EMD F-9A, Conrail (CR 1792).  The New Haven never had any F-9s, and Conrail only had the one unit painted in blue, so that was one of the EMD diesels I decided to model.  I started with a Kato F9-A single headlight shell.  I cut away the extra skirting in the fuel tank area, and removed all handrails and grabirons.  The freight pilot was removed, and a pilot from a Kato E-8A passenger version was applied.  New grabirons were fashioned from 10-mil steel guitar wire, including the grabirons down the side of the nose.  An M/U housing was cut into the nose next to the headlight, and the housing door was modeled open.  The body was airbrushed in Accu-Paint Conrail blue, and decorated with Micro-Scale decals.  The nose marker lights were painted in Testors taillight red, and the plastic headlight was replaced with an MV lense, with a hole drilled in the back to allow the headlamp to shine through.  Plano etched stainless steel windshield wipers were added, a Micro-Trains coupler fitted to the front, and a Key Imports scale dummy knuckle coupler added to the back.  The metal areas of the mechanism that were now visible (due to the removed skirting on the body) were hand-painted in flat black.  The entire model was dusted with a dark blue wash to tone down the graphics.  I am working on a second unit in black to run with this one in tandem.