Patches and Decals

Recently I discovered, or perhaps should say, rediscovered Microscale Decals. This led to a few unanticipated small projects. I had a little time to kill and was browsing their railroad products, mostly to see if they had anything interesting. A lot of times when I browse sites like that, just to kill some time, I find a lot of interesting things and add them to the shopping cart. Later when I finally look at the cart, I find I really do not have any use for most of the stuff in there, and need even less of it! But it is fun to cyber window shop sometimes.

Former BNSF 9290, patched to become 8190.

As I was browsing the selection of decals on the Microscale website, I actually found quite a few things I could use. For some time I have had engines on my roster that still have either BN or ATSF reporting marks. Since I model more or less current BNSF operations, I have been wanting to patch these units for a while. I also have had a few BNSF engines with the wrong number on them, which needed to be patched and renumbered. I discovered that Microscale made decals for just those purposes. They have decal sheets with colored patches, which are designed to closely match BN green, ATSF yellow, and BNSF orange. A close match is all that is needed since most patches do not exactly match the rest of the locomotive. They also have a sheet with various size and color BNSF stencils, which can be used over the colored patches. I bought a sheet of each.

Former BNSF 9223, now renumbered,
still needs new number boards.

Besides BNSF decals, Microscale has quite a large selection of other decals. I also found some Amtrak decals for Phase 3 locomotives. It was described as Phase 3 and heritage units, although I bought it too quickly, not realizing that it meant Phase 3 heritage units. As it turns out there is one for Phase 4 heritage units, too. I did find some useful decals on the Phase 3 sheet anyway, although a few days later I also went and bought the Phase 4 one. I have had a few old Athearn blue box units in Amtrak's Phase 4 scheme, one of which as unnumbered. With just decals, I figured I could make a close representation of the Phase 4 heritage unit, which as far as I can tell, was never commercially produced.

Former ATSF 650 has received a BNSF stencil below the
number.

Once all the decals arrived, I went to town working on my engines. I had a pair of BNSF SD60M's, which were once numbered in the 9200 series. When BNSF bought the SD70ACe's, they decided to number some of those in the 9200 series, and consequently the SD60M's were all renumbered into the 8100 series. I patched out the numbers on the models and put the proper 8100 numbers on them. Some other units required patching it all the Burlington Northern lettering, and replacing it with a BNSF stencil. Fortunately, with the green patches provided, that proved to be a fairly straightforward task too. On a couple of the Geeps, I decided to add stencil that says, "Remote Control Equipped" as well. Typically older Geeps can be found working yards, and many of them have been equipped to operate as a remote control locomotives, especially at larger yards.

BN 2522 has been stenciled for BNSF.

The ATSF units had were the easiest to patch. Many of them have kept their original paint scheme and some even still say, "Santa Fe" across the long hood. On those, usually a yellow BNSF stencil is found below the number on each side of the cab. A few of those were included on one of the decal sheets and I used them on my two Santa Fe units, that wear the red and grey "Warbonnet" paint scheme. Now all my BNSF "heritage" units have been updated to the current standard.

BNSF 2522 is a remote controlled unit.

On the Amtrak decal sheets, I found everything I would need to make a phase 4 heritage unit, even including the stripes. My unit had the stripes and everything, it just had no number. While the heritage scheme is not exactly the same as the phase 4 scheme was, it is very similar. I have thought about painting the unit to make it an exact match, and I probably will in the future, but for now I am going to settle for jut the decal work. I had a few things to add to that, such as the GE builders stickers and the American flags, but other than that, it was a simple matter of adding a number, 184 in this case, and putting the 1971 and 2011 stencils on either side of the locomotive body.

Amtrak #1 got a flag and a sign on the door.

Since I finished most of those projects, I have discovered that Microscale also carries all the small warning and data decals for GE locomotives. They probably have something similar for EMD units, although I did not look. I have a Dash 9-44CW that has no warning labels on it at all, and so it is getting dressed up now. It is interesting how the locomotive never really looked incomplete to me, but now that it is getting a lot of those decals, it looks considerably more complete. It is one of those things that I never noticed, but once I did, I could not help noticing it again every time I looked at the engine. Decals are easy to add to an engine, or any other rolling equipment, and they can add a lot to the overall appearance of a model.  Most of these projects can be finished in an hour or two, even at a leisurely pace.