# CPR GP9 Mountain Climbers



## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

These are a pair of CPR GP9's I've decided to model.
These two photographs of the original engines (used with permission) are by Mr. C. Prutton. These photographs and many others can be found on the web page www.cprdieselroster.com which I've found to be an excellent photographic reference.



















My reason for choosing these engines is that through (very) selective memory I think I may have been pulled by them though the mountains in 1982 when my dad and I rode the Canadian from Vancouver to Calgary. There were five on the head end and the engineer told me at Salmon Arm that if one should fail then we're not going anywhere. 
These engines were fitted with extended range fuel tanks, hence the air tanks on top of the hood, a water tank for the steam heater located in the short hood and dynamic brakes. So the top deck was a busy arrangement.
On my standard USA Trains supplied units some louvers have been removed and some added. The engines also represent different paint schemes and it will be noted that #8515 still has its bell located under the cab on the drivers side, whereas #8507 has been upgraded.

As per usual my units will be battery powered, Crest train engineer controlled and equipped with Phoenix P8 sound systems. I do not use smoke generators on any of my engines so on these I decided to provide switch controls at the top with access through the dynamic brake fan which lifts out for access.
I have also decided to change all my diesels to 40" wheels starting with these, so this is going to slow things down a little, but that's alright, no rush.
At the moment these are still very much a work in progress so I'll attempt to provide updates on the progress as time permits.

This is where I started, extending the fuel tanks. Three fuel tanks made in to two, the full section will accommodate the speaker and the short section the linking button.

















As can be seen some of the body work has been progressing and the fuel tank fitted.









This following photo shows the layout for the switch stand, the battery location and train engineers stand to the left. The sound board will be located inside the switch stand.









It can also be seen that the access slots in the side frame also had to be relocated.

This is the layout for the top of the long hood. Lots to do.


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## up9018 (Jan 4, 2008)

Looks like you have another great set of locomotives coming Harvey.

Chris


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## placitassteam (Jan 2, 2008)

Great start! Keep it coming.


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## Scott (Jan 29, 2008)

Looking good so far Harvey.


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## jokensa (Dec 4, 2014)

ooooohhhh yeaaaaaahh!!!!!!!

this looks incredible !!!!!!!

I have learned so much from your posts

thank you harvey


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## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

Sitting in my chair excited to watch the progress on these. Can't wait to see more!


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Moving right along here, these are some progress photographs of the frame assembly. It can be seen that there are three sets of glad hands, this is because I'm also in the process of building another NAR GP9 with the correct roof fans, just a slight distraction!!









#8515 is on the right with the bell under the frame.



























I know this looks like a lot of wires, but they all went somewhere, I can't remember where though.


















On the short hood tops we can see that the exhaust stacks are different and I think these may have been changed over time depending on where the engines were serviced.
On my next entry I'll get into painting, which is really an exercise in excessive masking.
Cheers.


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

So this is the start of a very long and tedious masking operation. The black and white are the rear ends with the multi-mark (pac-man) logo. The lead end is red and white and somewhat easier.














































Now the other end needs to get the red treatment.
Cheers.


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## Burl (Jan 2, 2008)

Nice work. 

I'm curious though... if it were me, I would have painted the whole thing white, then shot the red & black. Care to enlighten us as to your plan?


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Hello Burl, 
I have painted an engine before by doing as you suggest, but I didn't like the outcome. I could see and feel the joint in the two colours whereas when I mask the colours seem to come together without a step/edge on the surface. This edge, although smoothed somewhat by clear coat still seems to collect tiny particles which tend to emphasise the joint or edge. So I now take the long way around and keep the masking tape producers in business.
Cheers,


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

This is some more masking for the striped cab white application and later with the action red applied.


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## jokensa (Dec 4, 2014)

the master of masking!

looks great


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## Scott (Jan 29, 2008)

Great work there Harvey


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

More masking indeed. Now I'm truly in the red!
The piping on top of the hood was left loose until the red was on, I then put the hold down braces on and touched up the red with a brush. 
The bodies now need wiring and the trucks completing. Lots to do.
Thanks everyone for following along I'll keep adding when I have something to add.























































Cheers.


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## TAAudi (Dec 6, 2012)

absolutely fantastic !!!


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## Burl (Jan 2, 2008)

Looks great. Are you going to weather them too?


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## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

Looking great Harvey!

How did you cut the circle in the masking tape? Curious for a tip. 

Also what are you painting with?


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Burl, yes indeed I do weather my rolling stock, but try not to over do it. I've recently weathered one of my NAR GP9's and I know I'm going to get heck for that as the NAR kept their engines immaculate. So it took quite a long search to find a photograph of one looking somewhat dirty.

