Boy, This is a tough one Ken. As Al stated a lot of it appears to be urethane castings and some of it appears to be scratched up. I’m not familiar enough with the Aristo 40 and don’t know if parts were available separately. I’m gonna take a guess and suspect that some of the parts like railings, stanchions,fans,lift rings etc. were purchased (USA or Aristo) however only a guess.
What is the end to end length excluding couplers?
Mystery solved. I contacted James Catlin and here is his reply.
Here is his website
https://decaslin-design.square.site/
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Hello again!
My apologies for a late response but I had a phone crash on me from a virus and it took some time to recover everything, get a new phone and reload the massive amounts of data on this new device.
Dan,
Length is 21 3/4 inches and width is 3 3/4 inches.
I appreciate the information from James and would love to speak with him if possible.
I have provided photos of some of the progress on the locomotive.
So far I have done the following;
Completely disassembled the trucks and oiled the bearings and axles and greased the gears.
I also installed grease plugs under each axle/gear to be able to grease it without disassembly.
I have installed a chain on the handrails.
Installed horns, mirrors, windshield wipers, cab shades, air conditioner, interior cab details, engineer, cooling fans, number boards, etc.
Purchased and installed graphics by G scale graphics.
Repainted/or painted fuel tank, frame, horns and other various parts.
Largest job of all was the electrical which is 96 % completed including the following:
Installed 6 total, 3 mm red L.E.D’s for front and rear classification lights. (4 on the rear, 2 on the nose.
Installed 4 cool white 3 volt L.E.D’s for headlights on the front and back.
The locomotive won’t have the extra top horizontal headlight like the prototype does but it should still look ok.
Installed a flashing strobe light by Evans Designs, that Alaska Railroad had at the front top of the cab, using a 3 volt flashing L.E.D. with an LGB modern caboose top globe.
Installed a number board light at the rear.
(front wasn’t needed due to reflective light from the tightly enclosed headlight and number board assembly)
Installed and wired in adjustable 3 volt and 1.3 volt circuit boards from Shourtline to control it all.
It’s definitely lit up.
The photos are various stages and yes there was a slight warp but some has been taken out by heating adjustment.
The locomotive is not as precise as I’d like it but it will be clear coated and used in our program as soon as it’s completed and I think it’ll be fine. The one photo looks like it is really warped badly for some reason but it’s actually not at all. Maybe it’s the lighting or the way I took the photo.
The only 2 problems I can’t fix is the broken radiator fin on the one side (as in the photos) and the long hood vents that are missing and one has glue on it, so contacting James is a miracle, to say the least.
Maybe he has some parts.
Any help would be appreciated and I will definitely check out the website.
Thanks Dan and hopefully I can get ahold of him.
Prototype photos are the property of their prospective owners.
Ken
A few more photos of the locomotive uncompleted. The interior cab figures and consoles are actually from an MTH one guage F3 body I had, since I couldn’t locate anything else. It’s got a ways to go yet.
Hopefully it’ll come out ok when completed!
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Hello, My name is James Catlin and I am the manufacturer of this GP40-2 which I produced along with my GP38-2 over twenty years ago. At that time My company was called North Star Railway Models. I only produced them for a couple years as I had a family and job that took priority over my modeling pasion. I lived in Alaska at the time so thats why I had that name. Different name now. The mdel is 1/32 scale as I have been collecting 1/32 scale things since the late 60’s. It is cast resin, brass and other materials. I still manufacture the side frames as I still build my own locomotives. Each side frame consists of approximately 15 individually cast parts, unlike Ralph brown’s which were one part castings. As of today I have reached out to Kenneth and hopefully we can connect sometime soon.
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Welcome James,
That’s awesome and thank you for taking the time to post ! Thanks to Dan as well for figuring this out.
What an amazing backstory to this James, thanks so much for telling it!
Just a little bit more on creation of my models, The handrails are K&S brass rod bent by hand for each loco, so it’s an intesive build, The stanchions are brass from patterns I drew by hand and then had the brass photo etched which were then formed on a jig I made. The lift rings are simple eye pins I get from Micromark.com. The fan grills, radiator grills and and a few other items are also photo etched from my artwork which was hand drawn at the time. I use Adobe Illustrator now for my artwork. All the masters for the resin parts were hand made in either Styrene or ABS plastic from which I made the silicone molds. Image is me with one of my GP38-2 loco’s which is the same body as the GP40-2. All my creations are fully modular so I can make variations. Lastly since NWSL no longer makes their 1/32 scale motor blocks I make my own.
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James,
I am thrilled to meet you and thoroughly enjoyed the information. I sent a message on your website with contact information but if you didn’t receive it, please let me know and I’ll get it to you. Available afternoons every day.
I am going to need 1 side radiator and air vents as in the photos, if they are available.
I was also wondering if you had number board
assemblies.
I have had no issues with the aluminum frame and I have fixed a couple warp issues but they were real minor. We really love the locomotive and it should be completed relatively soon. We will need to get the parts, if available, to complete it, or I’ll have to figure out how to make/fix them
Your story is fascinating and I really appreciate you sharing it with everyone.
Let me know if you need anything from me.
Appreciate your time!
Ken
Great photo James, great model, nice T-shirt, and wonderful info!
You make your own motor blocks?!? Wow… Feel free to elaborate, if it doesn’t give away any trade secrets!