I like the rugged dependabily of the blue box F7’s. Athearn F7 chassis are one that I use to repower the old metal body Varney F3’s. It fits in the body almost like it was made for it.
And, oh yeah, one of my pet projects: I’ve got a Hobbytown slow speed switcher chassis. OMJ, that thing runs beautifully. It SLITHERS. In a good way. It is, sadly, missing a body on top. I had thought of using a Cary SW1500 body, but it’s too wide–Athearnitis. What a shock. There’s a Varney NW2 body in the garage. Maybe that’ll work. I’m aiming after something as heavy as it can get. Did you know that tungsten is denser than uranium? Though using the latter, I could probably have constant lighting. Even in the cab. Nope, that bad boy’s not BB. Ed
My first bluebox Athearn was a SD-9 bought on my birthday 1-11-1980.I still have ity but it ain’t what it used to be.It spent almost 10nyears running 8 houes a day on a local LHS HO layout.When they sold the shop the ole girl came home’She origonally had the metal sideframe trucks but wore both of them out then went through 3 more of the plastic sideframed trucks. She went through three motors in all that running time and now has the flatcan withbturned brass flywheels.No DCC yet but that will happen this summer along with her fifth paint jub.Needs a different cab though ,if I can find one I plan to adapt a ATLAS SD 26 with the split windsheild.
Gotta love those BB lokeys. They are the staple of my motive power fleet; fun to kitbash and detail. Here are a pair of GP60s that I bashed from GP50s before Athearn produced the GP60.
My first layout, built 20+ years ago strictly used BB locomotives. They were the best bang for buck. They weren’t expensive to detail and they were pretty good runners.
I’ve been enjoying reading this thread. Since it started, I went out in the train room and finally assembled an SD-9 out of parts that I’d been collecting. It didn’t match the speed of my other one, at first, but with a bit of tweaking, and several laps arount the layout at about 3/4 throttle, it’s good to doublehead. I don’t use dummies. (I wish they called them gliders or something 'sides dummies.)
Some of you guys really go to town on the modifications! A lot of nice work and photos here. All mine do have improved wiring, some have NWSL wheels, a few added details. I only have 9 BB locomotives and a couple other non Athearn locos riding on Athrean trucks. One BB is a Hustler (wip) with a Sagami can and Atlas gears, twin flywheels… Smooth, and can go slow.
The only “gray” motor is an SW-12, It’s chassis survived the fire that killed my original 1976 GP-35 , but the body was melted. I put a new one on it. It actually runs fine after a good cleaning of smoke off the vitals. I think it deserves a place on the layout. All others have Athearn gold colored motors (do those qualify as cans?)
Nobody has mentioned it here, but Athearn also helped a lot of us kids get the rollong stock on the rails. Even with it’s now frowned upon generic approach, they were still better than train set junk, had body mounted couplers (freight), were easy and fun to knock together, and affordable. And you could use those nifty boxes to organize everything. Dan
Of the fifty or so locomotives on the BRVRR layout, 23 are Athearn BB locomotives. The first locos I purchased for the layout were and ABA set of F-7s in Santa Fe livery. They are still in service today albeit with Digitrax decoders in both A-units and a Soundtraxx decoder in the B-unit. They were shown in WPF this past weekend. Here’s a link:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/228442.aspx
All of my locos are equipped with at least motor and light decoders and many with sound. Most have been detailed with window glazing, handrails, better headlights and MU hoses. I have FP-45s, F-7s, ALCO PAs a few GP-40s and GP-40-2s in service. Many were repainted. An example:
The A-unit Pennsylvania F7 #9822 at left has been lying around for years. It is an Athearn BB kit that I detailed with a Walther’s dress-up kit. I made the train phone antenna from stanchions from an Athearn handrail set for a GP40-2 and a couple of pieces of .015 music wire. The B-unit was repainted to match, is not powered and has a Soundtraxx decoder installed.
There are more pictures, exampes and “How To’s” on my website. Link is in my signature.
Athearn BB locos are a mainstay. Rugged, inexpensive and reliable. Too bad they never made an affordable steam loco. But the diesels will always have a place on the BRVRR.
I love the old Athearn BB engines. I just have four SP ac4400’s all ballasted to the max. I run all four lashed up to pull my 110 car coal train: 25 cars with loads to prevent string lining and a 2.3% grade. These engines always run flawlessly.
