While sorting out stuff to sell on the bay and things to keep when i move i found that i have more than two AHM SNCF locos that look a lot like Alco RS-3s so i decided the strip them down see whats what.

They are identical all wheel drive sided pickups so i stripped the gearboxes cleaned and lightly greased once more and cleaned the wheels. They run ok but the motors are not the best.

I've been using Modelstrip on a few models and it works really well so a liberal coating on each loco body bagged over night before a good wash off removed all the sncf blue leaving me with one black and one blue moulded shell (?).

Next job was a good clean and a coast of humbrol enamel primer for each.

Just started to sand the odd mould line for a better finsh.

Not sure what colours to re-do them in as i'm not an artist and only have rattle cans too choose from but maybe base colour black with Southern lettering and a white strip or Rio Grande orange using microscale decals.

Double checked all the gearboxes as the running at low speed in not that good but i think the motors are going to be replaced with some Horby ones X6122 i think will need to make some nice brass flywheels.

Then the headache is handrails they are huge and ugle and very brittle so they will have to go, can i get suitable replacement handrails as a spare for Atlas i wonder.

I think the next job is to modelstrip the chassis see what they looks like.

G.