Railroad Model Craftsman Product Review

Broadway Limited  ‘Stealth Series’ EMD GP35

Now available from Broadway Limited Imports are highly detailed EMD GP35 models, including in Southern Pacific. 

Broadway Limited ‘Stealth Series’ EMD GP35

Story and Photos by Harry K. Wong

With competitors shrinking away in the rear-view mirror, the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors was clearly in the driver’s seat of the U.S. domestic diesel locomotive market at the beginning of the 1960s. However, the arrival of the long-rumored General Electric U25 series diesels brought a new urgency at EMD to catch up. EMD answered its new competitor with the stylish GP30, which still fell 250 horsepower shy of GE’s flashy new offering.

Succeeding the EMD GP30 introduced only two years prior was the GP35 in 1963. With 2,500hp driving four traction motors, the GP35 was the ultimate expression of the 567-series prime mover on a four-axle platform, finally matching the horsepower output of GE’s U25B. Between July 1963 and December 1965, 1,334 units were produced for North American customers by both EMD and  Canadian subsidiary General Motors Diesel (GMD).

Now available from Broadway Limited Imports are highly detailed EMD GP35 models equipped either with BLI’s own Paragon4 sound system or now also in a “Stealth Series” iteration. Each Stealth Series model is a more affordable DC/DCC-ready non-sound version of the Paragon4 locomotive, retaining the same motor, gear train, and all the detail of its more expensive sibling.

As with its Paragon4 brethren, BLI’s Stealth Series GP35s feature a full suite of road-specific details including high or low noses, multiple headlight and warning light configurations, different horns, bells, and radio antenna configurations, multiple pilot and m.u. stand arrangements, dynamic brakes where appropriate, and much more. Every BLI GP35 comes with see-through walkway steps, m.u. hoses, cut levers, air filters, tread plate detail, see-through cooling fans with etched grilles and visible fan blades underneath, and individually applied metal grab irons and lift rings throughout.

Our sample for this review is a Stealth Series EMD GP35 representing Southern Pacific 6629, one of an order of 34 Phase Ic2 GP35s delivered to this Western giant between April and June 1965. Unlike earlier GP35s in the SP fleet, all units in this order and after were delivered with snowplow pilots. With the exception of the later-style snowplow and a standard wide window post between the engineer’s front cab window panes on the model, all major details mirror its SP prototype, including the correct lack of number boards on the rear end. Paint and lettering is crisply applied, right down to the gear ratio stencils on the truck side frames. A 21” SP emblem is applied to the nose, a feature commonplace on SP road locomotives after late 1970. Of the standard details, the only anomaly we noted is that the V-shaped springs of the Blomberg truck side frames protrude a few scale inches too far beyond the edge of the side sills. Extra care should be taken around the finely etched metal cab mirrors on the side of the cab.


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This article was posted on: October 9, 2024