When I first started modeling the Ann Arbor Railroad in 1998, no one offered a ready-to-run AA version of the GP35, so I bought a number of undecorated Atlas Classic units and made my own. The small pictures below were grafted over from my old website to show the basic reference photos, detail parts and tools used in these early conversion projects. As mentioned in other locations on my new site, I am including these old low-res photos and rudimentary brush-painted beginnings to show that anything is possible in this great hobby.  It should be noted these early models were non-DCC and that I added Alco trucks, nose lights, MU hoses, and cab shades to replicate how the actual AA units were equipped.

 

Of course, a few years later Atlas started offering the GP35 in DCC-equipped format with Ann Arbor as an available road name! And then I improved my painting and decaling - so I bought DCC-ready frames, stripped and re-painted my detailed body shells, installed DCC w/sound (MRC 1955) and swapped the old shells onto the new frames. The photos on the right show #389 as a total Ferry-in-Fog re-paint; #390 as a partial re-paint, matching how the original unit appeared in the late 1970s with the compass logo removed; and #387 as a billboard re-painted into a Ferry-in-Fog unit.