I have become the owner of 5 Athearn Passenger cars painted for New Haven. I have a couple questions.
There are no wheel sets. Anything strange I need to look out for or will “standard” wheel sets work in the athern passenger trucks? I’ll be converting them to body mount couplers and intend to cut the coupler mount tabs off the trucks.
I’m thinking about adding lighting. I’ve never played with lighting before, do I need to get particualr wheel sets for the electric pick up?
Does any one know of a good online source for images of interiors of typical passenger cars,observation cars and sleepers? I have a generic book, and it gives a general idea, but more information is always better. I worked up the following for the diner car:
The picture is a computer render of a model I’ll have 3d printed representing a generic diner interior, and then I’ll put some passengers in some of the seats. Anyone see anything obviously wrong? I’m not looking for perfect accuracy, close is good enough for me.
I’m no stranger to Athearn passenger cars, and currently run an 11 car set of ATSF detailed heavyweights. But unlike your situation, mine were all complete kits that I modified by adding diaphragms, KD couplers, Intermountain wheelsets, decals and window tint, etc.
The project you are describing sounds a bit overwhelming to me, and could prove to be pretty costly - especially given that the Athearn cars are (mostly) shorties.
Ok, it sounds like I’m “Mr. Negativity” here, and perhaps I am. But you could have a lot more to work with using full length cars that already have the trucks.
Said another way, unless one is a really accomplished modeler, one could be biting off a lot more than one can chew.
With all due respect,Mobilman44,he has the trucks,needs,the wheel sets…To the OP,He gave you a source for wheel sets,Intermountain,another would be Exactrail and there are others…To have them lighted,you need,metal wheel sets with one wheel insulated…I’m guessing,but I believe they are 33’’ inch wheels…
That does help. I recently bought some used freight cars and when I tried to replace the wheel sets found they weren’t standard, and had to replace the whole truck. I was wondering if I faced the same problem.
As to the amount of work, that’s half the fun. I run a module in a mobile layout that gets set up at shows and have quickly discovered that high detail doesn’t travel well. These cars look fairly robust and I have a Bachman New Haven engine that will look good pulling these around the track.
You need to find 36 inch wheels and like Frank said, metal with one side insulated. NWSL is another easy to find brand.
These cars were designed for tight curves so if you have wider ones, then body mounting will work. Other wise, the truck mounted will work very well. I have a set with truck mounted and they never derail.
Adding pickups is very easy. Athearn used a simple brass wiper which mounts under the bolster screw. You can buy the stock Athearn pickup but I would just make my own.
The real key to getting good lighting effects is using a capacitor. The capacitor and some LEDs will give you flicker free lighting.
If the cars you have are the Athearn BB kits of old,they came with,wheels that were one side plastic and the other metal and they were a Scale 72 ft,in my opinion,they were not bad at all,for the time…
One other detail,I will mention,you said that you will be putting diaphragms on them,I would recommend a Kadee,#156,whisker,long shank coupler,if you do…
Great minds think alike…or fools seldom differ as my grandfather used to say [:D]. I to just picked up a half dozen of the old Athearn Santa Fe streamlined cars, new old stock, and plan to do some detail work to them. This is my first foray into passenger trains and my first step outside my modern day Union Pacific freight, so it’s both exciting and intimidating at the same time.
Not to high jack this thread, but I do have related questions that may also benefit the OP.
What diaphragms do you use for these old Athearn kits? I have seen quite a few on EBay and elsewhere and cannot make heads nor tails as to which ones to get?
What color is best used to tint windows? Clear blue?
For wheel sets, I see that both Walthers and Intermountain make 33" sets. My LHS has 12 packs of the Proto 2000 33" in stock (#920-21258), and a large pack of Intermountain 33" in stock (#40055). Would either of these work and if not, which would you choose? Btw, I don’t plan on lighting the cars interiors if that makes a difference.
Palace Car Company makes kits for interiors for Athearn and other cars. They aren’t one-piece “drop in” interiors like Walthers, Rivarossi and others have used. They use a heavy metal floor piece that you glue the seats and tables and such to. Nice in that the floor adds weight to the car without using the large interior Athearn weights being needed.
There are a couple of issues not mentioned or addressed:
The older Athearn passenger cars had metal trucks that were assembled with the wheels in place and sideframes were swedged on the ends to hold them together.
