The Alco PA

This is a first for me - two posts on the same day. Now that Seeley Creek is well in hand, I turned my focus back to rolling stock revisiting a project that I started years ago. If you go back to my February 2013 post, you can read about my exploits of trying to create the perfect Alco PA in S scale. Without rehashing my previous post, the short of it is that neither of the two commercially available versions of the PA are even close to accurately representing Alco's famous passenger locomotive. But if you combine the best features from both, a reasonable model can be created. 

This is a photo of the PA after the transformation. It's crude but a far cry better than either of the two as manufactured versions.  The model is attached to an Omnicon PA conversion mechanism (long out of production but available from time to time on Ebay.

After some consultation with my friend Bud Rindfleisch, and perusing literally hundreds of PA photographs from every conceivable angle (as well as one trip to Portland, OR to see the sole surviving PA), we concluded that the AP nose was too angular and needed to be rounded on the corners both vertically and horizontally on the top of the nose.  The other area that needed help was the front cab windows, as they were were too rectangular.  Photos revealed that the top of the windows were gently arched and the lower edge was curved downward.  All of this would require modification.  The American Models skirt between the trucks was also a big problem as it extended vertically down from the car body instead of curving inward. 

The big challenge was rounding the corners of the nose because it meant that a good amount of cast-on detail would have to be removed.  The number boards would have to be removed as well as the front anti-climber and buffer plate. Fortunately for PRR modelers the Pennsy replaced the as-built number boards with their own design angled number boards (though in my case that meant more scratch building).  The anti-climber and buffer plates were not quite right on the AF version anyway, so that meant an opportunity to correct another flaw.

This is a photo of the completed model nearly ready for the paint shop:

You can clearly see the difference with the rounded  corners and the new side skirt between the trucks. In this view you can also see the new Pennsy number boards and anti-climber/buffer plate. You can also make out the other Pennsy specific details such as the air intake grills added to the nose and the train phone antenna system. I added new fairing above and behind the cab side windows and above the front windows as per the prototype.  You may also notice that this is a non-dynamic brake version of the PA. I removed the DB's on the car body roof and replaced them with a smooth sheet of styrene. I have a few more details to fabricate before painting, such as the coupler cut levers above the front corner steps and grab irons above the front windows and other places.  I'm really pleased  with the way this turned out.  Here's a photo of a real PA (though not Pennsy) for comparison: