I could find.3620 is the first unit I painted using PS RDG yellow with the newer white and blue label and it definitely has a more orange tint to it.So even when made by the same manufacturer the batches are slightly different in shade.When running together that slight contrast does look good though.

Worked on some weathering...added more to my previously posted 78988


Got a little carried away with the application of the green patina.

Next up 78968



Also assembled a Bowser offering 15056



All three together.


Three EMD's pulling