These Are Not The Same

 Last month the train club had a display at New Bern for the Coastal Carolina Model Railroad Club's annual event. It's always a good show, and as always we had a great time there.

While I was there I happened to find a pair of Kato locomotives for a very attractive price. Attractive meaning $25 each for one C44-9W that appears to have started life as an undecorated model and one AC4400CW that appeared to have started life as a Canadian Pacific unit. 

Both of these units had been rather horribly redecorated with red paint and some sort of turtle decals, but a bit of work with some IPA and a short-bristled brush cleared that away in short order. The dash-9 unit was also missing a sill piece, creating a space between the tank and the body.

These sill pieces were apparently made of unobtainium, because I was not able to find them on the Kato website. In fact, the handrail sets for the C44-9W listed on the Kato website looked nothing like the pieces that I had installed on this locomotive.

At first I went to the mailing lists and there were some folks that had complete body shells that they were willing to part with. I made some purchases and found that, although they fit the mechanisms, they were different in that they not only did not have that sill piece, they didn't even have provisions for it.

I was finally able to find it as a part of the handrail set for the AC4400CW, so all was well. However, it did spark my curiosity, so I looked at the other Kato dash-9's that I have in my collection, and as far as I have been able to tell there was a change in the model. 

Which one came first? I don't know, but the shells that came with the $25 units were the type that had a sill plate and the ditch lights are mounted on top of the porch, as on the BNSF locomotive pictured above. In the other model the ditch lights are below the porch and there is no sill plate, as on the UP locomotive. The gap in the second version is filled by the fuel tank, in the first version the sill sits behind the protrusions in the fuel tank.

 

Note the tank protrusions and the sill plate on the BNSF model. In my opinion this is the better looking version of the two. Unfortunately I didn't notice the difference in the ditch lights until after I had taken these pictures, so I haven't illustrated that difference. The dash-9 shell that came with the $25 mechanism is this type.

Note the lack of sill plate on the UP locomotive and the extension on the top of the fuel tank. The bottom of the walkway has protrusions that fill the gaps between the loco shell and the trucks, and the gap between the tank and body shell is filled with the tank extension. All the dash-9 shells that I purchased separately are this type.

Also notice the protrusions on the front and back bottoms of the mechanisms. The ones on the UP version are longer than the BNSF model. They are also thicker at the extreme ends, and they are stepped, where on the BNSF model they are not. The two $25 mechanisms are identical, and are the same as the BNSF version.

In all other aspects the mechanisms are the same except for this bit of casting in the front and rear. The part numbers molded in the side frames are the same as well, even though those castings have that minor difference. Note also that this is the exact same mechanism as is found on the AC4400CW and also on the Kato ES44AC (those models have the non-stepped versions of the chassis).

The upshot is that now I have two fully functional Kato locomotives for around $30 each (I only needed one sill plate and it was found in that $6 handrail set mentioned earlier) including parts and the paint for the undecorated unit. They are in matching red livery, but they are now decal-less. I could just order some Canadian Pacific decals, but I think I will have to come up with something special for them.

I also have some body shells that need the extended gas tanks. Fortunately Kato has them on their website, so I have ordered a few. One of the shells was the Chicago and Northwestern 8727 in Operation Lifesaver paint, so that may find its way on one of the two mechanisms instead of a red shell.

Either way, my diesel fleet continues to grow.