The first thing that I did was call my favorite Train Shop to see if anything existed or was coming out soon.  Athearn sadly is only going to make the A-B in their R.T.R. program.

After reviewing the photos of the to be released in Jan 08 AB set, I decided to try to build them myself. 

Although, I am certain someone will offer them just after I have completed mine.

The next step was to get my hands on every photo of the trio that I could.  Railpictures.net
proved to be a great source.

The F unit history's according to Trains Magazine is
 
F-9A- To be numbered NS 4270 was built as B&O 937 (F-7A)
F-9A- To be numbered NS 4271 was built as B&O 947 (F-7A)
F-7B- To be NS 4275 was built as CGW 113D (F-7B)
F-7B- To be NS 4276 was built as CGW 114B (F-7B)  

I have written to Norfolk Southern trying to see when they may be anywhere near me to take my own photos.  However, I am being told that information cannot be given to the public. 

I figured the B unit would be the easiest, so I began with it. While working on the B, I started accumulating parts for the A's. Unfortunately my camera was out for repair as I started building the B unit so I don't have that many photos.

Body Prep:
The first step was to add the correct fan assembly. I used a B unit detail kit from Highliner.  Unfortunately the kit did not come with a winterization hatch so I had to scratch build one of these.  At this time, I also hand-drilled out the holes for the handrails.  This is harder than it sounds.  There were marks in the body for these holes, but it still proved difficult for me to get them lined up exactly.

Paint Work:
I painted the bottom of the B unit white first using Scale Coat II #S2011.
I didn't tape off anything, I simply sprayed the bottom and worked up until I was certain that I had enough of the white painted.  The more you can stay away from taping, the smoother your transition from one color to the next will be. 

After waiting a couple of days for the white to dry (I hate finger prints)  I used 1/4 inch fine line tape by 3M to cover the white area at the bottom.  Next I painted the entire loco Gloss Black using Scale Coat II #S2010  It is my experience to remove the tape before the paint dries, but yet not so soon that it will run.   This all but eliminates the lifting of any new color with the tape.  Be very careful not to touch the newly painted area while removing the tape.    I wouldn't bring it up but...been there done that.

Decals:
As I let the shell dry, I began creating the decals needed to make this look like the original.  Luckily, Microscale had a set of Southern decals that I could use for the yellow striping and another set for the  numbers.  Unfortunately, nobody had the yellow Norfolk Southern horse head decals, these I made by using a white set from Microscale for NS diesels 2002 and above, as the template.

After scanning the purchased set, I changed the color to yellow using Paintshop Pro.  This took a little work to get right.  The edges of the images I was making into decals had to be smooth. I wanted the quality to be as good as any store purchased decal.

The final step was matching the yellow to that of the numbers and stripes.  This took about 3 tries printing on white background decal paper to get it perfect. Again I used PSP to lift a yellow color sample from the Microscale decal set.

I always import my decals into a word document so that I can size them easily without distortion.

After all the decals were applied, I began adding the hand rails.  I used hand rails out of a Detail Associated F7-9 detail kit.   I did not weather this loco as it is very new and shiny black in all of the photos that I have seen to date.

I chose an Athearn Genesis DCC sound equipped chassis for the 4276 B Unit.
 

B unit sitting in the Maint yard.  The decals appear distorted slightly on the web as the image is reduced in size.


Top View of actual B unit

Now on to the A's - In the immortal words of Keith Jackson, "Ole Nilly, he has his work cut out for him today".  

My first thought was to purchase a couple of Highliner F-7A shells,  wrong!  Apparently they are in high demand ,or Highliner's owners have enough money thus they don't need mine.
Being the patient person that I am,  I ordered 2 Athearn Genesis F7 As.  Both of them were  Western Maryland Fireballs.  Sorry WM rail fans, they were as close as I could find to start with.

Body Prep:
All hand rails, glass, and grilles were carefully removed.

Neither horn was correct so both were removed, along with the front fan assembly.  A plain panel is bolted onto the fan assembly hole.  I used a Dremel tool to remove the fan assembly, then filed out the square opening with a small flat file.

Note the door on the front of the locomotive,  this will have to be filled in smooth to match the OCS locos.

All decals were removed using lacquer thinner on a small rag.  This is also good to remove any oils from your fingers if you just have to handle something that has been painted.

