Im interest in purchasing a challenger and have noticed that some of the discontinued models came with smoke deflectors. And was wondering if anybody knows if they plan on coming out with more of these in the future or if i have to settle on a model without. Thanks
You might try emailing Athearn and ask them what they are planning to issue next. They have not announced any more that we know of at this time. The undecorated models I puchased from the first run have all of the extra parts including the smoke lifters. I purchased two of the undecorated models since you get all three tender bunkers, ash pans, smoke lifters and tool boxes. I have seen these on Ebay recently.
It seems like they are covering many different variations of the Challengers and have offered them with and without the smoke lifters, and painted black or two tone gray. The last model released in two tone gray is the 3975 with a single stack. This engine only had the single stack installed for smoke tests and it was converted back to double stack after a very short test period that proved unsatisfactory results.
Two of the coal fired Challengers had smoke lifters installed but one was converted to oil along with seven other oil fired Challengers. The UP had twelve Challengers with smoke lifters compared to the total of one hundred and five engines, most were used without the lifters.
Thanks for the info. Can anybody tell me if u can take the deflectors off the ones that come with them already installed, or are they molded onto the boiler.
They can be removed with little effort. They just press on with the pins below the walkways and the braces rest on the smoke box.
No problem with taking them off or installing them.
The web site below has one of the smoke lifter Challengers on sale. This listing is actually a large train shop that I have purchased from many times and are nice to work with.
If that is the case then can a person order them from athearn as parts and add them himself?
Cazephyr, from the knowledge u know of this model, it sounds like u own one yourself. What do u think of it? I plan on running it on my DC layout with 3-4 % grades and 22in rad curves how do you think it will fare for me.
Athean at this time will not sell any parts to me, but they have sent me some parts for replacement uses. I have requested to purchase several parts, but they keep saying they are not available. Who knows in the future?? If we all keep asking, they might just start selling parts for these.
It will run on 22" curves, but does not look correct on short curves. The 3 to 4% grades are more than mainline steam ran on and will limit you to a smaller train on any model railroad . The real Challengers were used on up to 2.2% grades on Cajon in Southern California…
I like the model since it compares very well to my brass models of the same engine, and actually runs better than some of the brass ones. It does have one flaw that only the late Key models got right.
I have a bunch of the Challengers since I wanted to build many variations and weather a few to look like they did in the late fifties.
They run good, but I modified some already with the Tsunami to get correct sound and that unit runs the model much better than the MRC decoder installed.
If you are going to run it on DC, the MRC will run it OK…