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Following on from the 3D printed GE 70 tonners I completed last year the next designs to fit the Rokuhan Shorty chassis were two different boxcab diesel shunters both designed by Stonysmith on Shapeways. The first one was an American loco very similar to the Central New Jersey GE-Ingersol Rand loco now preserved at the Baltimore and Ohio museum and like the 70 tonners is designed to drop straight onto the Shorty chassis There is no detail below solebar level and the windors are not open The other contender is the rare British Thompson Houston Boxcab that was built for the huge Ford car plant at Dagenham in the U.K. Amazingly one survives to this day on the Kent and East Sussex railway. This has the windows open which looks a ;lot better In the video I show how to finish these locos and also include some photos of the prototypes including a really rare bit of footage of the Ford one working at the plant in 1952. I decided not to do the actual Ford livery, choosing instead a mid green as it will mainly be working the Republic steel layout. Seen here just needing the flush glazing The CNJ was also left anonymous but was painted in the Pullman green used in its early days on the railroad The trucks need another coat of black as the grey is showing through

I've always been interested in these trucks, they look cool. I infer from the text with this picture that non-steerable trucks provide less tractive effort than steerable types; I also guess that the steerables require maintenance. Are the more simple looking trucks on EMD SD locomotives, for example, also steerable using a different method? If not, does anyone know how much this reduces total tractive effort? Does this only make a difference when starting load on a curve? http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=126306 Example of SD trucks (note that maintenance crew is on a different track :)) http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=555890 Also, the class(?) lights are cool, kinda like Conrail marker lights.