Starting My DT&I Fleet

Crewdawg15,

You were able to upload a photo of two DT&I locos.

How’d you get past the error message “Unable to upload file ________. Error: This forum has exceeded its attachment space limit. Your file cannot be uploaded.”?

Scott

Crewdawg15,

Thank you.

Prompt response and solution provided appreciated greatly.

Forgive me.

We parallel each other in terms of reacting to the nearby diesel locomotives while riding bicycles as children and returning to model railroading after many years.

On American-rails.com is a DT&I route map. Went right down the middle. Your Jeffersonville is on the map. Musta been the railroad for Ohio railroaders. They gotta lotta diamonds out there in Ohio. In the north, DT&I crossed New York Central, Pennsylvania Railroad, and Baltimore and Ohio mainlines to Chicago. In the south, The Pennsy and B&O crossed the DT&I en route to Cincinnati.

As we know, AZL made a DT&I boxcar as it was an integral part of an auto parts shipping system. (I went for the Penn Central version, not pictured. Golly, them things were tall. Ohio had the open space for them.) That’s the good news. Other news is that that AZL DT&I boxcar is the only DT&I in Z scale apart from the two beauties of your creation. Just as Rob and Hans may wish to consider front and end possibilities for Western Maryland, Hans and Rob may wish to consider the same for DT&I. Reference the thread Any love for DT&I?:

azlforum.com/thread/2772/any-love-dt

Western Maryland and DT&I—Weren’t they about the same size?

Your DT&I creations look factory-made which is nothing short of excellent. More and more on the forum we are seeing custom paint jobs with decals and BOGO geeps. I’m startin’ to feel it’s doable for myself. (Inspiring!)

Again, thank you Crewdawg15 for the hosting method.

Scott

Crewdawg15,

Photography is commendable too. Like the seamless backdrop and the gradient at top.

Without necessarily spilling any secrets in your wizardry, how did you arrive at an accurate shade for DT&I orange?

Decal thinner used during the micro-surgery?

Fluid or tape used for masking?

Any plans on attacking a wide vision caboose?

Airbrush gear, acrylics, IPA, masking, etc.—Like hearing about those things.

Scott

PS: Western Maryland background, should this be of interest …

DT&I traversed Ohio like the midrib of a leaf. Western Maryland followed, more or less, the Mason-Dixon Line, at least from Gettysburg to the narrows of Cumberland. On paper the two railroads seem to have covered similar distances. Another similarity is that AZL features one type of rolling stock for both railroads. (We know an AZL Alco is forthcoming for Western Maryland.)

Western Maryland was one of the major players in the Chessie System. (The other two were the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Baltimore and Ohio with the C&O having the most ownership, about 90-percent.)

Chessie System didn’t care a whole lot about repainting its mergers. This is why it was common to see, for example, a red-white-black Circus Colors Western Maryland geep, a Chessie System GP9, a Blue Dip B&O GP30, and a Blue Dip C&O GP40 at the head end of a freight train.

Uniform consists of locomotive power did exist on Chessie. A trio of B&O Chessie SD40-2s was common in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Still, there was the occasional Blue Dip or Western Maryland on B&O Chessie—Even the second generation black Western Maryland F7s or black B-unit F7s with the pale yellow Speed Lettering. A team of B&O Chessie SD50s was common in the early ’80s. By then, gray Seaboard SD50s on the B&O Chessie were popping up like corks on a lake.

In the late ’60s and early ’70s it was common to see yellow and green Reading locomotives with the Blue Dips on pre-B&O Chessie B&O. But that’s a whole other story.

The Chesapeake Bay










"Circus Paint" !!!!!
Best, 
Sven & Dirk

Thanks!

No trickery with the picture. I set my tracks on a plain sheet of copy paper, using them to weigh it down while I rolled and propped the rest of it against a stop. I then cropped the picture after taking it.

The paint is Badger AirFlex Southern Pacific Daylight Orange. I was on a search for the proper shade and read that a lot of modellers use that color to including the late Jim Hediger. If it was good enough for him, it was good enough for me considering the man bled DT&I! 😎. The black is Tamiya X-18 semi gloss black acrylic.

My airbrush is a Harbor Freight dual action airbrush. It's attached to a rechargeable screw on hand held air compressor that I got from Amazon as a combo. Nothing fancy, but it serves me well for what I'm doing.

I used 3M Blue painters tape and 3M auto body masking tape that I bought in bulk while I lived in Japan.

I disassembled the loco into its major components:

1. Long/Short Hood assembly with light diffusers removed
2. Cab glass and cab details removed
3. Walkway/Porch assembly
4. Handrail assemblies



The plastic parts were painted in either a laquer or acrylic finish, but the metal handrails and hood access door sections were painted with something stronger like an enamel as the 90% isopropyl alcohol had no effect on it. I really like the resolution of the GP7 placards so I cut a small square of masking tape and covered them up. I then painted all of the orange pieces (Hood assembly, cab, steps, and rail assemblies) first with a couple of light coats and let them dry overnight. I didn't use any primer as I was trying to keep my coats light to preserve the details, especially on the metal parts because they still had their original paint. I then masked off the section of the battery covers and steps that were to be orange, and sprayed a couple of light coats of black on them and the walkway assembly.



I then just reassembled the parts once the paint was dry. The only problem that I had was breaking the light diffusers upon removal. I ended up taking a page from the GP38-2 method and got some Plastruct fiber optic strands and made my own. They work like a champ!



I do a lot of scratch building for 1/24 car models, so I might attempt to fab up some rolling stock in the future. In the meantime I'm content with my mods and repaints.

Sorry for the long winded response!

Jimmy

As one of the pioneers of modeling the DT&I in N Gauge,I congratulate you on you efforts.When I started there was only one halfway decent EMD locomotive in N. I had to make and modify decals,and extensively bash equipment. Flash forward to 15 or so years ago,when MTL announced they were doing a GP-35 in Z. I had a run of DT&I decals made,and sold some of those sets on E bay.I removed the dynamics,and otherwise modified the 35 to resemble a DT&I engine. Posted is a pic of it against part of the N fleet. I have other AZL engines awaiting conversion.Thanks to AZL for providing North American Locomotives! But I have too many irons in the fire. Rebuilding the DT&I with a train simulator takes up most of my time. It seems you share some of my other hobby interest. Joe