Does anyone know if the new genesis GE engines are heavier than the old blue box units?
The Athearn BB loco served it’s purpose and for it’s time it was a good thing. Since there are better quality and more true to the prototype loco’s out on the market in the past 15 years, I have moved on and eliminated most of my blue box Athearns. I only have 3 left now, and none in service at this writing (2 Athearn bb GP40-2’s and one dummy SD40T-2). Only one of the 3 is in running condition, the other powered unit has been in pieces for years split up between serveral boxes - it ran like a coffee grinder out-of-the box.
The bb Athearn was economical, and many could be made to run well with some elbow grease or some work and if you were lucky, it ran pretty well out of the box - QAQC was always spotty with Athearn even in the blue box loco years. If I do get my old blue box Athearns roadworthy again, it will probably be to run at modular club days because I won’t be traumatized if something bad happens to them. Other folks in the club do the same thing, use their older, cheaper simple engines for the club.
Athearn blue box are great for kids and beginners, those who need engines for not much money as they are still available at train shows etc. and great for folks who still like to paint, detail etc., especially if you have the skill. And even if you don’t have much skill like me, they are good to practice on since you won’t be devistated if something goes awry when cuttting/detailing/painting etc.
Athearn BB were a good value for their day and they comprised most of my diesel fleet with Rivarossi providing the steamers. I’m not terribly sentimental about them and am getting ready to sell them to one of the LHSes that buy used equipment. They are asking $15 for ones in good condition which means they probably offer $5 for them. When I returned to the hobby around 2000, the plan was to build a new DCC layout and upgrade all my old locos with decoders. I saw an ad in Trainworld offering BB F7s for the blowout price of $30. I bought about six of them not caring what the road name was figuring I was going to custom paint them. Then I ordered my first sound equipped diesel and saw how much better the detailing was on the new stuff and realized I’d made a big mistake. Not a single one of my BB diesels has been upgraded and I have no plans to do so. They served me well on the old layout but it’s time to move on.
Oh, how I know about working with Athearn BB engines for Kitbashing on 2 fronts.
-
I have 8 GP20s which I term Tythearn. The engines are a Tyco GP20 shell with some added details (and some body putty) with a modified BB GP35 drive. (The only modifications are trimming the sides around the motor area to fit the shell better and removing the coupler mounts in order to body mount the couplers to the shell.) The Athearn stanchions from the 35 even worked their way in as they were reused when the handrails were rebuilt. (Using a Tyco metal handrail upgrade kit for the handrail and the stanchions bent to fit.)
-
I am working on another project which involves 3 Stewart F3 shells (ABB). I decided to use Athearn F7 BB drives for that one as well (Edit: with close coupling kits installed except on the A front [see below]). For where the project will end up, I will most likely have to be the one to fix them if there ever is a problem. The Athearn units are something I know. (And the modification to the Stewart shells wasn’t hard and it doesn’t change the look of the shell at all.) The only major compromise was that the front coupler mount on the A unit didn’t fit with the shell so that will have to be body mounted. (That will be a “dummy” coupler so strength won’t be a major concern.)
Me neither, or only to the same degree I am sentimental about vinyl records, but when compact discs became economical, I was all too happy to rid myself of the snap, crackles, pops and thumps I heard on many of my LPs! Still, I get a kind of cool feeling when I see a good turntable in action, which is extremely rare these days! =P Ah the olden days!
Maybe my memory is fuzzy but $30 seems high for a bb F7, but hey, you are talking about 15 years ago! Maybe they were that high. I remember paying around $75 ea for a new Stewart F7 in the early 1990’s, which was a lot back then - but they were/are KATO made after all.
Some bb diesels were better than others. I found the F7 to be crude, especially the awful windshields, number boards and air grills. When Stewart came out with their F unit around 1989 I was so pleased as I could dispose of my Athearn F7’s as soon as possible. That said, the GP40-2 and SD40-2 shells were much better and if detailed well, would be fine looking models. However when it came to DCC, it was a good deal of
I’ve never been able to part with my vinyl records even though I can’t remember when I last had a functional turntable. I am sentinmental about them.
My memory is fuzzy too but it seems like the MSRP for Athearn BB F7s was around $60 back then. I remember buying my first one for around $20 in the late 1970s but that was before hyperinflation set in. What I do clearl
During my first stint in the hobby as a teenager, I amassed a collection of ~50 BB locos. I didn’t have space for a layout, but I would bring half a dozen of them to run on the BSME layout in downtown Baltimore every Friday.
