Ok, before people tell me to look this up in the old posts, I have.
I can imagine that this has been asked before, but I am going to ask too.
I have found the Athearn Blue/Yellow box RTR F7 A/B set in a local store. the price is $53 and change.
This would be a purchase for the future, it would be for my son, who is now almost 5yrs old. I was thinking of getting it, using it with my son and then passing it on to him when he was old enough to run it on his own properly.
I had a couple sets of these. For the price they look decent and pull great. They make a little noise, but this is common for the Athearn drive. A little lube never hurts. I definately think this would be great for a child of his age (with supervision) because these units lack the delicate detail of the Genesis series, but have a lot better paint and lettering than that of the standard BB F-7s. I have a 5 year old son of mine and he loved the things, of course what kid wouldn’t. Have fun!!![:)]
$53 isn’t really a bad price for the Athearns. If you were to buy a set of A and B blue box kits, the price would be around $60 or $65, and they don’t include the window glass that the RTR units do.
If I remember right I bought the 2 sets that I had at $69 a piece. $53 seems like a really good price to me, especially since I have not seen the SF RTR F-7s in awhile, even on eBay. The two sets that I sold used went for about $90 on ebay, for both sets.
Ditto on the $53 being a good price. I bought a DRG&W set for $70 in a LHS once because I had been wanting it for some time and they just happened to have it sitting on the shelf. I knew I could get it cheaper online or somewhere else, but I figured the extra $10-$15 was a small price to pay for immediate happiness and bliss [:)]
By the way… I had to modify the brake cylinders on the trucks because they would hit the stirrup steps and wouldn’t let the trucks turn, causing derailments. From what I understand, this problem is an epidemic with Athearn F units. Pretty lousy QC, if you ask me, since Athearn’s had this same design forever.
I had the same stirrup step interference on my units. I just left the offending brake cylinders off. Good enough for the 3ft rule! Apart from that they run fine. Just the familiar Athearn growl… that will ease over time.
I have a couple of the old BB examples, they’re good locos. $53 is a pretty good price too. The nice thing about the Athearn RTR F is that you can add extra detailing later on should you (or your son) want to - they make a great first detailing project. There are moulded “dimples” on the bodyshell indicating where to drill to fit grab irons (which can be bent from brass wire - cost is very low and they’re robust too) and you can add other parts working from prototype photos. Have fun!
I started my oldest son with an Athearn loco when he was about 5. He is now almost 26 and still loves trains. My three year old grandson has one of those Athearn John Deere sets that they play with now and then. It never hurts to start 'em early.
Walthers has an Athearn F7 detailing kit so that if you do want to detail it, you don’t have to bend all the wires yourself. All you have to do is a little drilling and glueing.[:D]