I am sitting on the fence for this one: I have couple of athearn BB switcher locos and a handfull of assembled rolling stock. The question is, did athearn design them to be prototypical at all, or are they more of a fun kit with real road names? If they are not realistic, I might sell them, but at the least, I will be disappionted that I invested kadee couplers, time, etc into them.
I’m not a rivet counter and I’m happy with my GPs and SDs. All of my Athearn BB locomotives look good and run great. I had a lot of problems with other manufactures locomotives and sold them on eBay.
I bought a sack full of BB SD40s to power my E7s. The SD40 frame. motor and drive work great under Bowser E7 metal shells.
I only have one BB SW1500 and it looks pretty good to me and runs very good.
All in all I’m very happy with all of my Athearn BB locomotives in looks and operation.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
Your gonna hate this answer. But I’m going to give it anyways -
It depends.
What are your models, and what are they supposed to replicate?
If it’s a SP, ATSF, UP switcher, it has a spectacular chance at being very close, even exact with some detailing.
If it’s a model representing a rebuilt in 2218 (yes, 200 years future) solar powered rocket boosted switcher XK-9000WJ from the Inter Stellar Express, it won’t exactly be realistic…
To give a better answer, we need details. Like, what models do you have? The SW1200? A MP15? A S1? A road switcher, like the GP-35?
But without knowing what your models even are, the best answer I can give you, is the one you will hate - It depends.
I think Athearn is generally prototypical, locomotives and cars. Their locos have been accused of the hoods being too wide, and the reason was to fit the flat side motors they used, but I think most of that was early models, and they were sota of “generic”, and not a railroad company specific, in design, except maybe in the lettering and painting.
There are a lot of “rivet counters” that will argue, but overall I think they are, and were, good, and their new stuff, like the current RTR is better, much better.
I have many BB (blue box) locos and cars, and I’m happy. I have detail the locos to be more railroad specific, but I’m happy with anything Athearn, that I have, and run on my trains.
Others opinions may very.
Mike.
All right, all right. 
The locos are a santa fe sw 7 numbered 2418, and a b and o baldwin s12 numbered 9278 I believe. I can tell you a bit about the cars too, but you only mention locos
Except for the “wide hood” issue with GPs and SDs manufactured before about 1990, all Athearn BB stuff are reasonably accurate versions of real equipment. By recent standards, they’re by no means “state of the art” (cast on grab irons and ladders on freight cars, simplified / generic detailing on locomotives for example) but in recent years the decoration has vastly improved and is as good as any other company.
They do tend to do “one size fits all” however. For example, IIRC their 40’ wood reefer is based on a Pacific Fruit Express car, and their 50’ double-door steel boxcar is based on a Union Pacific car. These models have been issued in dozens of different railroad paint schemes - sometimes the original prototype is pretty close to what that railroad had, sometimes not.
BTW same goes for the old MDC/Roundhouse line that is now owned by Athearn. It’s a little jumbled as some Athearn BB cars have moved over to the Roundhouse brand name.
Do a search for these 2 locos, and you’ll find a picture of the B&O S12, and for the ATSF SW7, what few they had were rebuilt in their San Bernadino shops, given the SSB designation, and renumbered. Some were turned into B units.
http://spazioinwind.libero.it/cajon/roster/sfdiesel.htm
You will find pictures of the SSB’s on your search.
When your trying to determine if a model is close to the prototype, you have to do some searching around.
Mike.
After a while you can go nuts dealing with issues like “is this realistic/authentic?” and “how close is close?” because someone out there has always gone one step further to say “no” and “not enough.”
I know some guys who have banished certain makes of equipment, Athearn blue box among them, from their layouts either because of their own exacting standards, or, I suspect, although they rarely would admit this, the exacting standards of others whose approval they seek.
How fussy/knowledgeable are you about issues of accuracy and authenticity, and how troubled are you by deviations from accuracy that you know of? Asking others on this Forum or elsewhere will get responses which run a huge gamut of extremes of opinion.
I am fussy about things when it comes to era, and I have gradually weeded out the rolling stock that is too new or too old for my era (either by car type or painting and lettering scheme), and am adding ACI labels and cushioned underframe coupler pockets to cars which warrant them. Where I have found I have duplicate numbers of some cars I am trying to do something about that. So those things do trouble me.
I do not obsess about whether a given car matches exactly what the ORER says it should be but I do not ignore such issues either. The more I know the more my kind of moderate fussiness tells me what I want to do.
I am aware that others would want me to do more, much more. And some others would regard what little I do as too much.
Dave Nelson
The Athearn SW7 has a close to prototype hood width. The Athearn S12 is a wide body, as becomes evident when compared to a Bowser version.
Ed
I do care more about accuracy. If it is missing details, it is ok. I just need a model that starts of with the right decals, trucks, road numbers, etc. Just the basics. Oh, also, if anyone coud recommend a good prototype website, that would be great, because I did a ton of research on just these two, and came up with next to nothing
fallen flags.
One thing is for certain, prototype or not…they would always run right out of the box…you can’t say that for a lot of higher priced models today:
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
This site is good:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/
And so is this one:
http://www.railpictures.net/us/
There are others, along with historical societies for a specific railroad, and there are some photo sites that are railroad specific, like:
You need to do the leg work, and search around. The WWW is your friend.
Mike.
I should stay out of this question, but, because I am who I am, I have to jump in. Personally, I have always been a fan of BB engines. Open up the box, add the decoder (or not) and they run. I once met a modeler who insisted that I see his Santa Fe (black yard scheme) switcher. The “old” night lighting tape along the bottom of the body was (he claimed) 3 inches too wide. This is an HO scale engine. 3 inches in HO scale is pretty narrow. But I viewed the work and was impressed. Looked and operated fine and the realism was great - right up until the telephone pole came down from the sky to uncouple the cut of cars! As has been noted, BB engines generall run well and look “pretty good”. But no one other than you knows if they are good enough for you.
Old Fat Robert
I have several BBs that I’ve detailed to my heart’s delight and painted and lettered for my road.
I’ve upgraded them with can motors and decoders.
I run them with “scale width hoods” in the same layout, and sleep very well at night, thank you very nicely.
Just checked out the only one i have a 86ft 8 door boxcar and i think it looks good.
Many of the early Athearn kits were really pretty clever in their design. Strong plastic cement was just coming into use, so many cars were designed to be built without glue. For example, on a house car, there was a weight under the car held in place by the underframe, which was held in place by the screws for the trucks.
I always thought the 40’ wood and 40’ steel reefers were well thought out. Most reefers had yellow or orange sides, with boxcar red or black roof and ends. Athearn reefers had the sides and floor as one piece, and roof and ends as another piece. Back in the day when you ‘rolled your own’, you didn’t have to mask anything to get a nice clean color separation.
One other thing that I liked about the Athearn BB freight cars, is the fact that the doors would slide open/close. You could put some detail in the car, loading/unloading, slide the door closed and move the car in a train anywhere.
Door closed…being spotted at cust:
View of what is inside with door open:
Spotted…being unloaded at dock:
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Thats a great scene Frank ! [tup]
Mike.
Thank You, Mike…
That is a busy little place:
Take Care! [:D]
Frank