I know there has been a lot of flack about Athearn RTR but I’m curious. I bought an Athearn Santa Fe RTR caboose and ran it a few times. It had problems staying on the track even at low speeds. I got looking at the wheels and the it looks like Athearn has gone with a cheaper smaller flanged wheel. I didn’t have time to mess with it then. I just opened up 2 Rock Island passenger RTR’s from Athearn and I can’t keep the things on the track. The wheels have almost no lip and the trucks are really cheesy. I have a set of Athearn Amtrak cars that will run for hours at a time with no problems that I built from kits and my other rolling stock has no problems. Anyone else out there having the same problems?
I’ve got one of the Athearn Bombardier Bi-level cab cars, and yes, it does have very fine profile flanges. However, I’ve not had any derailing problems with it - though getting it on the track in the first place can be a bit tricky! The reduced flanges are not for cost reasons, but for greater realism. Try loosening the truck retaining screws a little and adding weight to the cars - this should allow the trucks to pivot slightly fore and aft, resulting in better track holding. The Bi-levels are fairly hefty vehicles, so this isn’t a problem.
On many RTR cars Athearn tried to go with semi-scale wheels, which have .088" treads, vs .110" treads of NMRA RP25, and correct scale .064" treads. Unfortunately too many people with track quality problem complained, and they are changing back to the tin-plate like RP25.
The wheel is not cheaper, it is actually more expensive because it is made to tighter tolerances.
Flanges are only on train wheels due to poor track. The wheels are conical, and are self correcting within a certain range.
So, take it as a suggestion to improve your track work.
Thanks for the help and the info. I will check the trucks and the weights. I’ll also look at the track work. Seems to be only really happening consistently in 2 places . One is after a switch and the other in a 22 in radius curve. No real problems elsewhere just now and then. Really boggled me because everything else I have runs great and I have about 18 or 20 Athearn passenger cars including one RI coach RTR that run really well that I forgot about. I run Rivarossi’s, Spectrum heavyweights, IHC and just about anything else and this is the first time I have seen this.
i’m hear to say, i talked to my model railroad buddys about trucks, wheels ,couplers and derailments.i didn’t listen and decided to use KADEE #518 & 513 trucks,#58 couplers and RP-25 wheels…NO LONGER HAVE PROBLEMS.y’all think about it
Havn’t bought an Athearn car is a few years now. If the wheels are plastic, the get replaced with Proto or Jaybee wheels before the car ever see’s the rails anyways!
There shouldn’t be anything wrong with the wheels on Athearn RTR. What they use are basically clones of Kadee wheels; all of the examples on cars I’ve purchased are in gauge and they roll much more smoothly than the old plastic wheels that Athearn still uses in the kits.
Note that Athearn RTR won’t have semi-scale .088" wheels. The only cars thus equipped are Genesis models with trucks that have rotating roller bearing end caps. If you have typical trackwork you might have problems with the narrower wheel treads; I found that the Atlas code 100 turnouts in my staging yard (that worked fine with overscale normal wheels) were sufficiently out of gauge through the points that the Genesis cars, and Atlas cars with similar wheelsets, derailed until I re-gauged the turnouts. I had no problems with the narrow treads on my handlaid turnouts or through those from Shinohara or Micro Engineering because they were all built to closer tolerances. If you have some earlier Genesis cars check anyplace they derail for gauge.
Also remember this: Any RTR car should receive the same once over you need to give to a car you’re building from a kit (i.e. check the gauge, the truck swivel, coupler height, etc.). Athearn RTR cars sometimes have truck screws that are too tight, and sometimes the screws expand the body bolster enough to cause the truck to bind. Loosening the screws and/or reaming the truck bolster will usually cure this problem. I have to use the same fix on Athearn kits too. Atlas RTR cars (especially the ACF Precision Design boxcars from the first run) occasionally have out of gauge wheelsets. The wheelsets work perfectly if the gauge is corrected, and I use a drop of CA to keep them in gauge.
Do some tune up, check your track, and you should be fine.
I think I’m going to change the wheels out for the time being. One of the places they have problems is in an older Atlas code 100 #4 turnout.They go thru at a very slow speed in that area and I may just need to replace it with a new #6. I’m getting ready to do a lot of work anyway so why not just totally fix the problem because I have room. it’s a bummer for three cars now but there may be more problems in the future.