Something Shiny, Red and Modern

I got an email from the Credit Valley Model Railroad shop on Friday, that something I had ordered last year had arrived. I had some other previous orders sitting out there waiting on being picked up, so once I’d paid, I went out on Saturday to do a curbside pickup at the hobby shop. When I started the Canyon Road diorama, it was a “modern” diorama, to depict the railway as it is today. To do that, I needed a modern locomotive and rolling stock. Over the past year, I have picked up a modern autorack and container well car, but did not have a modern locomotive. Athearn announced some time ago that they would be doing the EMD SD70ACu rebuilds that CPR has been receiving, which include the ten heritage (5 script lettering, 5 block lettering in Maroon and Grey) and the 5 Military Units. While all modern locomotives have some degree of sameness to them, I actually quite like the SD70ACu’s. That may just be that they haven’t been out long enough to become perma-dirty like most CPR locomotives! In any event, I ordered a CPR Red version for the diorama. If I was going to order a heritage version, I think it would be 6644, the D-Day Commemorative unit, but that was not done as part of this run. Who knows, maybe someday in the future.

Unboxing and checking out CPR 7000 on the Canyon Road diorama.

I haven’t had a chance to put the locomotive on the test track connected to DCC to check out the lights and sound. That will hopefully be a today thing. I spent most of my day yesterday on Saturday doing nothing, and when I did start to do something, it was to start re-organizing the closet in my layout room to better organize things as I need to move some things around in the near future on the bookcases in the layout room so I actually have somewhere to put Canyon Road when it’s done. It can’t sit on top of the IKEA cart I use for tools forever!

The nice part about a newish locomotive, is that it won’t need heavy weathering. Just a bit of road grime along the bottom, and exhaust smoke along the roof. Enough to look used, which means I won’t be taking the nice bright shine off of it. Athearn also, to their credit made the cab roof easily removable. It is held on by two magnets. I have some modern crew figures I ordered from ModelU 3D in the UK, I need to get these painted, but will then be able to crew up the cab easily. I’m even more motivated now to figure out the last of the scenery on the diorama so I can actually take the time to take some good model photographs on it, and mark a project complete!

EDIT: Quick static test video, my programming track is not really long enough for it to move!