Let me preface by saying whenever I say “we” I’m referring to myself and my dear friend Dave Cwirko.  I should emphasize "we" is a loose interpretation; my role was hunter, gatherer of pieces, parts and history (most of which came from your site) while Dave did the heavy lifting/actual work.  He is truly an artist as the pictures prove.

Ironically, given the number of my ARR items, I didn’t have any GP-40’s in the ARR Bold Scheme (my fav).    Fortunatel,y a few years back Athearn released the ARR GP-40’s in their R-T-R line; 3012/3014/3015.  I ordered four units with the duplicate number becoming 3013.

While I was happy with the look, they were a good foundation appearance wise, I was less than happy with how they ran.    Not trying to bash but the R-T-R’s drives were not much of an improvement over the old Blue Box model; very grinding and loud.    After many hours of web searching we decided to forgo the R-T-R drives and swap the shells onto Genesis ones.    While not a simple remove and replace, with a bit of minor grinding and cutting, the shells were mated to GP-40 Genesis DCC/Sound chassis.

In addition to mating the shells/drives, Dave was able to redo the lighting.  I don’t recall the LEDs (acquired via eBay), Dave used a technique he devised on some prior engines to glue them to lenses which fit into the shell head/tail light openings.  I chose to forgo ditch lights, however this LED modification is incredible to see (pics don’t do it justice).

As for the other added details, I have a list somewhere I can’t find at the moment but they were the usual fare; Plows, Winterization Hatches, MU Stands, Beacons, Hoses, Antennas, Speed Recorders, Fans, Horns etc, etc…  Again all of which was gleaned from your site.    Now to toss a disclaimer out. None of these are 1,000% accurate, never hoped they’d be.  However over their time on the ARR, I feel each would’ve been configured this way, one time or another.  They are perfect to my personal taste, thank you Dave for your incredible work.

Jeff McCrea