Model Paint Removal: Brake Fluid vs. Isopropyl Aclohol

Now that I am in the middle of repainting my SD40-2 it occurred to me that I never really looked into any tutorials or best practices for repainting a locomotive. I wish I would have now because after reading a few posts over on Model Train Forum, I realize I should have stripped the paint off the locomotive first before airbrushing another coat on top of what was already there. 

After gathering all the information I could, I found that the two most suggested methods were brake fluid and isopropyl alcohol, both relatively cheap and easily accessible options. Since I have never done either, and I was already planning on going to Walmart earlier today, I figured I would buy both and see which worked better. 

The guinea pig for this test had to be something other than the SD40-2 because I did not feel like ruining the nice coat of yellow I already put on half of it already. So, I decided I would try them out on the San Jose Sharks boxcar I showed off on here a while back. I had already done some test painting with the airbrush on it, so I figured it would be a good test to try and get both the factory paint off as well as the new paint I added recently. 

DOT3 brake fluid vs. 91% isopropyl alcohol.

Before I tried either option on the boxcar, I taped it off into separate sections so it would be easy to tell which one has a better end result. On the left is the section for the brake fluid and on the right is the section for the alcohol.

A look at the boxcar before trying either option. 

I've read that you really have to soak the entire shell for a good amount of time to get the job done right , but for now I just wanted to do some localized surface testing and only applied either one with some wooden cotton swabs to the taped off areas. If it works then maybe I can move onto fully submerging it.

Brake fluid appears to be working better after 10 minutes or so.

After 10 minutes of applying generous amounts via cotton swabs, I have to say the brake fluid works much better. I am completely through the two coats of paint I added across the entire section, while there is only a small area cleared away by the alcohol. I even started getting some of the green factory paint to come up with the brake fluid. 

I left a good layer of liquid on either side when I finished up earlier tonight, so we'll see how that goes come tomorrow. I'll try to have an update posted in the next day or so of how the tests went. At that point, I will pick which option I want to go with and work on stripping the entire shell.