Back in March I posted about a Kemtron GP-7 project, getting it together again with trucks that would work and also handrails (and more).

Originally, I was thinking to do the blue and yellow ATSF “bookend” scheme, but then I got thinking, a zebra stripe GP-7 would look so nice. So I painted it black, and then the project got stalled until August 28! And if finally finished it up this morning.

Zebra stripe decals are hard

If there is no other take away here, I’m not likely to do another of these soon. I did two Fleischmann Baldwin switchers previously (with Microscale HO decals), which was helpful experience, but this was a whole ‘nother level of hard.

My starting point was the frame and cab sides, as the stripes have to match.

Then I did the ends of the locomotive body. The chevrons are the opposite directions on each end! Something I didn’t notice on the rear end — had to soak off and redo those decals a second time. Note also, I’ve cut the decal and worked it in between the hand grabs.

If all that was not hard enough, then I did the frame ends. What you see is about 7 decal pieces all put together.

Those areas all took a lot of MicroSol to get them snuggled down. The body sides, compared to all of the above, were a breeze.

The results

On the layout the model looks so nice.

This first view gives a bit of a look at the trucks. As described in the earlier post, the trucks are modified from TYCO GP-20 or F unit dummy trucks, with OO wheels added. For purposes of this model, they work great and I’m very happy to report also that the coupler height was perfect, my care with working out the parts earlier paid off.

The final view below is with my Schorr “RSD-5” model, which runs great. In terms of running it with the zebra geep, I think the zebra really draws your eyes and you notice less that the blue color is kind of off and also the trucks are not the correct style.

If I were to do another zebra, it would probably be another of the RSD models, powered with the same Athearn HO drive, to run with this geep (or the other RSD).

I don’t know if anyone else has ever been crazy enough to do one of these Kemtron geeps up in this scheme, and it took a lot of time. Very happy with how it came out.