BLS 486 Alpinist - 4

After re-assembly, a few pics were taken at Wattinger taken with the big camera (so they are even in focus for once). No wonder the trainspotters up by the curve are looking thrilled at progress to date.

There are a few more things I'll do to finish these locos at some stage, but that will have to wait for a future installment. In the meantime, the blog will be taking a short pause for two weeks while steamier quarry are hunted in mysterious eastern lands.

BLS 486 Alpinist -3

After the painting was completed it was time to start applying decals.

This all went swimmingly. Mr Mountaineer man went on fine, as did the various texts. As on the real locos, the wording differs each side - one in (Swiss-?) German and one in Italian - "Die Alpinisten" and "Gli Alpinisti".

An added detail-decal that I had printed previously (but didn't use on the 485) was the various details on the very bottom of the sides - various classification numbers and little black square doors and hatches. This was lifted off an image in photoshop and all came out rather well even though you can't read them.

After a period of setting, the shell was dulllcoted which briefly threw a spanner in the works, as the Testors Dullcote lacquer spray melted the Tamiya acrylic silver on the left 5mm of one of the ends, which started to run over my Alpinist. This was fairly easily mopped up with a paintbrush and repainted, so no harm in the long run, although it was an unusual thing to see. Maybe I sprayed too much on in that spot... who knows.

BLS 486 Alpinist -2

Onwards with the Alpinist...

First painting spree:

As with the 485, the green flashes were easy to paint following the contours of the model shell. I then scribed a fine line with my knife above the headlights and painted with red below the line down to the front stepsills.

At this stage, I also added the little foot steps (black) down in the notched front corners. These were borrowed from an old leftover N scale tank car chassis part collected many years ago and contact glued into place. These were done only at the designated 'good' end that will lead the train.

The last piece of green paint that needs to be added is a small panel on the sides. As with the 485, a square was masked with Tamiya masking tape. As long as you burnish any overlaps or detail contours (I used the edge of a knife blade to press the corner overlaps down) the paint won't seep underneath:

 Removing the tape:

 Success!

One final touch before putting down the brush was to slop some white paint where my mountaineer's head decal will go. As this decal was printed by a laser printer (which can't print white) onto clear decal paper, I wanted any light parts of the image to get a boost from the white paint below.

BLS 486 Alpinist -1

You could probably see this coming...

I've mentioned previously the appeal of a BLS intermodal train on the layout, and one of the reasons is a very cool series of locos that imply that "we climb the mountains for you".

My personal favourites are the series with a mountaineer's face (for rivet-counters, actually there are two subtly different versions of the Alpinist).

One of these locos is pictured below leading a Zebra:

I figured that one of these would be a good partner for my recent BLS creation.

Compared to the 'Connecting Europe' loco, the 486 has a different front end with a lower lip.

Like the 485, I started with a matching Hoyer top and quickly lowered the wee section above the grilles (by the pantographs) before modifying the front end by notching the lower corners and adding the lower extensions in the corners with white plasticard:

To fit these bodyshell extensions on the chassis it had to be reduced in width at the corners (the right-hand example here, notched behind the buffers):

Hard to see in the next shot are the little horizontal stepsills at each corner below the main headlights:

The following picture (crassly stolen from the internet) shows the difference between the 486 'Alpinist' and the flat bottomed 495 "Connecting Europe' loco: