green_elite_cab wrote:I found that if you trade in most of your mental health, you can produce nearly anything. If being on the verge of insanity is a fair trade, i say go for it!
I'll have to check the sizes, but i think i have some 1/32 brass wire, and brass tube just small enough that the wire can slide into it. I used this to make my arms. I based the lengths off the Metro liner's pantograph arms. Right now, i'm using old GG1 pantographs i bought spare for the pantograph shoes, though that could be made with flat bar stock or brass sheet.
I'll have to take an updated picture. I have a REALLY old photo posted on here somewhere of when i first put the arms together, but now i've got most of a base built. As Mike Bartel of IHP told me one October train show "good luck with the equalizer bars". He is right, and that is the only major challenge for me to build these things. The parts are getting so small that its difficult to solder, and you need everything to link up just right. I've yet to get precise enough.
Also, springs are becoming a problem. I'm unwilling to "sacrafice" springs from existing pantographs, because they're just fine to. I've been stealing springs from worn out pump and blow seals before i throw them out at work. I've been harvesting some smaller ones, but they still aren't perfect.
Ha. The moment someone gets involved in model railroading, looks at a model, and says "Maybe I should change this..." he is ready to sacrifice his mental health to get it right. The biggest thing stopping me for giving it a shot myself is that I unfortunately don't have a number of tools for metal work. It sucks, but I admit that I have so many other projects lined up that I don't think too much about it. (For one, I just got some resin casting supplies to toy with in the hope of making some custom Amfleet I ends and underbody parts for a mass rebuild project from a bunch of old Bachmann shells I've been poking around with for the last two years.)
I have a book, "Amtrak Annual 1978-1979" that lists which cars had the striping. Unfortunately, other than a supplement, the books were not continued.
anyways, these are the units that got the phase I striping:
...
I concede that this book could be wrong, but from what i've seen, the Phase I metroliners were uncommon, and until they were rebuilt, there was almost never a 4 or 6 car train with more than two phase Is if any.
Yeah, those are all right. I've been interested in the Metroliners since I started caring about Amtrak a decade ago, and so I did some searching myself. All of those units listed have showed up in Phase I on RRPictureArchives, Railpictures, and Hebners'. Sadly, as you also said, they were all rather scarce in consists since there was only one cafe and club each. (Comically, Bachmann's Phase I
Metroliner 803 was never painted in Phase I!) Though, add
Cafe 868 to that list. Apparently, it was painted into Phase I and then Phase II but without a Capitoliner hump! Talk about anomalies!
By the way, I got a few shots of my E60s.
Side
45° Angle
Front
They still need some work, but I'm happy with them so far given my habit of juggling 10 different projects at a time. The two units originally came to me as a pair of shells and unpainted roof parts. The 603 is the [obviously] more complete of the two. The second still needs a number, though I'm thinking about making it 608 as I want to model one of the three units with the half-length battery box. It has a Blue Box Athearn FP45 chassis that was milled down to reflect that shape of the battery box with GEC trucks (apparently not quite right, but the closest mass-produced thing). Numberboards are from Details West, and class light boxes are made from styrene and putty. When I figure out how to do custom lighting, I hope to get them wired up, and I have some LEDs and fiber optics ready to install. I trimmed the corners of the pilots and shaved down and extended the side ladders to better reflect the prototype. Stripes, numberboard numbers, and Amtrak logos (slightly too bold but a better height than the Phase II logos) are from Microscale's Phase III diesel sheet (87-424). Side numbers are from the Phase II diesel sheet (87-423). Both units still need pantographs, windows (the second unit needs custom cut windows as I only have one set of windows), and MU and HEP details. I also need to find my roof details or figure out how to get new ones as they went missing when I last tried to rearrange my model parts. (Anyone have some spare E60 parts for sale?)