This review is on Athearn’s HO scale “The Warbonnet” train set.[:D]
The set includes all the basic things you need for a layout. It has an improved version of their F7A that they started making almost 50 years ago, a gondola car, a single dome tank car, a boxcar, a bay window caboose, a 36" x 45" oval of Life-Like Power-Lok track and an Athearn Trainpack power-pack.
The F7 diesel has window and porthole glass installed, which makes it look a lot better than the old ones. The paint is also heavily improved and looks very good, except the yellow and black striping and Santa Fe logo are very shiny. The number boards now have numbers printed on them, and they look very good. The truck sideframes are the same plastic ones that they started making in the early 80s, but they must be really well detailed because they also used them on their Genesis F units. The couplers are horn-hook couplers that are mounted in coupler boxes held on by screws. I had to tighten the screws because one of the couplers fell off when I took it out of the box. The headlight is still mounted in a bracket that extends into the cab and doesn’t look all that realistic. The drive system now has hex style drive shafts going to the trucks, and they’re much quieter then the old ones. The gearing is the same excellent design that they started using in the late 60s and is very quiet, and also now has nylon worms instead of brass worms. The motor appears to be from Mabuchi, and has a 3-pole skewed armature and flywheels. The engine test ran very well and was fairly quiet through the entire speed range. The speed at 12 volts is 104.68 scale MPH. I could keep it running steadily at just over 1 volt at 3 scale MPH. It’s drawbar pull is enough to pull around 20 or 25