Dear Mr B,
Thanks for recognizing the Rock Island with your recent GP7 and RS-3, and in the best RI paint scheme too!
Unfortunately almost all the photos I can find of locos in this scheme show silver trucks - dirty, but definitely silver! The GP7s also have silver fuel tanks and everything else 'down below'. The one GP7 exception is a photo of #1204 newly delivered from EMD on June 30 1951 in "Rock Island In Color" Vol.1 by Loyd E Stagner, which has black lower parts. The RS-3s have silver trucks, but some have gained black(ish) fuel and air tanks by 1959.
I am guessing that Bachmann produce each loco in a single batch, so there is no prospect of them putting this error right for "the rest of the run".
So my first question is, can dirty aluminium be simulated with a thinned wash of silver / aluminium paint over the black, or will it all settle in the wrong places? I don't want to ruin otherwise good models finding out the hard way.
An alternative, for the RS-3 at least, is a chassis swap with the sound-equipped B&M RS-3, which does have silver trucks. That also solves the problem of the GP7 having sound and the RS-3 not.
So my second question is, do the RS-3 body shells from non-sound locos fit the sound chassis? (I believe this is not the case with the ALCo switcher models).
TIA,
Best Regards,
Bill.
The parts department list silver trucks for the RS3. A Soundtraxx decoder would probably be cheaper than buying a sound equipped loco and swapping the bodies. Check out Model Train Stuff or Tony's Train exchange for decoders. Joe
Yes it is possible to swap the non sound and sound RS3 bodies between chassis. I did it with a B&M sound road #1536 and a B&M non sound road #1545. Since I have several Now I have 2 B&M sound units 1536 and 1545 and a non sound 1536 which I will have to renumber with decals.
When I get around to it.
Ron High