M-190 MOTORIZED WITH SLIGHTLY MODIFIED ATLAS S-2 OR S-4 CHASSIS.  ORIGINAL ATLAS DCC SOUND DECODER EQUIPPED (CHANGED THE ORIGINAL ALCO SOUND TO EMD 567. ALMOST COMPLETED PAINTED ALUMINUM ONLY, NEEDS RED PAINT AND DECALLING.

THESE 3  PICTURES ABOVE AND 2 BELOW ARE TO SHOW POSSIBLE FINNISHING POSSIBILITIES. 

KIT NUMBER/NAME and CONTENTS (see PRICELIST for prices)

N-356 DOODLEBUG M-190, 3D prints (shells (2), underbody (2), trucksideframes (4), rear truck (1), stainless steel detail parts etching, cleaned and primed (no couplers/decals).

Fits (slightly) modified ATLAS S-2 or S-4 (with or without sound) or EMD type switcher. DONOR CHASSIS NOT INCLUDED. 

HISTORY.

M-190 was constructed in 1931 and delivered to the Santa Fe in 1932 in a green paintscheme with a zebra striped nose and a Winton V-12 distillate 900 HP engine. She had just about a much tractive effort as a class 3460 Hudson..... quite remarkable.

A steam boiler was installed to heat 3 to 5 standard passenger cars.She worked mostly in the Kansas City and Lubbock area till 1955 when she received an EMD 567 diesel, surplus Navy material. She also received streamlining and the famous warbonnet paint scheme.From then on till about 1967 she ran the Clovis to Carlsbad run paired with a streamlined chair-observation car. Name of that train was the Pride of the Pecos.

Happily the engine was not scrapped and after being moved from Albuquerque to Sacramento it sits now just outside the yard in Belen, New Mexico,

BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS.

This kit represents the latest version, semi-streamlined and in warbonnet paint scheme. 

M-190 can be motorized with different donor chassis. I first tried the Atlas S-2 or S-4 (with and without sound) because there is only a 2 inch difference (prototype) in truck center distance: 22'-8" for M-190 and 22'-6" for the Alco's. It now turns out these are very hard to get and quite expensive. There are several makes of EMD switchers available from Atlas, Kato or ConCor secondhand on eBay or at swap meats that are OK too. These EMD's have a truck center distance of 22 feet. The 8 inch difference is just over 1 mm in N scale.

I modified only the Atlas Alco's (with and without sound) to check the fit inside the front unit. I have not tried the EMD versions but these donor chassis should fit inside the front shell with some modifications and maybe a little modifications or the connecting corridor at the rear at the front unit.

The rest of this story refers to the atlas Alco's only.

It turned out the sound and non sound versions have a different chassis. The sound version is a drop in after cutting down the sides and the rear gear tower; the non sound version requires removal of little off the bottom of the connecting corridor. See pictures above.

Remove all parts from the chassis before starting the modification. Just as in other projects I use a cup of water with ice cubes to cool the chassis frequently to avoid heat damage to chassis or my fingers........ using a motor tool with a brown cutting disc to remove the unwanted portions of the chassis. 

You have to remove some material from the front end (also to accommodate the MTL-1015 coupler), from both sides and around the rear gear tower. Be careful to keep the suspension of this rear tower sturdy enough (2 mm square minimum). See pictures above.

The underside of the new motor frame should be flush with the underside of the shell. If need be add 4 styrene pieces in the 4 corners against the inside belt rail to get the new chassis up to the correct height,

To increase tractive effort I made a large lead weight straddling the motor. The front light LED leads are attached to the inside. 

I reused the factory ESU Loksound board and had a friend reprogram the decoder: remove the Alco sound and install the appropriate EMD 567 sound. There is more than enough space in the rear section for this large board plus a sugar cube sound speaker. See picture above.

I added 2 small styrene pieces to keep the front of the underfloor in place in the rear unit.

The front and rear unit are connected by a small screw (supplied) in the top of the "'corridor" connection.  

The middle of the rear gear tower should be in the middle between the M-190 front and rear unit. This way the front coupler will just have enough space to move freely.

Disassemble the trucks completely. Using the same brown grinding disk remove as much material of the old truck side frames as possible; the axle needle points can come through the thinned sides. Keep these sides as flat as possible, grind slowly, checking the squareness often. Check the supplied new side frames: they should be flat, flexible and thin.

Using ACC Zap a Gap Medium glue the side frame to the thinned Atlas truck frames making sure they are horizontal and centred. The Atlas wheel rim should be about 1 mm visible at the under side. 

The rear truck has all-wheel current pickup and 2 tabs to solder leads on.

All holes for hand grips. railings and ladder are pre-drilled 0,4 mm. The cow-catcher has been installed.Using a sharp chisel cut out the stainless steel details one by one. Check if fit in appropriate location is OK. Remove from shell, dip in a little ACC and insert again. You have a few seconds to adjust the position using sharp tweezers.