The engineers side of #101 has had the vertical ribbing installed in lieu of the standard Farr Air Grill.
After a long bout of little time and low motivation caused by the holidays, I’ve finally managed to get some work done on #101. I’ve done more than these photo’s show, but I don’t have any other photo’s on the computer yet, so this will have to do for now.
The first new addition is the styrene block installed over the opening directly aft of the cab. I don’t know why this area had been plated over on #101, but if you check the prototype photo a few posts back, you’ll see that it’s there. Since the grill will not be present on this side, it was necessary ot make this modification. I’ve considered doing the same thing to the other side, but I don’t have any photo’s to confirm the opening was plated there as well. It could very well be that the opening was covered up simply because the grill was gone.
The next thing I did was very carefully cut the vertical supports off one of the Highliners Stainless Steel Farr Air Grills using a pair of Xuron nippers. This worked better than I had thought the spacing on the grill is actually the same as in my photo’s so it was simply a matter of attaching each one using the grill from the other side as a guide, plus #101 had a few of these supports missing, so I had a few spares to cover the one or two I destroyed by accident. Each support is attached with thinned barge. CA would also have worked as well, and I actually brushed some Krazy Glue over a few of the more exposed supports, which seems to have given them extra strength.
A 3/4 rear-view shot showing the vertical ribs over the aft opening.
At this point, I’m adding the snow plow and parts from the Details West kit. I’ll probably finish up all the details before moving on to some of the bits I have to scratch build. Like the pilot side steps and winterization hatch. I’m hoping Athearn will soon be releasing their new de-skirted frame as a part, if they don’t I may just make do with the older style of frame I have… I’m not even sure there’s that much of a difference.
Chris
MILEPOST 15 