I used plain sheet styrene from Plastruct to create the replacement panel for the now missing fan assembly.

Each of the A units also came with a large 48 inch fan to the very rear of the loco.
I picked up the fans from Detail Associates.  I then created a mounting plate for the fans.
The mounting plates had to be recessed like the originals in order to look correct. 
This was done by first tracing the outline of the plate, then leveling the roof with a Dremel tool.  You can only go so far with a Dremel without risking removing to much plastic.
Once I had the opening semi close, I finished the modification with a flat file wrapped in 200 grit sandpaper.

With the replacement panel added along with the 48 inch fan assembly, I moved on to the nose.  I used modelers putty to fill in the cracks around the door and extra holes from various marker lights, hand rails, and the additional horn.  I used regular spackling compound diluted slightly with water to fill any small cracks around the roof plates.

The final addition to the roofs were twin pipes (look to be huge mufflers) I love it when I get technical. These pipes were constructed out of sprues from various kits. I had to use multiple sizes to get the correct look.

The nose would require two applications of putty with a good sanding between layers prior to priming.  To help fill in and smooth the nose further , I used 3 coats of Krylon gray primer, sanding in between each coat.

Both of the NS F9 A units have twin ditch lights at the bottom of the nose, these had to be drilled in the nose to match the originals.  I also had to sand off the two vents that were across from each other on the bottom of the nose. 

Once the nose was smooth a good cleaning, and final coat of primer was applied to the entire shell.

Paint:  Three coats of white paint are added next, following the same process as above for the B unit.   I will now let them sit  until they are completely dry.

The next step is to create a stencil for the nose graphics.  I will use the Microscale decal kit mentioned above with the Southern striping for the nose.  I have scanned the decals and now will print the stripes onto a white card stock material.  The nose stripes are cut out so that I can use them to trace the pattern onto the nose.

Once I traced the pattern onto the nose, I again used 1/4 inch 3m fine line tape for the sides, with 1/8 inch for the nose outline. 

Using Scale Coat II #S2010, I applied 3 coats of Gloss Black to each shell.  I waited about 10 minutes after the final coat to carefully pull the tape off of the two bodies.  After a couple of hours of curing, I used a Q' Tip and paint thinner to gently clean any of the black over spray that ended up on the white nose.  You have to be extremely careful when doing this and not push too hard, or to often as you will risk dulling the white ,or even removing it.

I will now leave the bodies to completely dry before applying the various body parts.  The last thing you want now are finger prints. 

Now the reassembly begins. I began with the long grilles, followed by the glass.  I saved the handrails and top mufflers until after the decals were applied.   As I stated above, I needed to use white decal paper to get the colors to match.  The image below represent the decals that I made.
So far one of the hardest things to do in building these has been applying the curved nose decals.
I would recommend tackling this when you are in a good frame of mind and have some time to yourself.  After fighting with the left side on the first nose, I decided to cut the stripe in half right in the middle of the biggest curve.  This made the application of the other 3 decals somewhat easier.

I had two sets of the long gold decals that go down the sides, unfortunately one of the these sets must have been old as the stripes were brittle, and ended up breaking a couple of times. 

Update Oct 2008 Microscale now produces these decals

Updated 1/21/07
Alright finally I was able to get the front lights to work as the originals do.
The MRC supplied sound decoders that Athearn purchased for their Genesis models did not have ditch light functions. They do come with a slow blinking function for the top of a switcher or caboose?   The problem is they both blink at the same time, and not when the horn blows.

After writing the MRC tech folks I purchased two new MRC Sheer Brilliance decoders (0001657).
Next I called in our NMRA Divisions electrical guru to help switch, then setup these sound decoders.
There was more to this than I first thought.  These new decoders were designed to replace non dcc decoders, not locomotives that already had dcc decoders.  This meant that we needed to add resistors in the wiring to the light bulbs to keep from blowing the bulbs instantly. Once this was accomplished a  CV had to be set in order for the ditch lights to work when the horn was blown.  Another CV was set to configure how long the ditch lights remained flashing after each time the horn was blown.  

To be quite honest I would say that the standard sound decoder that came with the F units run a little better than the Sheer Brilliance decoders but......  the Sheer Brilliance decoders sound a little better, and all lighting functions work.  To have a non functional set of ditch lights after all the work that went into building this set would have been unacceptable.

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