Here we have an Atlas SD45 lettered for the Southern Pacific. SP was retiring their older unrebuilt SD45s, but in '87 and '88 they still had a few on the rails, with the 9140 being one of them, so this loco was renumbered to that number. I did find some pictures online of the older units and a lot of them had the white lettering faded out to a red color, so that was done to this loco with Microscale decals. Atlas is getting better at adding in some free standing details, but they also did a few weird things with this run as well. I liked the 2 grab irons they added to the nose, but then they left all the others as molded on. Huh?!? And what is up with those air lines on the trucks? Dunno why they would put a droop in the line like that. I rather have the airlines pushed up on top of the truck and not straight than have them droop down over the truck side frames. Maybe I'll replace them with straight wire in the future. Also, how did Atlas mess up the Gyralight? So since there is a function controled cab light output on the circuit board, I swapped out the cab light wire with the cab headlight wire and reprogrammed the Soundtraxx sound decoder to have a functioning Gyralight.
Anyhow, here's the details on this loco:
Sunrise Plow on the front, Atlas plow on the rear
Atlas air hoses and MU hoses (that are stock but hidden behind the plow when new)
Atlas horn, truck air lines, windshield wipers, cut levers and sunshades
Sunrise bell with wire mounted on the roof
Painted step edges
Microscale decals added
McHenry couplers
Weathered with chalks and paints
Stock
Detailed
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