This week I have moved my C-855 project on a little bit further by adding lights to the locos so in this week’s post I will show you how I did it.

As with any modeling project there are several ways to do the same thing but this method works for me.  The C-855 has a pair of headlights centered above the cab windows, one above the other.

There is also a rear facing light, offset on the right hand side, but I have chosen not to illuminate this because these C-855s will always be running together so the rear lights would never come on.

When I made the 3D model I allowed room in the cab roof for an LED; I even recessed the roof to accept a 2mm LED directly into the back of the light as you can see in the section image below.

However, for this particular loco I used an LED from a DC lighting board.  Having used lots of Atlas C-628 & C-630 chassis for my DT6-6-2000 & RT-624 projects I have several of these boards knocking about.

There are a few reasons for using these. The LED is the right color, there is a resistor already attached and the LED is shrouded by a rubber sleeve.  This LED is a 3mm so it won’t fit into the hole I designed in the roof but I’ll deal with that later.

The only parts of the lighting board I really need are the LED and resistor; and only one end has these close together.  Using a pair of side snips I cut off that end just behind the yellow capacitor.

Then I cut the resistor leg furthest from the LED and rotate the resister by 90 degrees.

Then, to make access a bit easier, I remove the capacitor and diode from the circuit board.

Lastly I cut the unnecessary part of the circuit board away, leaving me with just the parts I need.

The inside of the shell is still white as only the outside was painted.  This can cause a small problem as the material is fairly light porous so any internal light will show through or cause the shell to glow.

To prevent this I painted the inside of the cab roof black with a basic matte black paint.  Only the roof and area around the hole for the light to shine through needs to be painted.

With the shell prepared the next step is to connect the wires.  The blue wire from any DCC decoder is the positive and for this configuration it’s connected to the LED.  The negative white wire, front light, is connected to the resistor.  It’s worth checking at this stage that the LED works.  Don’t forget that an LED is still a diode and if the wires are round the wrong way it simply won’t work.  Once you are happy that the LED works I would recommend putting a strip of Kapton Tape between the wires.  If they touch you will damage your DCC decoder.  A better option is to cover both the white wire and resister connection with heat shrink but you need to remember to put the heat shrink over the wire first.

The light assembly is then glued into the roof of the cab.  I used superglue for this as it’s fast and I know it has no adverse effects on the shell material.  The LED wants to be right up tight to the hole in the front of the cab to reduce the amount of light that spills out into the cab.

This is another good time to check that everything is working correctly.  As you can see the headlights are fine but there’s a lot of light in the cab.  This is coming from the area where the sleeve over the LED does not go all the way to the end.  It’s also reflecting around the rest of the white cab walls.

So to solve this I then paint over the LED assembly with the same matte black paint.  This particular paint is a fairly old pot and has started to thicken up, which is perfect.  I’ve applied a thick coat and used the paint to seal the gap between the LED and the cab front.

Once the paint had dried the body shell is refitted to the chassis, checking that the two wires don’t get trapped between the sides, and the loco lights are re-tested.

As you can see there’s still a bit of light showing through on one side of the cab but the headlights are working well.

To fix the light coming into the cab I removed the shell and gave the LED assembly another liberal coat of matte black paint which did the trick

The head light is now complete, but there are some more details to apply to totally finish off the loco and I will cover those next week.

Last weekend I was at the Fordingbridge Model Railway Exhibition with our club layout, ‘Solent Summit’.  I’d planned on giving a full review of this very busy exhibition in this week’s post but, as we had a fairly large layout to assemble and run this year, I didn’t have time to have a good look around or take photos of the other layouts.  However I did manage to capture some shots of a pair of freshly painted locos out on their first trial run.

Locos 60 and 61 are still at the ‘work-in-progress’ stage.  The main painting and lining has been done by our friends at Model Railway Solutions but they still need their handrails adding, trucks painting and to be weathered up.  As you can see below even though the shells have been printed in Shapeways FUD material, which isn’t as sharp as the FXD, the detail has come out very well.  The lone handrail was simply positioned as a test fit.  Because the handrails fit into holes in the top of the sandboxes they’re self-supporting which makes them much easer to install than on my previous locomotive kits.

Both locomotives are powered and fitted with sound decoders; there’s a useful amount of space between the top of the chassis and the shell top so a sugar cube speaker could easily be added.  So once the main exhibition started to wind down the C-855s took to the rails to see what they could do.  This little trestle might be familiar to regular readers.

Arriving in ‘Solent Summit’ station the big Alcos pulled up next to the very locomotive they were built to replace, the General Electric 8500 Gas Turbine.

Even though I’ve become very familiar with the dimensions of the C-855, having drawn it from head to toe, I’m still amazed at the size of them.  The two C-855s dwarf the turbine.

Though the Alcos are using reconditioned trucks from the earlier 4500 Turbines, the chassis is totally new, pushing the trucks further apart and adding to the length.

As the Alcos rumble off the turbine takes the siding awaiting its place in history.

I captured the Alco’s on video running light loco across’ Hell’s Glen’ trestle on their way to collect their train and again pulling away from ‘Solent Summit’ and you can see it by clicking on the link below.

UP Alco C-855 with Freight Through Solent Summit (Fordingbridge Exibition 2016)

Although the Con-Cor chassis the C-855s are using is only powered on two of the four trucks they are very heavy, especially with the added weight of the 3D printed stainless steel chassis extenders.  They pulled the train as if it wasn’t there.  Once the C-855B is finished these three will be unstoppable!

General Electric also produced a similar locomotive for the Union Pacific, and later the Southern Pacific, in the U50.  Again this locomotive used reconditioned 4500 Turbine trucks and was of a similar size as you can see below. Note: Santa Fe never had any U50s, this locomotive is the donor chassis for my C-855B.

Later that evening C-855 no 60 received its handrails and ladders which made a dramatic change to the appearance of the loco.  All that’s left now is to finish painting the trucks and pilots and weather her up.

The C-855 is part of Alco’s ‘Century’ series of locomotives.  The C-855 is by far the largest and the only twin-engine locomotive. Two locomotives down the list is the C-630 and, as you can see, there’s a considerable difference.

Because the trucks are grouped in pairs linked by span bolsters they push the locomotive up, giving it towering dimensions compared to most other conventional two and three axle locomotives.

Once the C-855B unit arrives, which is due next week, it too will be painted by MRS and then all three will be weathered and ready for service.  These three are destined for a place in the UP engine sheds on the ‘Somewhere West‘ which you can find in the Layout Gallery or by clicking on the link.  I expect we’ll be getting lots of photos and videos of them in service and I also expect them to last a lot longer than the originals.