'You can never polish a poo', was the sage advice given to me one night by a mate as we discussed the important topic 'Does make-up on women really make much of a difference?' Anyway, I shoud've listened as now I have got myself caught up with some Athearn basket cases.

These came from a consignment of horrors liberated Bracken's castle in Raheny. Some clown decided to paint up some US locos in CIE colours with a yard brush and some white tape. A right state they were. I have already given a Kato SD40-2 the kiss of life and brought it back as a Conrail unit as you will have seen on the old site. However, these other two needed a bit more work.

The GP40X was a real dog; it was an undercorated kit which basically had none of its additional parts added. Has had a good bit of detailing done to it. I'm currently working the chassis where I have ripped out the old Athearn motor and replaced it with a much smoother and quieter Kato unit. I have taken plenty of pics along the way so I might do a blow-by-blow account on what I did to try to improve it. Although American stuff is not of interest to most on here it might give you ideas and tips to try out. You could give me pointers too as it's all about learning! On top of that, these EMD locos have a lot of similar detail features to our own locos, so you may want to have a closer look at some of that.

Before

Still a long way to go, updates as soon as I have them. I also have about 7 or 8 locos ready to hit the bench too to be dismemebered and rebuilt, so those long winter nights should be filled pretty easy!