BNSF GP40M 3018, Page 7
With the long hood done, I turned my attention to detailing the nose. Unit 3018 was the only BNSF GP40M I
found that had the light notch. It is one of the reasons why I chose to build this unit.
To start with, I cut the nose notch. I did not have any dimensional information, but looking at the photo I had I
noticed that the notch was just slightly wider than the light housing. So I measured the light housing and made
the notch just a tad wider. Same goes for the height. I noticed the height of the notch was slightly taller than the
light housing. I cut the height accordingly. The depth was easy. I cut it back to where the edge curvature ends
on the top of the nose. What I liked about this notch was that it did not taper at the bottom.

As stated earlier, the sand hatch is from a Cannon & Co. nose kit. Also from the same nose kit I used the round
cab vent on the right side of the nose. I used a prototype photo to help me with the location. In the photo
above, you will also notice there are no class lights or blank out plates. This was of course an easy
modification. I simply sliced them off and wet sanded the area smooth. This was also done on the long hood
end.
Finally for the nose I needed to address the brake ratchet. I find the Atlas part be very weak so my usual
method with Atlas units as well as Kato units and P2K units is to use the far superior looking Cannon & Co. part
gotten out of the same nose kit as the sand filler hatches and cab vent.

The cavity of the brake ratchet is cast into the side of the nose on the Cannon & Co. part.  What I do is cut this
part out and then trim the thickness of the nose side off. I make sure it is even all the way around and then
glue it inside the Atlas nose. If you do not trim the hood side off the cavity, then the cavity will be to deep.

This takes care of the nose. The light housing will be installed after paint. It needs to be painted silver. The
light housing is Detail Associates 1003 DUAL HEADLIGHT - 'PYLE' LATE.
The cab is as delivered by Atlas with details added. It is not yet finished. I am still waiting on a Detail Associates
Sinclair Antenna. It is out of stock at all my local stores and there is no ETA on the Walthers site. Lucky for me
us modelers are a friendly bunch and fellow modeler Jay from the DIESEL list is going to forward me the need
part. The antenna in question is Detail Associates 1803 SINCLAIR ANTENNA. I am hoping for part 101803
which is the brass antenna. Prior to paint, the antenna will be installed. Other details you see here are Detail
Associates 101301 CAB SUNSHADE - SW/GP/SD, BRASS, Details West RA-276 RADIO ANTENNA ("CAN"
TYPE), BLMA MODELS #4551 REMOVED HEADLIGHT COVERS and Precision Scale 3998 CAB DOOR
HANDLES. I have a door handle on the rear engineer door as well. You can also see I filled in the horn
mounting hole with strip styrene.

You will notice in the photo above there is a plate covering the engineers cab vent louvers. This was one of
those small details I noticed at the last minute. The cover plate is from the Cannon & Co. TD-2156 EMD FUEL
TANK DETAIL SET. I could have easily just cut a small plate from sheet styrene, but I have a bunch of the
sprues with this part on it so why not use it. I sanded it a bit flatter and removed the bolt heads. The windshield
wipers will be added after paint and are Detail Associates 2314 WINDSHIELD WIPERS - OFFSET BLADE,
SINGLE & DOUBLE ARM.

That takes care of the construction. Now I can gt it all ready for primer and paint.
Here are all the additional parts that need to get grit blasted and painted. Then after final paint and prior to
clear coat and decaling, they will be installed. There are only three parts missing from here. Those would be
the cab steps. I will use Cannon & Co. cab steps for this model. Again, I have plenty of Cannon & Co. spare
parts to use up.