Penn Central E8A #4300 Project

 Greetings All,

The time has come for this New York Central E8A that I painted in November 2012 to head back to the Paint Shop. As newer and more accurate factory and home paint shop models join the roster this P-2000 unit has been mostly relegated to it's box or as a trailing unit in a Penn Central consist at best.

In January 2021 a pair of correctly painted Proto 2000 New York Central Cigar Band E8As joined the fleet sealing the fate of the 4020.

After the NYC E8s arrived I took a hard look at my Penn Central E Unit Fleet that is currently undergoing some mechanical and cosmetic work. In October of 2016 I corrected some of my E units by eliminating the Mars Lights on three units and introducing a newly painted PC E8A #4072. This is a Rivarossi shell on a P-2000 E6 chassis. 

It's not great but it's prototypically painted, runs very well and looks OK in a PC consist.

Penn Central E8A #4317 with mars light removed in 2016 is just out of the shop in early 2021. Touch up paint and repaired wiring have the unit running and looking much better.

Penn Central E7A #4210 sans mars light from October 2016. The 4210, the 4317 and 4072 made up my PC E Unit fleet.

Looking to repaint my NYC 4020 into an accurate PC unit I took a look at the Pennsylvania RR that had two auxiliary light equipped E8As on their roster, built and delivered as PRR #5700A and #5701A in 1952.

This Walthers Proto 2000 PRR 5700A in the as delivered scheme is part of my son's PRR fleet.

The 5700 was renumbered for the merger to #4300 and became Penn Central #4300. The mars light was blanked out and the headlight remained in the nose door opening. Perfect for this model!

The ex 4020 has soaked for several hours in 91% alcohol with little to show for it. The white caulking held on the air intake grills which came off very easily but left a bit of a mess.

The shell is cleaned, the sun came out briefly, the Patti O Paint Shop was opened and a coat of rattle can gray primer has been applied.

The shell is now gloss black and it's time to put the metal air grills back on. This time I'm using gel type CA.

The decal process has begun. This spartan large PC only paint scheme became common as the PC fleet came back for their second trips to the paint shop. 

While the decals were setting it was time to address the mechanical issues of this unit. The frame and weight of the unit had been altered by a prior owner to accommodate the E8A shell. Unfortunately the top of the weight is a bit too high which caused wires to be crushed and the unit to run erratically. A few years ago I pulled the weight off and soldered on new wires from the trucks and motor to the control board.

The weight has been grinded and reinstalled. To do this I had to unsolder and then solder some of the wires back on. 

Penn Central 4300 is now fully assembled and ready for assignment.

When PC repainted the 4300 in this scheme the portholes were blanked out. To convey that on the model I painted some thin styrene black to match the shell. 

With the auxiliary light blanked out, the unit painted like the prototype and running very well the 4300 will be taking center stage in my passenger and express operations.

The 4300 passes RA Tower with a late PC / early Amtrak consist.

See the 4300 in action here.

Completing the PC E8A #4300 project has been very rewarding. The unit now looks good and runs great which is a vast improvement from how the unit looked and ran when I started the project.

The PRR 5700 built in 1952 that became Penn Central #4300 in February 1968 would be sold to Amtrak and wear the platinum mist as Amtrak #307 and then as Amtrak #457. I couldn't find a disposition for this engine and the last photo I found is from 1981.

For more reading about PRR E8A fleet checkout this PRR Keystone Modeler No.81 and this Trainorders conversation.

Thanks for reading and watching!!!

See ya soon!!!