Canadian Pacific GP20C-ECO in H0…

I remember the first time I read about these Canadian Pacific GPs, and thinking how exciting it was that a major class 1 was adding new 4 axle power to it's roster. That said, I never really gave much thought to modelling them as I was fresh out of uni and enjoying mountain biking, my Peugeot 106 Rallye and British outline standard gauge in OO...

I can't even remember what led me to dig into them again last year, but the rabbit hole led to the purchase of a Briggs Models kit in H0 scale. This multi-media product is a great piece of design. The parts are well formed and fit with little work, the result is pretty much as good as a ready to run model, and certainly as neat as a more traditional resin casting. The only tell tale is the slightly visible layering on the short hood, the shallow angled top making these layers more visible. Elsewhere, as hoped, they have disappeared in the painting process.

The kit sits on a modified Atlas GP40 chassis, which comes with the correct Blomberg trucks. I modified these by adding the roller bearing caps, not quite as neat as I'd like! I initially struggled removing the side frames from the trucks themselves so they were modified in situ. The fuel tank was cut down as much as possible without cutting down the central frame weight. It's a touch too long still, but better than it was and the fuel gauges each side were filled and smoothed. I did attempt to file in the angled look of the prototypes newly fabricated tanks, but this isn't as pronounced as I had hoped. Various Cannon and Co parts were used to add fillers and details to the top of these and finish them off.

Otherwise, the kit is as bought, the only modification being to drill out the ditch light parts and fit small SMD LEDs to the rear of these, which has worked better than I had hoped, painting having completely removed any light bleed and glue-n-glaze working well for the lens. On the subject of LEDs, I also fitted some engineer lights under the cab... all of these were wired up to an ESU Loksound DCC direct board, which is pre-wired with both stay alive and resistors to allow LEDs to be used on all headlight and aux functions out of the box. Sound is from the similar Norfolk Southern GP22-eco and fed through a Rail-Exclusive speaker. The result is a believably modern sounding locomotive when compared with my other models (although notch 2 seems a little quieter than the others, but I can't see how to adjust the volume of each notch without a Lokprogrammer or such).

The result shown here (after hours with an old Micro-scale decal sheet for the AC4400, combined with Smokebox graphics labels and white 'reflective stripe' decals) is a reasonable representation of the prototype which has come to life through a subtle weathering. The dark brown panel line wash combined with usual washes and airbrushing has added a subtlety to the finish that gives the feel of a 'new' but work worn prototype. 

Sat on Beaverbrook the SMD LEDs used for the ditch lights and engineers lights burning a little whiter (like the prototype) than the headlights. photo James Hilton.

Sat on Beaverbrook, you get a real feeling of mass, and although it's not a 100% recreation I'm more than happy with the results. Why 2246? Well I had seen a photo of it in Saskatchewan, which in turn brought back warm memories of my summer spent in Saskatoon when 9 years old, seeing the GP20C-eco's predecessor GP38-2s wandering around the few remnants of CPs remaining prairie branch lines. 

The reason we choose to recreate these models in miniature is a fascinating subject, and although I don't always give as much focus on that as I might you will  find a blend of the why alongside the how here on my blog. This style of writing has taken some practice as traditionally I would have been quite reluctant to share an emotional part of my personality in this way. That said finding my voice and refining it's tone has been such an enjoyable part of the past few years. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the models AND the writing. In the meantime, more soon...