I have 2 of these by Athearn in Great Northern and Milwaukee Road.
What I am not sure of is are they a GP7 or GP9.
I see in Athearn’s history they had them listed as both?
So what is the correct locomotive made by Athearn then?
Mark
They are GP7 engines, ‘fat’ carbody and all. Back in the late 50’s, the popular assumption was if it did not have D/B, it was a GP7. If it did have D/B, it was a GP9. The ‘real’ clue is the grills on the side of the engine - it is a GP7…
Jim Bernier
JIM IS RIGHT. It is a GP-7 with the Dynamic Brake Pod.
The original motor’s pulled 1.5 amps and all came with Athearn’s std. 42" wheels.
When you see the Proto 2000 GP-9, you’ll see a big difference.
I wished I had the count that Athearn had on how many of the GP7’s aka GP9’s they made. It went through many changes to the drive from, Hifi, tower geared, shaft drive no flywheels, with or with out flywheels, steel flywheels, and the current brass flywheels. Lets hope that they are working on the retooling of this old classic loco. It would be great to see it come out in the RTR line, with all the updates.
You won’t see it in RTR as it is the old wide body. Retooling is not an option since P2K and Atlas have taken the market with very fine models available.
But they have retooled the GP35 and MDC RS3 and are marketing it. The original GP7 that Athearn made sold like hot cakes. I think if the went back to the drawing board and completely revamped it it would sell good. I cannot see Athearn doing away with this model, if they were smart they would bring it back with the narrow hood and revised drive, I think it would sell fine in the RTR area. Just my opinion though.
I agree with jsoderq, with the offerings from Atlas (their latest edition is great) and P2K I doubt that Athearn would be able to justify a total retooling or recover tooling costs. Both the Atlas and P2K units look and run great. I have 2 of each and wouldn’t even consider getting one from athearn. They have little decent competition for the GP35 or the RS3 which is probably why they brought them to market.
Bob DeWoody
But why would Athearn do that, especially since the market is “saturated” with P2K Geeps? Top it off, many of the P2K GP7s/9s are selling on Ebay $30 to $90. Just my opinion, but Athearn would have a hard time competing with that.
I’ve got an old Athearn GP9 (or so it said on the box, anyway) from the 1960’s and a P2K GP9. This is what they look like from above, so you can see the difference in the width of the hood:
The old one is on the left, with the orange running boards. It is one of the belt-drive models. I removed the motor, since it ran very poorly, and now I drag it around as an “honorary” dummy engine in consists.
The difference here is that Athearn bought out Rail Power Products, who made plastic shells with correct width hoods as “snap on” replacements for Athearn shells. It is an RPP mold that they have re-tooled for production of their GP-35’s. If RPP had made a correct width GP-7/9 shell, then Athearn would likely consider putting that mold into production and cranking out geeps in their RTR line. Without a mold for this model, I believe that they should hold off.
What they might do that could be a wise move, would be to re-tool the RPP SD-7/9 mold, and release these locomotives in their RTR line. It’s been quite a while since P2K made SD-9’s, so Athearn might sell quite a few.
Tom
MisterBeasley,
You’ve actually provided a great service!
Quite a number of newbies over the past two years have asked what was the difference in width of the Athearn BBs compared to the actual “correct width”.
As the saying goes: A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS!!
The only advantage that the “extra wide” Blue Boxes do offer is that for installing DCC and sound they offer more space to do it in.
Gee, don’t sound so surprised…
The problem I see with Athearn rereleasing it is that so many BB kits or locos are available on ebay and at shows. I still cant bring myself to pay $50+ for a BB kit and RTR is out of the question for me. Besides, I really don’t “need” any more locomotives[:D]
The width problem has been a problem for many moons. Just for numers sakes I wonder how many GP9’s were made since day one until the day they quit making them!