by Brooks Stover, MMR/photos by the author except as noted
My S (1:64 scale) layout depicts the coal-hauling Buffalo Creek & Gauley (BC&G) as it was in its final two years, 1963-65 (see November 2022 Railroad Model Craftsman). Originally 18.6 miles long, the central West Virginia railroad had been shortened to half its original length in 1963 when the Rich Run Mine, its main customer, closed. The line ceased operations completely in February 1965.
But the BC&G got a new lease on life when, in 1971, a new company bought the railroad and opened a modest mining operation near the site of the old Rich Run Mine. The new owner, Majestic Mining Company, purchased a small 65-ton Whitcomb locomotive, but it soon proved to be too small for their needs as it could haul only six loaded hoppers. In search of more power, over the next couple of years the firm leased several larger diesel locomotives from Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland to haul their trains.
The Prototype
One of the engines that Majestic Mining leased was WM 6414, a GP-9 painted in the bold red, white, and black “circus” paint scheme. According to good friend Dave Downton, a retired CSX engineer and Western Maryland historian and modeler, the circus paint scheme began to appear in 1969 after a series of grade crossing incidents with WM engines painted in the not-so-visible black and gold “speed lettering” scheme. While it might have made the locomotives more visible to motorists at crossings, the circus scheme certainly never won any awards for artistic accomplishment. The numerals on the cab sides were an unusual font and painted in black on a simple white field that looks like a “patch job” on any other road’s locomotive. In addition, white is such an impractical color for a diesel locomotive, especially for a coal-hauling railroad.

ABOVE: WM 6414 and 6404 await their next assignments in Hagertown, Md., on May 1, 1978. —Randy Kotuby photo
Engine 6414 was one of the 21 Western Maryland GP9s that had their short hoods lowered. These engines were often referred to as “chopped-nose GP9s.” Starting in 1962, WM undertook the modifications to improve the engineer’s visibility out the front of the engine. The work was done at the road’s Hagerstown shops. The first engine converted, number 25, had a split windshield installed, but all the other modified GP9s got a large single windshield. Number 6414, then numbered 39, was converted in October 1966. These engines, dubbed class DS-27, were also fitted with a winterization hatch over one of the rear fans, had regenerative brakes, and a large Leslie 5-chime horn was mounted on the fireman’s side of the cab roof. As far as I can tell, all of these engines were equipped for multiple unit operation. The original chopped-nose GP9, WM 25, now belongs to the Western Maryland Scenic Railway.
The Model
Years ago I completed a model of the BC&G Whitcomb 20 and I thought it would be fun to model another diesel that ran on BC&G rails. An American Models (AM) GP9 was used as the starting point for the conversion to WM 6414. The S diesels produced by American Models, the largest manufacturer of S locomotives and rolling stock, are modestly priced and have smooth-running drive trains.
The AM GP9 body shell is molded with the cab as a separate part. This made chopping the nose quite easy. Lowering the short hood was accomplished by removing a scale 30” section of the nose using a razor saw. The top section was simply bonded back in place and the joint concealed with modeling filler. This is basically the same way the Hagerstown shops did it.

ABOVE: The nose was removed from the body shell, and was lowered by a scale 30”.
The construction of the cab was such that, once it was removed, it was only necessary to build a frame for the new windshield from .030” styrene. The new larger windshield that on the prototype made outward viewing for the crew so much better also meant that the interior of the cab of the model would be much more visible than on a GP9 with a high short hood. To address that condition, I built a simplified representation of a cab interior from styrene and installed crew figures from Arttista…