Additions and Changes to the Kings Port & Western Locomotive Roster.

Hello everyone!

Viewers of one of the recent virtual ops series on this blog (P.C.C.M. 43) may have noticed some KP&W locomotives they haven't seen before such as GP9s #742, 761,  & 769  and SD9s #896 & 897,  seen below in pics from that series.

As the Kings Port & Western expands its role on my layout and in the virtual ops with John R.'s New York Central Train Layout and Neal's Atlantic Pacific R.R., I've realized that I need a larger KP&W locomotive roster to run the various trains needed to deliver cars forwarded to my freelanced line. 

With that in mind I did some eBay scanning to find Athearn GP9 and SD9 shells I could pop onto some of my exiting Penn Central units to convey a sense that the KP&W had more power.  I didn't want to always show the same few units pulling trains, supposedly in different directions or on different branches of the KP&W system.  

I got excited when I recently found an auction for six Athearn GP9 shells, all with complete sets of handrails installed!  This is like the Holy Grail of finds since there are always several Athearn BB Geeps on eBay for sale that are missing their handrails.   What was really cool was that two of the six were in a B&O scheme that I could use to represent another train coming from the western B&O connection with the KP&W.  The other four were Santa Fe units I hoped to strip and paint for the KP&W.  I was pretty confident I'd win this auction since there was little bidding.  I decided to set a fairly generous maximum bid because the final moments of the auction were to occur while I was at work.  Unfortunately someone else wanted the shells as much as I did and outbid my maximum!  Rats!

Not to be defeated, I decided to do an online search for local train shows that might be coming up.  I was very happy to learn about one at Century College only a week later!!  I hadn't been aware of this particular sale before (that is located only about a 20 minute drive from my home) but they apparently occur regularly.    I managed to purchase three Athearn GP9s; two dummies and one powered unit.   Actually one of the dummies was an ancient powered rubber band drive unit but I gutted it soon afterward.  Below are the three Geeps that I purchased for under $30 for the trio..and again...with complete sets of handrails!

I gave all three shells a 91% isopropyl alcohol bath and after a day or two they were ready for painting.  Here they are, along with an SD9 (more on that later) after getting their colors.   Athearn Geeps usually have removable cabs for easy painting but two of the three were glued on so I had to do some careful masking to isolate the orange cabs from the blue bodies.

Here are the current official paint colors for KP&W locomotives

The GP9s get their company decals and road numbers.  I decided to number GP9s in a 700 series that is somewhat reflective of the 7000 series on the Penn Central.   The KP&W name and initials were custom made for me by RailGraphics.  Four units now looking like they belong to the same family!

After some weathering with chalks and dry brush techniques the three GP9s are added to the roster and get to work! 

What about the SD9 shown with the GP9s getting the blue and orange treatment?  Well, a few years ago I was lucky enough to find two Athearn SD9 shells with handrails in the backroom of one of the more notable hobby shops in the Twin Cities and got them for a great price!    One was originally painted for the Great Northern and the other for the  Milwaukee so they both had some orange on them that made it easy for me to paint them into an experimental black and orange scheme for my freelance road.   I was thinking at the time that perhaps the KP&W was affiliated with the Penn Central and was painted in a way to reflect its connection to the PC.

Here they are shown in some previous P.C.C.M.s.   I made their black KP&W lettering myself on blank decal sheets.

As time went by I became less happy with the orange and black scheme, especially since I increased my roster and painted new locomotives blue and orange.   They just didn't fit into the KP&W company image and I was tired of suggesting they were "an experimental scheme" when talking about them in blog entries.  I finally decided I to increase a sense of consistency and company standard among the entire roster so I stripped the paint off both units.  One stubbornly held onto its colors and needed some time immersed in brake fluid and getting scoured with a stiff bristled toothbrush to get the paint off.

Finally after stripping, cleaning, painting, and decaling, the two SD9s join the blue and orange fleet!

They look less clean and shiny after a few road miles...

Those are the latest additions and changes to the Kings Port & Western locomotive roster!

Oh!  Wait a minute!   I forgot about one fun project motivated by a tidbit of information John from the New York Central Train Layout gave me recently.  He told me about the New York Central being so disgusted by the performance of RS11s they had purchased that they sold them to the D&H.   

When John mentioned RS11s I remembered that I had an old AHM or Model Power RS11 in my junk box that was originally decorated (pretty inaccurately) as a Penn Central unit.  Some handrails sections were missing and the motor did not work.

Just for fun, I decided to imagine that at least one of the NYC's RS11s was acquired by the KP&W during a time when they were desperate for power.  Apparently the NYC hadn't fully disclosed how little regard they had for the RS11s and KP&W management went for it...and in all likelihood will regret it later.   I gutted the motor, making the loco a dummy and replaced the missing handrails with sections from another junk AHM shell (why did I buy those things years ago!?).  While I created the unit mostly as a joke for John's sake, after painting and decaling it I think its usable and will occasionally couple it up to other KP&W locomotives in a consist.

Kings Port & Western employees check out the new, but not highly rated, RS11 #922.

Now, that completes the report of  the latest additions and changes to the KP&W locomotive roster posing for a group shot below.

The KP&W is ready to run more trains!
“Semper Progrediendi”, as the KP&W company motto says!
"Ever Forward!"