Hi my name is Todd and I’m new to this forum. Just got back into Model railroading this year after finding my old 4X8 “Empire” from my youth leaning up against the wall in the garage while moving my mom out of our old house I grew up in. The greatest wife in the world allowed me to take out a wall in the basement to let me expand into another room after the bug got me while revamping the old layout and ran out of room.[:D] Anyway I also ran across the old cars and locomotives in a box. With some cleaning and lube, believe it or not they ran. Just as noisy and grindy as I remember them 36(wow) years ago when they were new. Among these is my first loco an AHM Alco 1000. This would fit perfect with the grain elevator on my new expanded Empire to be used as a privately owned loco to move grain cars up and down the siding like the elevator in a neighboring town near where I live. Question, can the old girl be upgraded to pick up on all wheels or at least both ends to bridge the frogs? Or should she just be a piece of nostalgia that grinds away and needs a shove every time it runs across a turnout. Would really like to use this thing, besides if my attempt at repainting goes sour, I’m not out anything.
I might go for an upgrade although that would depend on the frame etc. Was it a plastic frame?
I would suggest no upgrades for the old AHM.
Today’s model Alco switchers by Atlas or Proto 2000 are far superior to the old AHM’s. You may want to keep the old AHM for sentimental values, but get a new loco for operating the layout. You can propably find an Atlas or Proto 2000 switcher on ebay for a reasonable price.
Welcome back to a great hobby. Have fun!
I never owned one of these things but I do know that they did not enjoy a very high reputation among people I knew who did.
Your posting indicates a certain measure of nostalgia associated with this particular locomotive. I know exactly how you feel; I am no longer in HO-Scale but I still have the Varney plastic bodied F3 I got at Christmas in 1962. Set up alongside current production models of plastic bodied diesel locomotives it borders on the primitive side but nevertheless that nostalgia factor is very strong and I can’t bear to part with it. It still runs although it is just a mite noisy doing it. Were I to return to HO-Scale I doubt seriously if I would ever run this loke; instead I would find a prominent place to park it on the layout.
The actual quality of detail on the body casting of those AHM engines was not too bad, although often the paint was applied so thickly that much of the detail was obscured. The most toylike aspects (apart from issues of absolute scale fidelity to a particular prototype) are the hugely oversized handrails, the gaps in the pilot due to truck mounted couplers, jackrabbit starts and high speeds, and the shiny wheels. (I have one of those engines with the very deep cheese-cutter flanges but later production actually had much better flanges, close to RP25 if not exactly RP25).
If you can tune it up so that its slow speed running is improved, replace the plastic handrails with wire or better plastic ones, paint or blacken the wheels, fill in the pilot gaps (and presumably body mount your couplers), I think the old AHM could be preserved, since in grain elevator service it would not need to pull long cuts of cars and its single truck power should be quite adequate. If you decide to repaint it I would advise stripping the old paint off first to bring back the detail.
All this seems like a lot of work but much of it would not cost much. It seems obvious you have a great deal of nostalgic fondness for the old model so to me it makes sense, and could be an enjoyable challenge, to try to bring it closer to acceptable standards. Yes at the end of the day all you’ll have is an improved AHM model of value only to you, but that may be all you need for that particular service.
Dave Nelson
I believe your ALCO 1000, like most other AHM diesels, picks up power from two wheels on each truck. This can be easily upgraded to all four wheels on each truck using the centering springs from Kadee #5 couplers. All it takes is some bending of the springs, a little wire, a little solder, and either super glue or a couple screws to mount them to the trucks. And if you can replace the overly thick handrails with some finer ones, you should have a pretty nice little switcher.[:D]
I have had a couple of these over the last couple of years. I body mounted kadee couplers and filled in the front pilot with styrene and added mu hoses. I never had any pick up problems through turnouts. I did replace the motor with a cannon can motor I bought in a 5 pack off ebay. It greatly improved the performance and reliability of the running. It would also crawl along at a snails pace. The problem is is that it is light and over sized. it would pull no more that 4 cars. Its size was bigger than a full size engine. It did have fairly good detail for the age thought… My railings were broken off when I bought it so I replace it with wire railings. All in all I was disappointed with the size and pulling power(my bachman 70 ton pulled more) and eventually sold both on ebay.
It was a fun project but not a practical one. Hope this helps.
Mike
Todd,I will go with the flow and advise getting a Atlas or P2K Alco Switcher and park that antique next to the engine house as nostalgia…
I personly like to run the older engines, call it what you will, but with a proper tear down and cleaning, polishing the wheel treads with a wire wheel in a dremel motor tool, polishing the pickup wipers, clean and lube the motor. For you use that you plan, I dont see the sense to spend some big $$ for new P2k or Atlas switcher. You can pick up the yellow boxed Atlas/Roco S2 for usualy under $50 on evilbay or the local swap meets. With the pickup style on these engines, you have to keep the rails, wheels and pickup wipers clean. The truck wheelbase should be enough to bridge a insulated frog, I am guessing your not getting good pickup on both wheels on the trucks. Give the old girl a complete tear down, clean and polish, then see how she does. Heck, I have seen guys reliably operate a nice layout with nothing by Tyco and Mantua engines, so it can be done, and yes they all had thier original drive systems.
Thanks for the ideas and opinions guys, I really appreciate them. You got me thinking. Checked around, you’re right the price for an S-1 isn’t too awful much. but seing as how grain prices are down right now the elevator isn’t moving much grain so I’ll try to use the ideas you have given me and perform some maintenance on the loco and maybe a little elect work to see what happens. If that doesn’t work then I’ll park it and acquire a more recent version. Either way, yup, I will be replacing the 4X4 size rails for something you could grip. Funny I never noticed that[%-)]. But the other detail is surprisingly good. If it becomes scenery, I might just get a figurine scratching his head like trying to figure out how that horn and hook is gonna work![(-D] (Love those smiley things. Like I said, I’m new to forums, I’ll grow out of it… maybe.)