The older boy started school this week, so I went off to the train club this morning for work/testing/tuning. After about an hour and a half I got it back together.
All work was tender pickup related as it would stall out on large radius curves and usually just touching the tender would make it go again.
Third or fourth time around cleaning the tender above and beyond meticulously for the wheels and pickups along with adjusting everything along the way for best possible contact. Before reassembly, I was turned on to trying some CRC-26 which is a light lube and is conductive by a club member. I carefully applied it to the contact wipers before assembly and spun the wheels around once. I then put a very small dab on the backs of the wheels and again spun the wheels. Let it sit for a bit and wiped any excess I could see anywhere off.
Got her lined up on the yard lead and let her rip with 18 coal cars and a caboose in tow.
Made it thru all the curves that were affecting it prior and ran smooth as could be and no sound interuptions either. Overall the wiper setup seems to be on the weak side and I am planning on doing the engine the same way as the tender(again, but with crc-26 this time).
I still find this unacceptable that buying a near $300 engine(on sale and a coupon) that I should even have to touch it at this point…
Now when I’m on vacation next week I will move on to the DooDooA40X and see if I can get it sorted out.
I feel your pain…I just paid $25.00 to have LEDs installed in my Genesis SCL GP9 because every light bulb that Athearn insist on using blew within weeks.
I even had to repair two of my Athearn RTR GP38-2s and one of my RTR SW1500s…In all three cases the flywheels came loose other then that they are good engines. I bought a RTR FMC boxcar that had three of its four stirrups laying in the car’s tray.
Pains me to no end to say that because I’ve been a loyal Athearn customer for the past 60 years.
Pretty much everything you buy now days is that way. The newbie’s don’t care about quality epically if it requires a little bit of work on their part, some even sabotage their products. I worked in two-way radio communications for almost 50 years and before I retired one of my installers found a beer can half full of marbles behind a quarter panel in a new Ford Crown Vic while running wires in the car. That would have driven someone nuts trying to find that rattle.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
Pretty much everything you buy now days is that way. The newbie’s don’t care about quality epically if it requires a little bit of work on their part, some even sabotage their products. I worked in two-way radio communications for almost 50 years and before I retired one of my installers found a beer can half full of marbles behind a quarter panel in a new Ford Crown Vic while running wires in the car. That would have driven someone nuts trying to find that rattle.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
No, not everything these days overseas is poorly made.
The latest brass models are wonderfully detailed and run wonderfully too. I would argue that one still gets what one pays for.
It was the poor quality control, not even so much the sometimes mechanical issues with Athearn diesels, but the horrible paint jobs and sloppy glue marks and bad handrails that pushed me toward the much, much more expensive brass models. Just a couple years ago I wanted just even one Reading green and yellow Alco RS-3 diesel, and I inspected more than a dozen in person at various dealers, and rejected one mail order unit, because they looked just terrible for the price point. Bad glue marks they just painted right over, etc. I failed to find even one single unit anywhere that was imo worth buying at the $100 or so price point for a rtr, non-Genesis diesel.
That was merely the latest in a long list of frustrations I experienced with Athearn products over the last decade–and I loved the stuff and purchased plenty of it when Irv was alive. We even custom assembled Athearn train sets as a quality alternative to all the cheap train sets for Christmas during the years I worked retail. There were still some QA/QC issues then and wrong color paint schemes, but it was so cheap and parts were available so readily that most overlooked those issues back then.
So now people have “mocked” me and/or called me some kind of elitist in other topics on these forums simply imo because I want the quality and am willing to pay more for it if I have to to get it.
John,Everybody has their price restraints due to their limited hobby budget but,still they shouldn’t mocked anybody that can afford better.
Over the past few months I’ve been buying the older LL/P2K (GP9s,GP18 and 2 GP38-2s) and Atlas/Kato locomotives (GP7,RS11s) for my SCL roster. I also manage to pick up a BB SCL GP35,a BB Family Lines BB GP35 and a Family Lines BB GP7 that was custom painted for a very reasonable price. If the guy ever decides to sell his two BB Family Lines SD45s I will buy them.
My point? There are those that will snicker and say those are toys because they are not up to today’s so called “standards”.
So,we see the mocking door swings both ways. You get mock because of your high standards and guys like me gets mock for enjoying those older locomotives.
Pretty much everything you buy now days is that way. The newbie’s don’t care about quality epically if it requires a little bit of work on their part, some even sabotage their products. I worked in two-way radio communications for almost 50 years and before I retired one of my installers found a beer can half full of marbles behind a quarter panel in a new Ford Crown Vic while running wires in the car. That would have driven someone nuts trying to find that rattle.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
I, in my personal experience, have found that the determining factor is usually how you run the locomotive; one has to utilize both discresion and “T.L.C.” to get anything up to its full potential of operation.
