Penn Central U28B #2822

Greetings All,

Here's a project that started with a purgatory box Athearn BB U30B that I purchased a few years ago for a chassis swap. The shell was painted for the Frisco by a prior owner. The job was nice but the decals had really yellowed. I put it into a bath of 91% alcohol to strip it for repainting. When that didn't work I tried brake fluid. When that didn't work it went into the purgatory box.

Fast forward several years and lo and behold a BB U30B shell arrived in a 'project box' sent to me from fellow modeler and blogger John Bruce. I was able to combine the two shells and make one complete shell for this project engine.

Here's the purgatory box shell with the handrails, brake wheel, number boards and window glass removed.

Combining parts from the above shell, stanchions from my parts box and the shell from John's Project Box I cobbled this unit together and rattle can painted it gloss black.

John likes to add details and separate grab irons and this shell had the cast on grab irons removed. Unfortunately for me John had not yet installed the wire grabs so I got out my pinvise, drilled the small holes and installed them.

The clear plastic number boards were painted separately with rattle can gloss white to mimic the prototype.

Here's the 2822 fresh out of the Patti O Paint Shop.

The view of the long hood

I chose to model PC U28B #2822 as the vents on the long hood looked more closely aligned with the U28B than the U30B, or U33B. The prototype U28B had a short production run of only one year with a total of 148 units sold. The early units resembled the U25B. Late production units received the shorter nose and more boxy body type similar to the U30B and U33B. The U28B was retired as the more powerful U30B entered production. 

The Penn Central operated five U28Bs. Three, 2809, 2810 and 2811, were leased from subsidiary P&LE. The P&LE owned a total of 22 U28Bs numbered 2800-2821.The leased 2809 received a full PC paint job. The P&LE units were late U25B look alikes.

Penn Central U28B #2822 was built by General Electric in May of 1966 as New York Central #2822. It was a four axle 2800 HP engine that was assigned with sister engine 2823 to Selkirk. PC #2822 would eventually become Conrail #2822 and get a full CR blue paint job. CR #2822 is last noted on the Conrail roster in 1980 and appears to have been retired sometime in the mid 1980s.

On the N.Y.C.T.L. the PC 2822 makes its way from Selkirk to Terminal Yard with sister GE U30B #2875 on Train VN-4.

Later we see it below assigned to Train EB-2, the Terminal Yard to North Side Yard transfer.

The 2822 & 2875 pulling a transfer freight thru the west side of Empire City towards the Empire Belt RR's North Side Yard.

 The 2822 is back at the fuel rack and ready for it's next assignment

Thanks John!!!

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See Ya Soon!!