Atlas RR Co. is back with another run of its well-detailed SD35s, this time with Electronic Solutions Ulm (ESU) dual-mode decoders. This run features two Chessie System variations and a Penn Central model with a red P.
The prototype. General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division (EMD) launched its “35 Line” with the GP and SD35 in 1963 and ’64, respectively. These locomotives set the design standard for more than two decades of EMD locomotives with their sharply creased lines.
They were the last locomotives to use the 567 series of diesel engines, first introduced in 1938. By the early ’60s, they were producing nearly double the horsepower of their progenitors, albeit with 16 instead of 12 cylinders.
But getting 2,500hp out of a 25-year-old design had stretched the engine to its limits, and the turbocharged 16-567D3A wasn’t considered as reliable as its earlier incarnations. The 567 would be replaced by the 645 in EMD’s 40-series diesels. Those numbers, 567 and 645, referred to the displacement of each cylinder in the engine in cubic inches.
EMD sold 360 SD35s in both standard low short hood versions (170) and high short hood versions (190). There was also a passenger-oriented SDP35 that was part of Atlas’ earlier runs of this model. The prototype made up 35 of the low short hood production numbers.
Most SD35s were leaving Class 1 railroad rosters in the mid-1980s. Chessie rebuilt some of the engines into lower-horsepower SD20-2s.
Three SD35s survive. One at the Baltimore & Ohio Museum in Baltimore, Md., has been repainted to B&O colors after time on Chessie System and CSX. The other two locomotives are in storage, one at the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the other on the Georges Creek Railroad in Westernport, Md.
The model. Atlas first introduced this version of its SD35 in 2002, and Jim Hediger reviewed it in the October 2002 issue. Our sample is decorated in Chessie System colors with Western Maryland (WM) reporting marks. The separations between the Federal Yellow, Vermillion, and Enchantment Blue sections are sharp, and all the colors are opaque. Detail painting includes silver frames on the cab side windows and EMD builder’s plates centered under the cab on the sills. There are a couple of voids in the Chess-C logo where it goes over door latches on the long hood, but they would be easy to take care of with a drop of Enchantment Blue paint.
Separately applied grab irons and lift rings festoon the body of the Atlas SD35. Other separately applied parts include windshield wipers, operating drop steps, m.u. hoses, uncoupling levers, perforated footboards, and m.u. stands. The handrails are molded in orange (Vermillion) flexible plastic to resist damage. The parts appear to be scale sized.
The trucks feature separately applied brake cylinders, brake lines, sanding lines, and on the fireman’s (left) side lead truck, a speed recorder and cable.