THE BLACK RIVER VALLEY MODEL RAILROAD WEB SITE

As noted on the What's New page, I purchased this pair of Burlington E7s at a train show in November of 2017. I need a few more passenger locomotives and these just happened to be priced right. This short photo essay documents their livery change from the Burlington Silver and Red to the New York Central cigar band used by the road in the 1960s. They will make perfect locos for Mail and Express or passenger trains, singly or as a pair.

This photo of the prototype NYC E7 #4034 was taken in 1970 by Lee Hastman and is posted on George Elwood's Fallen Flags website. Although the photo is in black and white it will serve as an adquate guide to the creation of my model.

This Burlington E7 locomotive is the subject of my first conversion to the NYC cigar band livery.

Here is the Proto2000 chassis for the E7 locomotive. I will have to eliminate the gyra-light and relocate the headlight from the access door to the top position. I will remove the electronics package and mount a Soundtaxx DSD100-LC decoder on a self-made styrene shelf in their place. A Soundtraxx speaker will be mounted behind the engineer and conductor.

The Proto2000 locomotive's shell as it appeared before stripping off the really nice silver and red paint.

I use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol as paint stripper. It does a good job of softening and loosening the paint relatively quickly. (10-15 minutes). Once softened, I remove the paint with an old tooth brush and running warm water.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of the replacement access door with a piece of fitted styrene before I prime painted the shell. The replacemet door is just out of view in theis photo. The shell is shown here with its primer coat of paint drying on my high-tech coat hanger handle/ painting jig.

This view of the chassis shows the wiring and the installation of the electronics on the chassis. Note the new 'shelf' for the decoder and the location of the speaker behind the enginee/ fireman in the cab area.

I painted the loco's shell with 3-4 light coats of Testors Euro I Gray No. 1988 enamel, which is a close match to New York Central Gray. For whatever reason, I neglected to take a photo of the gray painted shell by itself. Here you see the basic tools use as I applied the Microscale Decals (Sheet 87-88) to the shell.

A quarter view of the completed shell after a light coat of Testors Dulcote. Note the changed access door in the nose. All that is left to do is to install the windshields and other glazing and assemble the shell and chassis.

After a brief stint on the programming track, the completed locomotive, NYC #4034 is shown on its maiden run with a Mail and express train of mixed heavywaight and streamlined cars passing under the Route 32 overpass at the east end of the Black River Valley layout.

The Frisco E8 shell was stripped using the method above. After cleaning and drying I painted it with NYC Flowquil Jade Green and my handy dandy Badger air brush.

New York Central E8 #4053 is shown as completed with the exception of the number boards. Briefly, here's how it was done. When the paint had dried I applied the famous stripes and numbers using Microscale decal sheet 87-88. The electronics package is essentially the same as it was for the E7s. A Soundtraxx Economi Diesil ECO-100 decoder in place of the original electronics and a 1-inch speaker mounted in the cab area.