Hi,
I purchased an HO Athearn RTR tunnel motor. Very nice model. However, it had a bag of extra parts which I’m not sure what they are for. Are they for the other SP, UP , etc versions of the same model?
Thanks in advance for any help.
I have so far 5 of these new tunnel motors in D&RGW and one in SP - but I haven’t messed with the parts bag yet.
The following was posted by Jim Eager on the Rio Grande Yahoo Groups email list:
After spending a couple hours looking at photos of the fuel tank area
of the SD40T-2s, I think I have the various drain plumbing figured out.
There is a small diagram at the bottom of the Athearn parts sheet
that shows where some of the pipes go. The rear of the tank is at the
left, the front of the tank is at the right. None of the pipes are
numbered, not all pipes are shown, and the Grande Units did not use
all of the pipes that are shown or supplied.
Here are the ones to use:
Front of fuel tank
- Breather Down Pipe – This is supplied pipe nos. 4, 5, 6. However,
this pipe does not jog in and then up on any of the Rio Grande units
that I looked at, so you can cut off the final upward jog. - Breather Up Pipe Base – This is not identified in the diagram, nor
numbered on the part runner. It’s a small wedge that straddles the
web behind the fuel sight glass. - Breather UP Pipe – Five different lengths are supplied: nos. 8, 9,
10, 11 and 12. It looks to me like no. 10, 11 or 12 will be the right
length. Note that this pipe bends in to clear the fuel filler neck. - Not shown is another pipe that comes down from the center of the
underframe just behind the rear traction motor, then bends to run
toward the front of the fuel tank, then bends to run down along the
tank. Supplied pipe no. 7 should work perfectly for this pipe.
Rear of fuel tank
- Drain Bar –
Where did you hear about the SD402-T?; when I saw the title to your post I contacted EMD about this nomenclature. They were surprised that the news had leaked out so early since this model - a 104,000HP unit - is not even scheduled for production until July, 2194 and won’t even show up in their catalog until 2192 or 2193. One hundred and eighty-seven years in the future and already Athearn has a model of it on the market. Truly phenomenal!
While I was on the phone I inquired about when they might be releasing a DD40 which Athearn has been producing since about 1965; they told me to exercise patience; production will begin in the summer of 2010. That Uncle Irv; he was sure able to peer into the future and see future releases from the manufacturers!
You HO Scalers! the manufacturers can’t produce models fast enough for you so now you’ve begun creating your own prototypes! Awhile back someone here on the forum was asking about a U300C; I haven’t got around to checking with General Electric about a future announcement of that model.
You kill me…[(-D]
Is he Spikre’s understudy?
Poteet, did you get yourself some Payoti or something?
There can only be one Spikre…That’s all this old world can handle at a time.[:O][:D]
Guess I shouldn’t bring up the new AC 10,000’s yet…huh?
And some people wonder why it’s hard to attract new railroad modelers?
drgw5761 at least helps with the question. But the new guy makes a slight typo and all the rest of the thread is a bunch of fellows piling onto this easy error to make by making light of it.
Geez. [soapbox]
Give it a rest. It was a legitimate question, typo or no, and the only one who treated it that way is Jim. I’m sure none of y’all have made a typo before? [:I]
I think that this thread could’ve turned into a productive conversation about these great models. Instead, it’s been hijacked straight into veiled insult land. I can understand the temptation in poking a little fun at the typo, but only if I had something constructive to add in answering the guy’s question.
It would be good if we had some human interaction expertise to go along with the railroad expertise. That might grow the hobby, don’t ya think? [soapbox]off
I’m not trying to spoil anyone’s fun, but consider if you were the guy with one post who ran into your responses. Would you want to stick around? Ease up a little and spend more time talking trains and models and we’ll all enjoy and benefit from this forum more.
rg5761, you have a link to the Jim Eager bit? I’d like to see the photo’s
Must be quite boring seeing the mods rule with a iron fist.
Model railroaders are a chatty bred…I would hate to have new modelers thinking we are a bunch of of sour pusses that is dead serious and never crack a joke.Even Atlas isn’t that strick. No model railroad forum is that I am aware of.
Give it a break man…I am a mod on three forums and I am use to it.
You haven’t heard!!! There is going to be a SD800MAC!
Mike, drgw5371’s post was, indeed, a good one and riogrande5761’s response was a substantial one; I am usually serious about things encountered here on the forum but sometimes something posted here does get ahold of my funny bone and I can’t resist having a little lighthearted fun. drgw5371’s typo in his topic title tickled me probably because it was quite evident that his fingers were just a little quicker than his eyes.
As most members of the forum know I am not an HO Scaler so I could not give drgw5371 a direct answer to his question but I did read riogrande5761’s response and found it informative and I certainly am glad that so
I don’t think lightheartedness and joking scares new comers away. I think it’s sourpusses and grumpy old (sometimes young and middle-aged) folk that do that. It’s natural for people to poke fun at each other every now and again. The way R.T. expressed his humor wasn’t in a negative way that insulted the OP. However, the way you jumped on your soapbox, now that opened the door to debate and ill feelings, which is what causes the grumps to come out. Next time just let it go man, I sure hope that the OP has a better sense of humor and can see that what R.T. said was just for humor and not meant to scare him off.
Tony wrote:
I don’t think lightheartedness and joking scares new comers away. I think it’s sourpusses and grumpy old (sometimes young and middle-aged) folk that do that…
I totally agree. But from the initial replies after Jim’s, it’s very difficult to tell whether you’re a rivet-counting sourpuss or not.
The issue is that your intent isn’t obvious from what was written. It wouldn’t surprise me if everyone who jumped in to point out the typo had a grin on their face and probably even meant well. The issue is, how can riogrande5371 tell that?
All he had is what was written. He couldn’t see your face. He can’t tell, at least from what was written, that you were being lighthearted when you wrote your reply. All he had was a series of replies pointing out his typo again and holding it up to what could be interpreted as ridicule. This happens all the time with email and this board is pretty much subject to the same opportunities for misintepretation, because we can’t see facial expressions or body language cues that inform us about intent in face-to-face conversation.
And joking, particularly for the new guy on the block, can be taken very differently than the way you intended it. Give the newbie a chance, act like you’re taking his (or her) interest seriously and that you respect him and his question, even if it demonstrates less knowledge than your own – or just his fat-fingering a typo on the keyboard.
After he’s had a few posts under the belt and he’s gotten to know that he’s welcome and accepted as a member of our community, then even if the intent of a reply isn’t clear to him from what is written, he’ll be in a better position to shrug it off as an aberration if it bothers him, if it seems like someone is more interested in pointing out what he did wrong than in helping him to be a better model railroader.
I do apologize if I seemed grumpy or unclear in my own intent