ON MY WORKBENCH.

We've seen the BL2 in its natural habitat, pulling a milk train.  If you're modelling New England, it's mandatory to have a BL2 or two on hand, either on a milk train where it might match the streamlined Borden milk tank cars, or hauling potatoes out of Aroostook County.

The locomotive also powered the rush shipment of toilet paper we noted at toward the end of the fourteen days to slow the spread.  You might have noticed some rough running in that train, as well as, if you're looking closely, additional trackage in the area illustrated above.

That locomotive has held up pretty well for a bargain purchase.  I found it at a swap meet in Indianapolis, sometime around 1990.  Somebody had taken the old Atlas F unit chassis from around 1970, extended it a few scale feet, and added a flywheel, then put that chassis under the body, a Britannia metal casting from Locomotive Workshop.  Total price was either $25 or $50: at the time, Locomotive Workshop had been asking more than $50 just for the unassembled castings, add your own chassis.  Why do I know?  Because I have one of those as well.  As I said, moving milk and potatoes. Stay tuned.

The Atlas drive unit is pretty good if you don't ask too much work of it, but all the internal gears are plastic, and the gear axles are plastic, and part of the gear frame which is a plastic casting, and those are prone, eventually, to shearing.  That might be part of the rough running in the video I alluded to.  Look closely at the picture above, though, and note the side frames are missing from the trucks.  Also plastic, also held in place with pins that are subject to shearing, or some rough handling by your Superintendent. Time for an upgrade.

Over the years, I have acquired a number of the P&D Hobbies power trucks, suitable for their line of F units, for powering or repowering the Red Caboose GP7 or GP9 kits, and they're adaptable to other uses as well.  For some reason, although Atlas had those original F units built with that odd plastic power truck suspended from above, the chassis have a slot cast into them, at just the right place to put in a 1/4" or 5/16" brass crossbearer drilled for the P&D truck mounting screw.  When it's all done, it will be a more reliable running diesel, and there are decals on hand to make this one a Bangor and Aroostook, in the primarily gray with blue and yellow stripes, and generally on potatoes.