Eric, Cutting the arc for the pac-man was achieved by placing 2 inch wide masking tape on wax paper then cutting around a dish having the arc radius I needed, then getting the dish back before someone discovered what was going on. The tape was then peeled off the wax paper an placed on the engines. I also had to do the reverse of this to protect the white while painting the red. This where Burl's suggestion of painting one colour first makes a lot of sense. 
Nearly forgot, I'm using TrueLine paints and my stock is rapidly depleting. At the train show in Calgary last month there was a display of acrylic paints by Badger called Modelflex. I would be interested to know if anyone has tried this product.

An open question I have here. Has anyone made head light lens covers so that we don't have open holes on the front and back of our engines. I currently use rhine stones from Michaels. I peal off the bright backing glue them to a piece of tubing and machine them to size, polishing off all the flats on the outer edge at the same time. These look alright when the lights are on, but they're rather dull when light are off. I would like to get a better finish on the outside of the lens. If anyone has done this maybe they can share the info. I also use the covers on the ditch lights.
Cheers.


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## Burl (Jan 2, 2008)

Future floor polish (or whatever brand name its sold under now) will leave a glossy finish. Its a common trick, from what I've read, that aircraft modelers use on canopies.


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Boy that was fast. Thanks I'll give it a try.
Cheers.


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## ewarhol (Mar 3, 2014)

harvey said:


> then getting the dish back before someone discovered what was going on.


LOL, I have NOOOO idea what you're talking about 

Thanks for the tips!


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## twolfe (Mar 3, 2008)

Right on Harvey, looking good!

Terry


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

For wiring these engines I like to try and get as much of the body wiring into a conduit system, I use 1/4" square tube, although crude it works for me. Also, I use multi pronged plugs so I can detach the body completely from the sole plate. This gets a bit tricky when mating the body and the sole plate, but I leave the fans off so I can get some access to move the wires around as needed.

This is a photograph of the light mounting plate for each end. This holds the number board lights and the directional lights, red and white. The number board lights come on when power is turned on, the directional lights are set to work with the head and ditch lights.










On this photo you can see a bit of the square conduit. This is the area where the battery sits, so not much room there.










Working outside the body here to bring the wires to the multipronged plug.



















Bringing the body and the sole plate together there's not a lot of room. Keeping the fans off sure helps to make sure the wires don't cross over the screw holes. 

These are a couple of photographs showing the decals supplied by Cedarleaf Custom Railroad Decals, well done Stan.




















This is the switch panel access through the dynamic brake fan. The three switches are sound volume control, power on, off and charging. The charging plug/socket and the on off switch for the headlight when running in MU mode, this allows for the marker lights to remain on.










Cheers.


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## on30gn15 (May 23, 2009)

Nice thing about large scale is that it is large enough to do things like that.


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## jokensa (Dec 4, 2014)

Harvey, I didn't think was possible but your modeling is getting even better!

congrats!

can you please show how you wired and secured the ditch lights?

they look like 'miniatures by eric'

thanks in advance


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Thank you for your comments. I do try and sometimes it gets very frustrating. We have had two hobby shops close this year in Edmonton and a third is set to close at the end of this month, so getting materials is becoming very difficult. My wife always tells me if I find what I'm looking for, buy it all. It's taken a while but it's finally sinking in. I nearly said "she's right".
Anyway, back to ditch lights. Unfortunately I didn't take many photographs of this operation. The castings are indeed supplied by Miniatures by Eric. I installed a backing plate with a lower angle to give additional strength and surface area for the glue. There's a bright white LED installed in each and the legs from the LED's are passed though holes drilled in the sole plate and the corner of the upper step. With access from the underside the resistor and extension wires were added. The exposed wire in the corner of the step is painted black so as not to be so obvious.




























Hope some of this helps.
I'm busy at the moment completing the third NAR GP9 and I've repainted the original two I completed, just the gray colour though. These don't have ditch lights, so a little easier.
From here I'll get going with the trucks and their conversion to 40" wheels.

I tried to take a photo of the LED leg at the side of the step. Hope you can see this.








Cheers.


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## Kellner_74 (Jun 26, 2017)

thanks for using this informatin


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

It's always a real pleasure to watch the progress of fine modelling. 

Harvey, that project is just great... Well done..


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

These are a couple of photographs of the completed engines and some of the weathering I've added. 
Polishing the lens covers as Burl suggested worked really well, the Peanut Gallery wanted to know if this would work on furniture as well? Who knows. I have some adjustments to make on the lens cover inserts, but this is easy as they are not glued into position. I also damaged a decal, but thankfully Stan sent me some spares so this can get corrected.
The engines had a three hour workout this morning and everything worked fine.
On to the next!!

















This is some top deck weathering.









