One of my favorite aspects of model railroading is detailing engines, so, I plan on doing several engine detail projects, including some engines that don't even fit into any of my operating schemes.  Pages for completed, current, and future projects can be found via the navigation bar.

 

With my track plan, it is not practical for two trains to operate at once.  So I didn't feel any need to wire the layout for two-cab operation, and I don't have any need to go through the effort and expense for converting any of my engines to DCC.  I'm not adverse to doing it in the future.  It's just that for now, standard DC is just fine (and a bit cheaper). 

Southern's tuxedo black paint scheme has always been one of my favorites, and since one of my operating schemes is based on a fictitious Southern branch, I will detail and paint several Southern engines, keeping close to the prototypes.

 

Ever since I saw an article in Model Railroader in the early '80s where an N-scale GP30 was converted to a high-nose version for the Southern Railway, it has always been one of those projects that I wanted to do.  Now that newer GP30s are available from Atlas, I decided that this would be one of the first projects I completed.

I've always liked the GP15, so I planned on having some for my layout from the beginning.  I decided to use one of the JnJ shells to try out a method of modeling both the top and bottom radiator screens, which could be used in future models.  That worked out well, so I spent a little extra time and effort making a complete model.  This engine will find use as leased power in the Blue Creek mid-'80s operating scheme.

There are also several possible engine projects that I might like to do somewhere down the line, but I might not be able to do for a number of different reasons.  See Possible Projects for a rundown of those projects.