Hello everyone, I noticed on Athearn’s website that it said it’s Standard Heavyweights work with 18" radius curves. I was wondering if anyone had feedback to see if this is true. Pictures would be greatly appreciated, escpecially of them on an 18" radius curve. Thanks in advance.
-Alex Warshal
I have a number of Athearn Heavyweights. They look good, and go around 18 inch curves no sweat.
Here we have an Athearn Heavyweight painted for Bangor and Aroostook.
Aand one painted for the B&M.
And one painted for the New York Central.
Coming out of the 22 inch Lisbon curve.
Okay, thanks for the feedback so far. Do you have a picture of them on the 18" curves that you could share? -Alex Warshal
The Athearn heavyweights are selectively compressed to 72’ - they are not scale 80’ long - and they have truck mounted couplers, and yes, in stock form they run well even on sharp curves down to 18" radius.
Fact is heavyweight cars came in a number of different lengths, so the Athearn cars are not completely unprototypical. Only the Pullman and diner are without similar prototypes some where in heavyweight history.
Most baggage cars, and many combines and coaches were similar in length to the Athearn models. Athearn’s RPO/bagage is only 67’, no exact prototype, but still typical of that type of car.
The 72’ observation has several prototypes in office cars, but not really in cars used as observations.
But, they look good for freelanced cars and run well on sharper curves.
I have 36" radius curves but srill prefer selectively compressed cars like those from Athearn and ConCor.
Sheldon
Sorry, I don’t have any 18 inch curves to photograph them on. My last layout was a 4 by 8 with 18 inch curves, but that layout is long gone. The heavyweights ran fine on the old layout.
Athearn’s do really look like the trains we used to ride back in the 1950’s. The roofline in particular, as well as the window arrangements, the rivets, the vestibules, the 6 wheel trucks look just like they should. The heavyweights stayed in service right up to the end of passenger trains. They were never as exciting as a brand new stainless streamline car, but that’s what the railroads furnished mostly, and that’s what we rode in.
Hello Alex —
I haven’t run these cars in years, but I remember when they were new. RMC Magazine featured them on the cover of the September, 1960 issue (55 years ago!) and gave them a glowing review which ended with the words, “Athearn’s new Standard Cars are an excellent value.” At first, just four versions were offered in two paint schemes: B&O blue and gray, and Santa Fe green. Several of us who were B&O fans liked the rendering of the B&O paint schemes, although we knew from the start that the gray roofs were wrong for that road. At that time, my friends and I weren’t sophisticated enough to notice that the B&O coaches would have been more believeable if they had paired windows instead of single windows. We liked the turtle back roof on the coaches because many actual B&O cars were upgraded with air conditioning and had similar roofs. We didn’t pay any attention to the lack of A/C equipment under the floor. After that initial offering (Baggage-Mail, Coach, Sleeper, Observation), other variations were offered, including a full baggage car, diner, and a coach with clerestory roof. While that clerestory coach is probably not a match to any actual prototype car, it should be a very good stand-in on your NYC model railroad, as your road had hundreds of single window heavyweights.
I’ve never heard of anybody having trouble with these cars on 18" radius curves in normal operation. But backup moves with a long string could cause problems due to the truck-mounted couplers.
Tom
Tom
Good to hear from you all again. I have found a video of the cars traversing an 18" radius curve. I will share the link below. I also would have to replace the trucks with 4 wheel ones as was common NYC practice. I believe that these cars have truck mounted couplers, which would also help them on the curves. Keep adding any bits of info you can as it all helps me. Also, if anyone has some of these old cars to sell off, shoot me a PM and we can discuss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn9gKlGW6V0&app=desktop
-Alex Warshal