Modleing a "wrecked" locomotive.

How would I go about "wrecking" a locomotive? I am thinking about purchasing an old dummy HO EMD Roadswitcher and well, "derailing" it. There was an article in MR a long time ago about "wrecking" freight cars, but would the same apply to locomotives?

A good project idea!

Just bear in mind the strong points and the weak points in those things (I run them 5-6 days a week).
The strong structural points: the frame, the collision posts inside each end hood.
The weak structural points: everywhere else!

There are some pretty heavy things attached to the underside of the roof: radiators, cooling fan assemblies, dynamic brake resister grids. These tend to come off under heavy impact. They are attached to rather insubstantial angle iron braces.

The electrical cabinet that forms the rear wall of the cab is a heavy unit that resists deforming in a crash. The cab walls and roof are thin metal with some insulation attached to the inside. The hood doors, sides and roof are thin metal with no insulation. The hood doors will spring open in a crash (sometimes all by themselves without a crash).

This last "feature" could be an advantage on a model, as it creates an opportunity to model the engine itself and the generator.

If I were going to do this, I would sand the inside surfaces of the hood down to thin the plastic, as the thick plastic sides of the shell will look very unrealistic in cross-section. This is a trick we use in the model ship hobby when we want to model open doors on a ship superstructure.

Get some good pictures of wrecked units and have at it!

Les

that would definately be an interesting "roadside attraction"
something like this perhaps
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20090 ... 448539.jpg
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?20090 ... 448825.jpg

Not many modellers are willing to wreck their locos but the best I saw was in a retailer whose owner is a keen modeller. Here he had a narrow gauge steam loco with a large boulder on the completely flattened loco. Not realistic but great discussion point. Forget the scale but suitable fo HO.

Nice photo of an HO scale wreck here:

http://rrmodelcraftsman.com/boomertrail ... ra_cnw.php

-otto-

Check out this link. This guy does some great work.

That's some very nice stuff in those links, thanks for posting!

Modelling wrecked locomotives is always something I've had a real interest in doing. The only one I have done so far was an "accidental" (perhaps more prototypical that way ) wreck. I posted photos to this older thread: http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=70204 Dropping a loco is not the ideal way to wreck it...that one I decided to patch, so it has given me a kind of neat looking "repaired" loco.

I have an old Dash 9 cab and and old U-boat body (sans-trucks) both sitting around at the moment. I think one of them (or both) might well end up getting a wreck treatment some time in the future. I love locomotive servicing facilities, and would like to model one in the future, and having a wrecked locomotive sitting on a service track would be a very neat addition.

Steve F45 wrote:Check out this link. This guy does some great work.

Oh, thats just amazing !
thanks for that.