I would not always agree. I’ve seen 35 year old locomotives (built by Samhongsa with great gearboxes and can motors) run exquisitely right out of the box, that quite obviously had never been run more than a couple feet before (and the gearbox was dry with no evidence of any previous lubrication). Also, many new old stock Kato engines even 20 years old will run exceptionally well right out of the box, without any TLC at all.
Larry–
I won’t “mock” you for liking the older P2K or Kato stuff. You like what you like and it’s your railroad. I myself have picked up some Kato diesels and installed all the details…just didn’t keep them when I went to steam. I’m watching for the “right” Stewart/Kato F unit to show up on Ebay, then maybe I’ll bite on one.
Brakie, I’ve been building a fleet of P2K stuff, little elbow grease and obligatory axle gears on 4 motors and they are good to go in almost all cases.
Lets keep this thread specific to Genesis hate[:(!]
I guess on a good note, I have gone from 2 of 4 to 3 of 4 Genesis units operational…
There’s no doubt that there is some issues that have caused headaches for some modelers who own Genesis products. To say that I hate any of my locomotives seems a bit extreme to me. Some I like less than others but I will say that Athearn has produced quite a few models that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for them.
When the SDP40-F is available I’ll probably expand my Genesis roster by three or four more. I know going into it that some of the detail parts may shake loose on their 7,000 mile journey to my house and that I will have to replace the headlight bulbs and, for my preference, I’ll get the DC version and install my own sound decoder of choice.
Hate Genesis? I wouldn’t go that far. Sure, I wish they would make a few production changes but I’m sure glad they provide the models that they do.
Off-hand I’d say my Genesis roster numbers about 3 dozen locomotives. Like an errant child, I don’t hate them when they do bad things, I take corrective action.
Hate? Nay,I like my Genesis SCL GP9 but,hate the bulbs Athearn uses…Would I buy another? Maybe the GP7U but,that’s up in the air and may never come down…
Hi Rich. A couple folks have called me out as “elitist” for being pro-brass. But my bad experiences with both Athearn rtr and Genesis models in recent years pushed me toward brass. My last name is Mock and in a couple cases I definitely felt “mocked”.
I did think the Genesis steam for me was much better than the diesels but few usable models unless one likes UP.
I think you do get what you pay for. Based on inflation from 1980 to now Athearn even Genesis is pretty affordable but if one wants perfection one may have to move up to a higher price point and just buy less units or deal with much more limited choices of what can be obtained. That is because as others have said the Chinese just want to pump out product.
As for me I can be happy with some 35 year old steam models more so than today’s diesels. There are relative bargains out there that will outperform anything Genesis but one needs to be smart or rather well informed or even a bit lucky.
In diesel I like Kato but there are limited offerings. For me they beat Genesis…never in detail but on the track and in durability.
So I guess now the heat is off Bachmann and we are going to bash Athearn?
Well, admittedly the only recent production Athearn locos I have are Genesis F units, and because I run DC, at only 13.8 volts max, I don’t have any burnt out head light issues. And I have two of those RS units, but since they came undecorated, I have to take responsiblity for the paint jobs…
Now I do have hundreds of pieces of Athearn rolling stock, both old and new, all of which meet or exceed my expectations for the prices paid.
So I won’t be joining the hate party.
The OP seems to always have something negative to say, and, for whatever reason chooses not to allow private messages, so I’m not really taking him too seriously…
Negative would be based without merit. 2 out of 4 Genesis not running is pathetic. 2 good ones were bought used, probably tweaked it to make it run lol. If I pay money for something it had better work. Food, toys, electronics, etc.
Bachmann will send u a new locomotive for 40 dollars. I’ve seen zero issues with newer bachmann products among club members. They might not look as nice, but they have always worked. Or you can pay to ship it back and forth to and from Athearn or MTH and they keep it for 2 months and likely do not fix it.
Anyone can message me, I think it’s on now, never bothered to check since I’ve gotten messages before.
Regarding the light bulbs burning out on any model train I thought it would take at least 6 or 7 years for the bulbs to burn out, depending on how much you run your locomotives.
Genesis is their top line. However it is not immune to the same problems as other Chinese produced trains. Athearn does make some poor choices and especially the light bulbs are terrible, may last only a few hours and may be glued in with glue that is very difficult to free the bulbs from at all.
I will agree that some Athearn products can be wonderful but some are just not.
Anything Illinois Central or ICG that they do is horribly off color on the orange. It has been that way for multiple product runs for years. Those paint schemes as a result are a hard sell.