Over the last few months I’ve been posting about my new locomotive project, the huge Alco C-855 built for the Union Pacific railroad.  This iconic engine, despite only being in service for 8 years out of North Platte in Nebraska, was part of the general pool of locomotives and ran in different consists with several varieties of Union Pacific power.  But it was delivered by Alco as a set of three; two C-855s and a C-855B cabless booster.  Together they produced 16,500 HP and were Alco’s answer to UP’s call for a loco to replace the ageing GTEL 8500 Gas Turbines.  In this post I’ll share with you my designs for the C-855B to complete the set.

The C-855B is basically identical to the C-855 with the only difference being the lack of a cab at the front end.  As you can see from the images below they are also the exact same length with all the same doors and features.

Please note: the trucks are purely there as a representation, I’ve not drawn the proper truck assemblies yet. However I will be doing this so I can make a dummy chassis available soon.

Alco simply removed the cab section and added the same end equipment as the rear end.  Then they filled in the space with bodywork plate as you can see below.

This means that the chassis is exactly the same, well almost.  Because there’s no cab a little bit more will need to be cut off the Con-Cor chassis as it gets wider where the turbine/U50 cab was.

This model is now available in both Shapeways FUD and FXD materials and can be found here.

The brass Additions for this locomotive are not the same as the C-855, the front handrails are different as well as the quantity of grab irons etc, so I’ve drawn a new sheet.  These will be available very shortly but if you wanted to pre-order them or both the C-855 and C-855B brass Additions it will give me a better idea of how many sheets I need to order later this week.  Please send me a message via the contact page or email me if you want to order any brass Additions.

The chassis and assembly instructions for both the C-855 and the C-855B are almost done and, once complete, I’ll be adding them to the site in a PDF format which you can download.  There are a few cuts that need to me made to the chassis in order to fit the shell and the exact dimensions will be included.

Together all three will look very impressive and I am greatly looking forward to seeing them all run.

My two C-855s are still at the painter’s but hopefully I’ll have some more pics to share with you soon.

In the meantime here are some photos from two customers who have already started painting theirs.

Brian Stewart has re-powered his chassis with an Atlas motor.

Mike Musick has primed his ready for the brass Additions and final paint.

If you have any work-in-progress photos or some of the finished locomotives running on your layout and you’d like to send them to me I’d be happy to add them to the site gallery.