Mack's Locotrol Numberboard Bash
SR Locotrol® Number Board Bash: 
A Unique Apsect of Southern Railway
High Hood Diesel Modeling

Mack Sangmalee writes....
Steve,

This is about those extra-thick number boards on the short hood of the radio masters and how to easily duplicate them.   You know about all those useless cab-mount angled number board housings that we have laying around left from Cannon-cabbed high-hood projects? 

I know what to do with them now.....I found that if you fill in the number boards from the back with .025 sheet styrene, the individual number boards themselves are strong enough to be cut out.  ( I use gray sheet or, if you want them lit from behind, clear sheet.)  Then I'd leave enough plastic surrounding the gasket to be able to shape into the extra perimeter needed for the RC number boards.  Even the thickness of the plastic is right-on too.  The modified boards are then glued into position after shaving off the existing gaskets along the short hood of the Cannon end. 

According to every reference photo I have of both ends of any particular RC master unit, it seems the Southern only used these stand-out number boards on the short hood end only.  It really works!  Of course I destroyed more than a couple boards while experimenting, but that's because I was too impatient to carefully cut those boards out of the really soft Cannon plastic.

Got time?  Try it out!

Mack

NOTE: The number boards on ALL SOUTHERN locomotives equipped with LocoTrol have the extended number boards.  There is not enough room in the short hood of LocoTrol equipped locomotives for an individual to be able to reach the light bulbs in the number boards and with the extended number boards a person can just remove the board from the outside and replace any bulbs that might be blown out or defective.

(Information submitted by Bob Harpe)