During the other six days of the week, I would be kitbashing and/or custom painting them. I remember that excellent article in RMC (~1971?) that showed how to convert an SD_P_40 into an SD40, and a GP35 into a GP40 (of which my favorite road, the B&O, had hundreds!). Later I also did a few GP38’s. These are some of my happiest hobby-related memories.
My interest in trains faded quickly after I graduated from high school and joined the Navy. Fast cars and women took their place. I thought I’d never be doing mrr again, so I just donated my BB collection to the club [that’s not the first or the last stupid thing I’ve done in my life…[banghead][sigh]].
15 years later when I returned to the hobby, scale-width hood GP7/9’s were available from Front Range, and GP40’s and 38’s from Atlas/Roco. I bought ~10 BB F-units and painted/decaled them, but when the Stewart Fs came on the market a year later, the BB F’s instantly became shelf queens. The only other Athearn loco I got was an SW1200. I still have that one, it is waiting for DCC conversion if I ever get around to it…
Filing? A Dremel Tool is your best friend when it comes to such tasks…
I have never owned a tap…I use the KD coupler box and self tapping screws and a touch of Walthers Goo on the coupler pad…
Ditto that. I may loose all my marbles one day and pick up an old decent quality turntable. I swear I see so much legacy electronic equipment around the west suburbs of Washington DC (Northern Virginia) for super cheap as everyone dumps it. You never know! I still have a small stack of vinyl records too I forgot I still had - found them in the basement - they somehow surviveed many moved of the past 20 years.
The $20 figure jives with what I remember from the late 70’s, I graduated form HS in 1977 and remember seeing Athearn loco’s for around that price in a hobby shop in Sacramento. But $60 still seems nutty for an F7, even in the early 1990’s, maybe someone with an add or something from that time can confirm. Who knows, maybe you are right. I think the Stewarts were around $99 MRSP give or take, and it was a strain for me to afford them as a college student at around $70 - good discount price.
For sure - just awful! And
riogrande5761 wrote the following post 2 hours ago:
…Anyway, I still hate the Athearn blue box coupler mounts - even with a dremel it’s a heck of a lot of trial and error to get the pad ground down to get the KD in it’s box to match the height gauge. I’ve got a long list of other things on my hobby to do list that I’d rather do so the Athearn bb coupler mounts seem to forever remain at the bottom of the list. Maybe when I’m retired some day?
I used a hacksaw to slice 'em off, then added mounting pads to the underside of the pilots using built-up stacks of .060" sheet styrene. As an added benefit, it allowed the area below the couplers to be closed.
Wayne
I have read about that technique in some MR articles and how toos back in the 80’s and 90’s. In fact I hacked off one mount on a bb D&RGW SD40T-2 I had with the intentions of body mounting the coupler, and then put it off - and later sold it. The guy I sold it to commented that it was missing the mount - I had totally forgot about it and was a bit embarrassed. It turned out ok, the guy was more of a modeler than I was!
Anyway, Here I was thinking this issue was mostly moot because I was down to 3 bb Athearns now, stored away, but then I remembered doh! Those Proto 2000 SD7’s and SD9’s - 4 of them! Fun fun.
And another added benefit, you don’t have to worry about shorting out or insulating if there aren’t metal KD couplers directly in contact with the frame, unless you use the KD draft gear box provided in the small packages. These days I buy KD’s in bulk 90% of the time so my draft gear boxes are getting hard to find!
Kadee also offers the boxes separately, although many of them nowadays are engineering plastic, which is difficult to use if you wish to cement them together or cement them in place. When I last checked, I believe that the #5s were still styrene.
Wayne
I’m in the process of converting a number of my old passenger car fleet with truck mounted couplers to body mounts using Jay-Bee coupler pads. In conjunction with that I bought a couple envelopes of KD draft gear boxes. They are plastic. The Jay-Bee coupler pads come with mounting screws and I use those to mount the draft gear boxes but for added stability I use a drop of liquid cement to hold the two pieces of the box together as well as lock it into place on the coupler pad. I find if I just use just the screw if it’s a little too tight, the coupler won’t swing and a little too loose and the coupler box swivels. It was hard to get it just right.