I am fairly new to the hobby and have purchased a few Athearn Ready to Roll (RTR) locomotives. I purchased a Santa Fe C44-9W a few years ago and 2 Amtrak P42’s a month ago (all brand new). I have ready many forums about repowering the Blue Box units but I’ve never heard anyone repowering any RTR units.
Does anyone do this?
How do you connect the motor to the light board?
Yes, I’ve repowered my Athearn RTR with a Northwest shortline motor, but I also added an NCE DCC decoder and just plugged it into the DCC ready plug.
Wholeman, why do you want to re power? Is it lack of pulling power or to much power draw?
I have 2 Athearn RTR SD-50’s that do OK dragging freight, about 20 cars each up a 1.5 percent grade. Athearn SD-40-2 pulls very well, SD 50’s will spin there wheels some but not the SD 40, but it weights more. I added about 4 onces of lead to my Santa Fe Dash 9 and it pulls great, around 35 cars.
If they are slowing down on a grade and you are DCC, a different decoder may help. I forget what the function is called. Some decoders will keep the train at the same speed going up a grade. My PCM Y-6b decoder does it, up a grade or down stays the same speed.
Cuda Ken
Actually I never found the need to repower any of my Athearn BB or RTR locos.
The cold hard truth?
I can not stress enough that one should be mindful of believing everything they read on forums and in magazines…
Remember this…Far to many modelers TRYS to compare a Athearn drive to a Kato or Atlas drive…To do so is pure foolishness.
I didn’t want to repower my athearn, I had to. After a few weeks, the athearn motor failed. I had a spare northwest shortline laying around so I decided to “upgrade” the motor instead of taking it back. My choice. Glad I did. Its now one of my favorite engines.
I would keep the stock motors in them unless there is a problem. Athearn RTR drives seem to be one of the most reliable in the system.
RTR Athearn’s use a better motor & drive than the old BB’s. They’re also much newer. They shouldn’t need remotoring.
COMPARISON’s: RTR 3V vs BB 6V TO START (to overide friction).
AMPS consumed when running: RTR .025A vs BB .5A - 1A (.75 AVERAGE)
Thank you for all of the comments. The suggestions were helpful. It will save a me a lot of money since I will not be repowering any of them. However, I would like to add weight to the P42’s.
Any suggestions on how much?
And where I should put it?
Just as a matter of interest, we should probably be careful defining what an Athearn “blue box” locomotive is. I think that there was a period between the blue box era and the start of the ready to roll era when Athearn went to better motors in some blue box engines.
As a specific example, I have one of the new ready to roll SD40-2s. This has the hex drive instead of the universal drive. I also have one of the previous release SD40-2s. This also has the hex line drive. According to the model part lists, the part numbers for the motor, flywheels, drive shafts, and worm gear/shaft assemblies is the same between the two engines. The revision on the blue box instruction sheet is dated April 2000.
Regards
I have re-geared, not re-powered Athearn locomotives with Ernst re-gearing kits. Easier, cheaper, and the results are usually really great as far as performance is concerned. I have an Athearn Baldwin S-12 that I re-geared, about 15 years ago and it’s still going strong; the slow speed control is awesome. Just a thought.
Jimmy