Snowfighting in the summer
So, my major model railroading project lately has been to electrificate an Athearn rotary snowplow (Made all the more fun by the fact that of the 4 prototype plows for the model, none were ever modernized). So, I got myself an undecorated F7B to act as the power unit, put a winterization hatch and some grab-irons on, did some close-coupling mumbo-jumbo, and removed the dynamic brake fan once I figured out which fan that actually was (not shown). Of course, I'm a little unsure about the winterization hatch, since the prototypes all either have no hatch or have the BN Insane-O-Hatch.
The work on the actual plow consisted of adding the funnel wings on the front, replacing all the molded on grab-irons with hand-made metal ones (just because), applying a random diesel horn, removing the smokestack and the boiler, shortening the coupler pocket (possibly too much), and replacing the silly rubber-band blade-spinner with a motor to be controlled by DCC. It also turns out I misplaced one of my dummy couplers. Oh well.
There also some (largely uninstalled) bits of styrene that will be painted black and placed around the windows and such to prevent people from seeing through the model.
All that's really left is painting, lighting, DCC installation, and installing the diaphragm on the plow (I want to do that after painting, because it's a working diaphragm). I'm still unsure if I'm going to install working diaphragms on the power unit.
Anyway, pictures!
