Somerset Junction: BC Rail 747

I'm sure some of you are wondering, what does a BC Rail SD40-2 have to do with a remote junction in the north woods of Maine? The answer is simple, absolutely nothing. In 2006, I spent three months working in Alaska, which led me on a nearly decade long journey to build a layout based on a freelanced line connecting the Alaska Railroad to the BC Rail. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that modeling a high traffic mainline in HO scale would not be practical unless I had a very large space. That, plus the desire to do something a little closer to home lead me to shelve the Alaska project and develop the Somerset project.

So how does this SD40-2 fit in? I began this project a couple years ago, after finding an Athearn Blue Box shell on eBay for cheap. Since then, I've proceeded to hack and cut most of the details away in order to replace them with after market parts. Why would I go through the trouble? Because I can, more specifically, so I can practice. The big reason I've continued this project beyond the end of my Alaska concept is so I gain experience with using aftermarket parts, modifying shells, and painting complex schemes (not there on that factor yet). Some of these skills I've already put to use with my GP9 project. I will continue to pick away at this over time.

So here's a series of photos showing what I've done over the last few months. I think I have some older photos showing the start of the build, so if I dig those up I'll add them here.