Lighting

First, welcome to the forum!  It's a shame no one else stepped in to answer your questions, but it is something very specific that not a lot of people can answer.

Anyways, if I were you, I'd do whatever takes the least amount of work.  Model railroading is a wonderful hobby with a million niches, so there's something for everyone.  For beginners, I would recommend doing whatever takes the least amount of work to accomplish your goal.  In this instance, that means sticking with engines that have the lighting and other features that you want already installed.  If you plan on making a CN heritage fleet, there's going to be plenty of time at the workbench spent repainting, re-lettering, and possibly weathering every unit.

If you can find undecorated units, go with those.  They aren't the most advertised, but almost every manufacturer makes some units that have no paint or lettering from the factory.  That would save you time in prepping the model for your custom paint work.

You might also want to consider practicing your painting skills on cheap freight cars.  Once you do a few of those, you'll be ready to tackle locomotives.  Not only would you have a heritage fleet, but then you'd have a train of custom cars to pull behind those engines!

Good luck on your project and I hope all works out for you!

 "What do you all think?

I think it depends on your modeling interests and what direction you want your modeling to take. Are you more interested in fine detailing engines or would you rather get a layout up and running first? There's only so many modeling hours per week so you'll need to decide how you want to spend your hours. Personally I find the fine lighting installations to be touchy and frustrating so I try to buy engines ready to go with what I want already in them. This is often a compromise between ideal and good enough but that's what the whole hobby is if you really think about it. Now if you enjoy the finer points of DCC/lighting installation I'd certainly learn how to do it as any skill learned will come in handy down the modeling road some day.....DaveB

Hello James, Thanks for

Hello James,

Thanks for replying, I do appreciate it. ScaleTrains unfortunately does not offer undecorated rivet counter versions of their CN specific Tier 4 gevo, so I will have to carefully learn how to strip the paint off it and the details and reply. However I do enjoy looking for undecorated models. I do like the SD40-2 high hood Southern version with snowplows they did, so I'mm looking for an undecorated version of those.

You are right about practicing on repainting inexpensive equipment, which I intend to do to build up my skill set. I have a plan to super detail these CNR Mehano made locomotives I have that came in the PC Choice train sets. Those freight cars will be a perfect start.

Hi Dave, Regarding What You Said...

At the moment, my biggest priority is learning how to decals, paint, disassemble, reassemble, adding finer details etc. Building a layout isn't my biggest priority at the moment, and with my mind all over the place I need to figure out what truly interests me, and what rolling stock and locomotives I want to collect that interests me.

I feel as I put more effort into my modelling skills, I will gain the now how to add complicated lighting, like inner lighted of dials and computer systems. I learned about adding these details when I was watching this video by NSmodeler24, on their custom locomotive roaster. I do appreciate your impute.