I recently purchased an Athearn C44-9W locomotive and it is pretty noisy when the motor engages and starts to move. I was wondering if Athearn locos are usually noisy or not. It was not a BB loco. I have an Atlas loco as well, GP40-2, and that baby is quiet as a mouse at start up. Anyone have any thoughts? I like some of the genesis locos but I don’t want to buy them if they are noisy like the one I have now.
Does the locomotive have a DCC decoder? Are you running it on DC or DCC power? I don’t know of Athearn ever put a DCC decoder into these models, but if they did and you are running it on DC power, that could be the source of the noise.
Some blue box Athearns were very quiet right out of the box, some were not. Many times I have traced the noise to the flywheels that are out of balance, causing a vibration that the hollow plastic shell makes louder. If your able to, take the motor out of the chassis and with a pair of jumper leads, run it while holding it in your hand and see if it has vibration to it. If it does then one or both flywheels need replaced with ones from NWSL or Athearn. I also use a thicker oil for the truck gears and a lightweight oil for all the bearings when I fine tune one of these engines. The drive is almost bullet proof, but as you have found out, many need some fine tuning to quiet them down. But most will never be as quiet as the newer Atlas/Kato/Proto 2K drives. Most of which are clones of the older Kato drives that were so popular under the Atlas engines during the yellow box era. I have many of the Athearn blue box engines tuned and fitted with DCC decoders still hard at work on my layout. While not as quiet as my Atlas and Kato units, they are still excellent performers for the money. Mike
Trains are noisy, especially real ones!
And yes, most Athearn loco’s are noisy. I have a whole bunch of them. Love everyone. Some are noisy, some are not. I like noisy ones as I can tell when they arn’t working. Room goes quiet! [:P]
I like to think of it as a built in sound system.
But hey, that’s just me!
Gordon
Yes, I have a DCC decoder in it and running in DCC. It just sounds like the motor is grinding, like the parts are tight together. It runs OK, I was just wondering if Athearn locos were just a little noisier than others.
I agree they are noisy. I like my athearn loco and plan to buy more. I was just curious because of my atlas loco running quieter.
My Atlas’ run quieter than all my Athearns except my Genesis SD70m.
Kato & Atlas have a nice quiet drivetrain. Athearn unfortunatety doesn’t. But with some fine tuning, they can become quieter.
Gord
If it’s a new loco it will become a little less noisy over time. Most of my Genesis SD75I’s are noisier then any of my other loco’s, except my sound loco’s of course, lol.[(-D]
The “newer” RTR generally do run far better that the old BB versions, however, I’m not sure if it is a quality control issue or ? w/ these units. Some will run flawlessly only to have the exception, like yours, be rather noisey. Most of my roster is filled w/ Atlas, P2K , BLI and other higher end equipment, and haven’t really personally experienced the RTRs only what I see from other club members troubles. With 60+ members of a club you do get quite a feel for the “real” operating qualities and overall consistancy for any of the “newer” releases from the manufacturers.
If this is a “brand” newengine, I would return it. If you can’t for whatever reason, It is unlike any other Athearn and would start w/ checking for the obvious (Driveline/ shell interference, driveshaft/ flywheel issues motor mounting and any lub problems on motor shaft, gears etc)
A tread from a few weeks ago asked the same about a noisey BB loco http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/189789.aspx I would start there
I have 4 Athearns, 2 RTR and 2 Gensis. they all had a varying degrees of noise new but the more you run them and the better they get. I got a Conrail SD60 RTR for Christmas from the wife and it sounded like a blender being raped when it was new but now it is nearly as quiet as my Atlas trains. I tend to let my new stuff run while I am working on the layout so my best advice is give your Athearn about 10-15 cars and let run about 50% throttle for a few hours to break it in either while you doing stuff on the layout or just let it run and come back later
Of my 19 locomotives (and growing), 12 of them are Athearn RTR or Genesis. The RTRs are generally noisier, but they quiet down after they are broken in. Most of mine have Soundtraxx Tsunamis installed and LED lighting.