Awaiting some attention for probably a couple years has been this modified Schorr RS-2. Lettered for the Yorkville & Western, the personal road of the importer Fred Schorr. It is an interesting case study.

When It got to Arizona the engine did not run and had a little damage. I opened it up and took stock of where I was. The engine had an interesting electrical modification, directional lighting (which still worked!), but then modified to only have a front (long hood) headlight, adding more weight inside the short hood (which had come loose). Below is how it looked “before.”

As part of my work I reworked the wiring slightly and added shrink wrap tube to better insulate things.

More significantly, Fred Schorr put this model on six-wheel Hobbytown HO drive trucks (modified to OO gauge), to approximate an Alco RSD-4 or RSD-5 (the actual prototypes are based on the RS-3, so a few details are off). (Another vintage example of the same conversion may be seen in this article).

Things did not turn well, and I was anticipating putting a set of vintage Hobbytown universal couplings on to improve the drive. But actually, the rubber tubing had held up decently and the nice sliding coupling he had made was a plus.

The big problem it turned out was/is the gearbox. The engine is very heavy and I think he just wore it out with lots of running, pulling long trains. The gears don’t mesh correctly, and I think the bearings up in the tower are part of the issue too. So while the headlight works with the directional lighting, as of now the model is not operable until the gear tower issue is corrected.

And as seen in this final photo, the paint and decals did not hold up perfectly either. Still, this is an interesting, classic model for sure, one I am very happy to have with my other Schorr items.

I have made an RSD-5 previously using an Athearn drive (more here), and I’m inclined to try it again with another model that is awaiting a rebuild. It is a nice look.