I thought I would add this picture to show where it all started.










Cheers.


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## Burl (Jan 2, 2008)

Beautiful work. You definitely have something to be proud of there.


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes those are awesome machines Harvey--great job!

Keith


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## locomansounds (Jul 7, 2017)

What an exciting project. Thank you so much for sharing.


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

I've been asked if I could comment on the louvers and the filter intake weathering. What I do in this case is mask around the base (yes I know it's more masking) and paint the grills and louvers with grimy black. I then remove the masking and using a foam brush, if that's what we call them, wipe or pat the original colour over the grills and louvers. By doing this I have the grimy black in the base and the original colour on the surface. Some of the earlier photo's show these areas quite dark, that's because I hadn't gone over them at that stage with the surrounding colour.
Hope this helps.









Cheers.


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## sschaer (Jan 2, 2008)

excellent work ! congrats !


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## Giant23Heavy (Jul 21, 2016)

They look fantastic. I gotta ask, where did you get those gladhands? They look great, I've been looking for something like that for my builds.


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Glad-Hands. I make them, usually about fifty or sixty at a time. I don't know if anyone at Shapeways produces them, but it would sure help.
I start out with a strip of styrene 0.125 wide by 0.062 thick to this I glue 0.040" by 0.125 wide, by 0.125 long styrene at 1/2" intervals. When this is set I cut them into 0.300" lengths so that the 0.040" thicker part is at one end. I then get the needle files out and file them to shape, when this is done I glue on a 0.060 hex section at the thick end, this where the wire attaches. I drill 0.030 dia. into the hex end trying to avoid the index finger and thumb. Into this I insert the 0.060" dia. multi-strand wire. I usually remove about half of the wire strands to make if more flexible. I then use contact cement to attach the wire to the glad-hand. When that is set I cut two very short pieces of wire shrink insulator and slide one down to the hex and glue in place, the other I leave loose until the glad-hand is in position on the header.
All you have to do then is paint them and install them, trying to get them to face the right direction. If you need a retaining chain as some of mine have the wire strands can pass through the end link before gluing into the hex section.
Have fun.
Cheers.


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## Scott (Jan 29, 2008)

Glad hands are available on Shapeways, you just need to contact the maker and see if they print for you. One guy has for me not log ago. He downsized his 1:6 ones to 1:24, after that I adapted some electrical wire to make the full hose system. I'm looking at producing my own in future.


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## Scott (Jan 29, 2008)

Glad hands are available on Shapeways, you just need to contact the maker and see if they print for you. One guy has for me not long ago. He downsized his 1:6 ones to 1:24, after that I adapted some electrical wire to make the full hose system. I'm looking at producing my own in future.


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## Giant23Heavy (Jul 21, 2016)

harvey said:


> Glad-Hands. I make them, usually about fifty or sixty at a time. I don't know if anyone at Shapeways produces them, but it would sure help.
> I start out with a strip of styrene 0.125 wide by 0.062 thick to this I glue 0.040" by 0.125 wide, by 0.125 long styrene at 1/2" intervals. When this is set I cut them into 0.300" lengths so that the 0.040" thicker part is at one end. I then get the needle files out and file them to shape, when this is done I glue on a 0.060 hex section at the thick end, this where the wire attaches. I drill 0.030 dia. into the hex end trying to avoid the index finger and thumb. Into this I insert the 0.060" dia. multi-strand wire. I usually remove about half of the wire strands to make if more flexible. I then use contact cement to attach the wire to the glad-hand. When that is set I cut two very short pieces of wire shrink insulator and slide one down to the hex and glue in place, the other I leave loose until the glad-hand is in position on the header.
> All you have to do then is paint them and install them, trying to get them to face the right direction. If you need a retaining chain as some of mine have the wire strands can pass through the end link before gluing into the hex section.
> Have fun.
> Cheers.


Custom! I like it! One last question, what are the dimensions of that Styrene mount for all your switches? I'm planning to do something similar in my GP9 in the near future. 

Thank you!


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## harvey (Dec 30, 2008)

Sorry about the delay in responding to your question on the switch stands. The base frames are from 0.250" square styrene and these are screwed from the underside to the sole plate when the assembly is completed. The vertical uprights are 0.250" square tube and the diagonals are 0.250" x 0.375" rectangular tube. The top plate is 0.125" sized to how many switches you intend to install up there. Cross bracing is 0.125" x 0.187". When the assembly was screwed into place I installed two 0.062" x 0.500 side stiffeners, one on each side. If you look closely at the assemblies on page one of this post you'll be able to see a 0.032 diameter hole drilled into the side of each tube, this allows the glue that migrates to the inside to dry faster, a vent!!
Hope this helps.
Cheers.


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