Warning: this post may contain train related terms the average reader will find difficult to understand and the rather smug/elitist author of this post has no intention to take the time to explain what they are.
Allow me, dear readers, to introduce you to a certain train builder: Scott Wardlaw. For some time he built six wide trains. His trains were actually pretty good, save for a few things here and there, namely the grab irons (gag me with a pitchfork(media)). Then, apparently, along came a Swoofty and Scott "gave up". He, however, claims that eight stud wide trains are "well worth it for the detail". Really? That was a rhetorical question, the answer is "no". To put it bluntly, his eight stud wide trains are not in the least bit realistic.
In this post we shall critique his UP/MKT Heritage Series SD70Ace. For reference (which he probably used little of), he "tried" to make this locomotive. Yes, this MOC is a bit old, but the author of this post needs to vent in an effort to maintain his sanity. First things first, stickers. Fucking stickers everywhere. Fucking poorly applied, white edges showing, and completely unnecessary stickers everywhere. Since the cab is eight studs wide, that gives Scott a six stud wide hole with plenty of room to do SNOT (possibly something forgotten in his conversion to eight wide). Rather than make use of that god awfully large and out of proportion long hood of his, he just slaps some stickers on them. Jagged slopes made of 1xn plates on their sides would be more acceptable (even more so because he would have "purist" points) and cheese slope stripes would be praised.
As mentioned earlier, the long hood. The length of the cab is clearly larger than the width of the long hood (excluding the too shallowly flared radiators, of course). You can clearly see this in the overhead shots of the same model (in different colors, but scaled down replicas of the real thing). While the author has no quarrel with the length of the cab in his model, the hood should be narrower so that the model relatively in scale with itself. Ideally it could be five studs wide instead of six; a feat easily accomplished.
There is no better way to conclude this post than "take it apart and start over".
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