I recently got to closely inspect Athearn’s EMD FP-7 line. I must say Athearn appears to be upping their game. The detail level matches proto 2000.
Athearn paid attention to individual prototype details, like the proper horn for a given roadname. The MU hoses are finely detailed with white painted connectors. The same is true with the brake line. The grid plate for the nose step is see through. Even the battery boxes on the bottom appear to have photoetched parts. They even did away with the cheap MRC decoders, and replaced with with Tsunami’s
The Genesis line looks good overall. The RTR line is middle of the road(pun intended) as it was designed to be given the price level. They also seem to be doing a better job of avoiding the pre sales reservation trap that so many others get into–or force us into.
But we sure miss the blue box kits since for the money and education they were great.
The switch to the Tsunami’s was a big step in the right direction when they switched some time ago now. The added detail is really nice and the Highliner based shell is the best shape of the F unit available today except in one to one scale. As nice as they are, the price is really pushing my future purchases unless I just have to have a certain model. I purchased the WP FP7 to replace the F3A on the F3A, F3B, F3B set as WP used them for many years, but only one this time. The models are made in China and the cost to have them made is very low so why are we paying top prices for plastic.
Athearn has been upping there game for some time now, not necessarily keeping up with Proto 2000. Even some of their RTR line detail wise is awesome and look like brass models, check out the SD45T-2’s, SD45’s and SD40T-2’s. The only thing that keeps them from being genesis are the motors.
In some ways, Athearn has exceeded the Proto 2k line as Tsunami is widely considered superior to QSI. I do own 3 QSI equipped loco’s by Atlas and P2k, but don’t have a Tsunami yet to compare.
The RTR line is really all over the map, some are sows ears made into silk purses, blue box kids with nice paint jobs and assembled, others are quite nicely detailed an tooled. Loco’s vary also (see above)
As for blue box kits, maybe the LHS doesn’t stock them anymore but go to a train show and you’ll find plenty.
Walthers dropped QSI and adopted Tsunami as well. QSI stopped the revolution series decoder line and replaced them with the much more expensive Titan series.
Which diesels/loco’s did they make this change? I never bought any Genesis F units from Athearn because of all the complaints about MRC sound. I did, however, get an AB set of F7’s from P2K with sound, assume it was QSI, which was allegedly better than MRC, but not as good as Tsunami. Now that you mentioned it, I recall the upcoming P2k SD45’s next year will have Tsunami
While definitely a step up from the old models, Athearn’s current stuff sure varies widely in quality of execution. The Highliner derived Genesis F units are nice, and I like my RTR SW1500s. Then we get something like the new Genesis GP7/9 - it’s (as discussed extensively elsewhere) based on scans of the old Front Range tooling, and riddled with many of the same dimensional errors, especially with regard to the grill locations. Too bad we can’t depend on every Athearn release being a winner.
Athearns new U-50 is a winner for sure and runs great! I have about every SP diesel that they have produced in the Genesis series. And their freight and the SP Chair car they brought out are beautifully done scale HO models. Keep up the great work Athearn. I have a lot of older PK2 also, they were great too until Walthers took them over and raised the price by twice.
I believe the switch took place around January. That’s when I saw the first announcements.
In some ways QSI Revolution was a better decoder. It offered a much finer level of control over the operation of the sound unit. And the Revolution could drive 2 8-Ohm speakers in parrallel. It also accepted chip program updates.
But I have to agree that soundtraxx did have a slight edge in overall sound quality. It was also easier to operate.
Well the FP7s are in the Genesis line, which has always been above the RTRs. The original Genesis Fs were the original Highliners predating Proto-2000 Fs by over a decade. The Genesis downfall had always been the electronics.
And for that matter the Proto-2000 didn’t start with the protoypically correct variations until quite recently. I believe the first “correct” set I got were the F units done for the Empire Builder series.
I agree with the SD45 comments…my Reading version is really superb for the low cost. Now if they would just do a C32-8 off the mold they acquired from RPP!
The models are made in China and the cost to have them made is very low so why are we paying top prices for plastic.
For the same reason Japanese brass priced itself out of the market. Labor costs are rising in China, which some people delude themselves into believing is still a 3rd world country.
Besides, what you’re paying for isn’t the assembly labor, it’s the engineering and research that goes into them. IOW, they’re more knowledge based than items 20 or so years ago.
I have Genesis F7 Units. (A-B-A) and I can tell you that there is a upgrade between the two. I compared them side by side. The F7 had non prototypically correct features that they corrected for on the FP7. For example horn and headlight was wrong for the F7.
OK, so you are just refering to proto specific accuracy on one particular road name - I get it. Many of those older Genesis F’s were correct, some not exactly. Have you done a survey of every Genesis F unit made since thay came out - documenting the correctness or errors of every road name/version?
I suspect such things are largely controlled by how good the info is on a particular prototype. Not having perfect info would not stop me from offering a model if I was a manufacturer.
The F’s and the FP’s all stem from the same Highliner tooling which has always offered the features you discribe. The only questions always being how good are the photos and data on a particular road name.
Personally I got over a lot of that rivet counting years ago for one simple reason - have you ever looked at a real locomotive? or freight car?
Stuff gets changed, banged up, redone, altered, etc, etc. So who cares if you have a photo and you know it was EXACTLY this way on Wednesday, January 14, 1953?
How was it built? How long did it stay that way, who changed it?, etc, etc. Prove to me it was not the other way at some point?
Once the obvious stuff is right, that’s close enough for me.
And every detail on my ATLANTIC CENTRAL equipment is historically perfect!