Diaphragms I havn’t used in years,so I can’t comment on them…The wheel sets,that you mentioned,seems to me like either would be okay…As far as window tint,they were usually green.
After a long absense, American Limited daiphragms are available again. They are good, and designed to fit a number of manufacturer’s cars. I have used tham on a number of my passenger cars
The single set is presently out of stock ar Walthers, but teh 6 pack is available. Check your LHS
The Athearn heavy weight cars are good models of the ordinary passenger cars that remained in service until Amtrak time. The prototypes had 36 inch wheels. I think the models came with 36 inch wheels, but I’d have to get out my calipers to be sure. The Athearn truck mounted couplers work well and permit the cars to operate well on 18 inch curves. Was it me, I’d leave them on. I fear that body mounts may cause derailments on curves.
Lighting can be a little tricky. Metal wheels are needed for electrical pickup. You want pickup from as many wheels as possible to reduce flickering. You want phosphor bronze to make the axle wipers from. Brass isn’t springy enough. Axle wipers have much less frictional drag than wheel wipers. I used wheel wipers on a caboose once, and the added friction was so great that the coal drag could no longer make the hill. It’s difficult to get enough brightness in the lamps to have the lights show unless the train room is very very dark. Beware of glowing plastic roofs. They look bad. I lined some roofs with a shiny metallic tape sold as Christmas decoration. Paint the insides of the cars a light color to make the lights brighter. Provide two or more bulbs per car.
If you are electronically inclined, there are a number of lighting circuits to give constant brightness and flicker free lighting. There are some huge capacitors (0.47 Farads) tht will keep the lamps burning for 20 seconds after track power is turned off, but they need a deal of support circuitry which I won’t go into here. LEDs use less juice than bulbs, but give a bluish, fluorescent kind of light, bulbs give a light that looks like bulbs.
The ordinary coach has a simple interior layout, even rows of seatbacks, about one per window.
I’ve worked up several trains worth of Athern Blue Box passenger cars, both heavyweight and streamlined, to run on my club layout and at train shows. It’s true the Athern cars are a bit undersized and the streamlined ones, no matter what livery they wear, are all patterned on the Santa Fe Super Chief of the 1940’s except that they are one window shorter than the prototypes. For diaphrams I favor the Walthers soft rubber type which is readily available. They lack some detail but they are easy to install with contact cement. After installing the diaphrams place your couplers so that the knuckle is directly under the diaphram with a small bit portruding . This will give you the close coupled effect while the soft rubber lets you run around tight curves without causing a derailment due to the diaphrams clashing. With good wheel sets these cars track and operate much better than the more detailed contemporary cars, especially on modular layouts with lots of rough spots in the track.
Zstripe, thank you for bringing my “misread” to my attention. I at first thought the OP lacked the trucks, and obviously it is the wheel sets - which gives it a whole different tune. I was in a hurry, and I goofed.
My set is not lighted, and I used Intermountain 36 inch wheelsets. For Diagphrams, I used American Limited. KD couplers were mixed - a long shank on one end of the car and a regular one on the other. I few of the cars were airbrushed, and all had decals added to one extent or the other. I used Testors “Sapphire” paint for window tint. This was suggested by an MR article years ago for altering auto windows.
This is all great info folks! I picked up some Intermountain wheel sets (36"…glad I took a quick glance at this thread before I stopped at the LHS as I was thinking 33" [:-^]). No diaphragms in stock at the LHS, so I need to order some. Also need to pick up some clear green for the window tint. I have KD’s in the stash…no long shanks though I think.
Again, not trying to high jack the OP’s initial post. But I think this is all good stuff that benefits all involved and I just wanted to say “thanks” [Y]!
Frank, when first introduced in the late 50’s Athearn heavyweight passenger cars had metal trucks as described above.
The streamlined cars always had plastic trucks - but - when first introduced the streamline cars were made of separate parts, not one piece bodies, and in those days the streamline trucks came in three parts and had to be glued together. When the streamline cars were retooled with one piece bodies, the truck was made one piece.
The heavyweight cars retained the metal trucks until the early 70’s. In fact I believe the plastic truck appeared the same time the diner, full baggage car, and clerestory roof coach were added to the line.
