2R O-scale Southern Crescent E8's by Sunset Models Review Part 1

Sunset Models/3rd Rail just released their E8 project to the masses.  Southern made the final production list and I was asked to and volunteered in the neighborhood of about 20 hours of review time for this project between the body CAD, rooftop airtank CAD, and decal artwork.  I have come to realization that no matter how many suggestions, fixes, etc. that I make, the factory is bound to not fix everything I suggested.  Oh well.  I have learned this is something even HO guys have to deal with and unless I shell out $3k/model, its how it is.

Considering the process that these go through, I have to say that these turned out pretty well. They will be acceptable to most.  They are acceptable to me, but I always take everything I own to the next level.  Rivet counter? No. Spotting features? Yes. I can fix a lot of the flaws, but having studied these closer and looked at some of the lettering discrepancies from the prototype, I need to figure out what I want to do.  If I decide to reletter some of these to more closely match the prototype, I may go further and repaint these into black tuxedo to match other units I have. I am undecided at this time, as I won't have real time to touch these for awhile. Remember my SD9 review?  Well those are still sitting apart waiting for me to finish the corrections list.

This is an aesthetics review, I have yet to have time to run these, but I am extremely curious to hear what the QSI Q3 decoder sounds like with TWO speakers in each unit, since E8's had dual prime movers in them, and QSI has a patent on stereo sound, allowing for a nice one-decoder solution for the sound.

I bought 3 units,which were numbered 1-3 on the box, 6901, 6909, 6911.  The fourth number is 6915.

Below is the photo review. Click on photos for larger versions if you so desire.

What 3 sunset shipping boxes look like next to each other.

 2R version of instruction manual in box.

Yellow inner box hiding under the protective styrofoam.

Glad to see Green under the wrapping.  Looks like a SAL unit or two made it into SOU boxes and vice versa.

 The parts baggy that comes with the units.  Note that the spark arrestors are in this bag.  They are not very detailed...so I will replace these with my own brass ones once I get some more made up.

Protective foam around the engine.

All 3 units; Front View. (styrofoam bit on 6911's NB)

Noses look good to me.  Note the missing firecracker antennas to the right of the horns.  Scott left these off to reduce shipping damage, since he had a lot break on the SD7/SD9 project.  I thought they were also supposed to be in the parts baggy, but never made it...

 Roof view.

 The spark arrestor by the exhaust port.  Note that I guess the Factory was thinking you needed to glue these in, as they are not snug or snap in place...

Yes 6911's door came stuck open.  I was able to close it with a screwdriver.

Some more various angles.  

 Engineer View.  

Two paint mistakes:

1. The top grab iron should have matched the imitation aluminum.

2. The grab iron by the pilots are silver when they should also be imitation aluminum.

One could also surmise the curvature around the lower portion of the green area is also wrong and doesn't start curving up soon enough.  Something I will just live with.  It also makes the crescent logo look too small, when I believe it is actually rather close in size. with the way the artwork drawings are done (Side/Front View only...no angled nose view), this is hard to tell them how to do correctly.

For comparison:

This was to show that the grills already have some buckling in them.  The grill style may not match every unit's style, I noticed SOU units had both styles.  A factory process limitation...

Some rooftop pipe and spark arrestor close ups.

 View of the etched grills and roof from the side.

 Evidence I saw showed they had dual steam generators.

 Close up of the roof/nose.

 Rear of the units.

 Rooves of the units.

 I had 2 units that had bent-in MU hoses.  Scott needs to figure out how to prevent that in the future.

View of the bottom.

 Artistic View 1

 Artistic View 2

 

 This is as big as the gap gets when Kadees are taught.

 

 AA consist

 AAA consist

 AAA consist overhead view

 Two engineer views. 

Note: The spacing of the numbers is quite off.  Something that kind of irks me, but I could also live with.  If I can't live with it, these units are getting the tuxedo treatment.

For Number Spacing Comparison:

 There be rivets on the angle step.  Nice!

Note: From the photos I had, it looked like the kickplates had been painted over with both Green and the Im. Aluminum.  Factory missed this one too and only the green was done.

 Close up of the SOUTHERN.

Its hard to photograph the cab interior, but it looks pretty good.  Just needs to be painted light gray instead of the seafoam green.

One last nose shot.

Note the correct dual-beam lighting.

Note the buffer above the coupler was supposed to be black, but factory didn't do it.

Note the MU box on the right side of the nose.  Southern had round ones on both sides.  I think it would have been better to do that detail using decals, so every road could get what was custom to them.

So there's enough photos to digest.  Here is what I plan on doing to these:

1. Paint buffer black
2. Paint Pilot grab irons Im Aluminum
3. Paint cab interiors light gray.
4. Replace horn with prototypical Cal Scale Nathan M5 horn.
5. Add Firecracker Antenna
6. Add ACI plates
7. Add MU/air hoses to front pilot. 
8. Add any speed recorders to trucks per unit per prototype.
9. Add my own custom photo-etched cab shades over the cab windows.
10. Add my own custom photo-etched spark arrestors.
11. Get rid of the fuel tank skirting and add correct fuel tank equipment.
12. Add the correct SOU-style water tanks on either side of the fuel tanks.
13. Replace numberboards. Numberboard font is too thin (looked good in artwork, but came out wrong); replace with microscale decals. Also numbers should be on outsides of numberboards, not centered.
14. Replace Kadee 805's with newer Kadees as I do with all of my locomotives.
15. Units are too dull, Spray them with gloss or semigloss  

If I decide that the number spacing bothers me too much (causing me to to remove the numbering)...additional items:

1. Add the cab vent on engineer side 
2. Look at changing out sand hatches to Southern-Style sand hatches.
3. Look at improving the rooftop tank mounts by grinding off unprototypical parts.
4. Look at adding any rear lighting if these units had it.
5. Maybe flag brackets for every unit.
6. Repaint as Black tuxedo
7. Possibly renumber some to the 2900 series

Anyone know someone who makes the correct mirrors (scale-sized) in O-scale to add by the windows?