although htis topic may have been beaten to death by now, i’m in the porcess of getting the last few engines for my layout, i have an atlas C424 (very nice) however it’s jsut not that grea tof a runner considering how much i paid, now i picked up a athearn RTR GP40-2 recently and it was well worth the price, half of teh atlas unit. I think the RTR lien is great, athern just needs to bring their SW1500 out into that lien so i can fiannly get one.
what do you think of athearn’s RTR line? [:D]
I have personally not had any problems with the Athearn RTR line of engines. I already had quite a few of them. Yesterday I bought two Amtrack AMD 103’s by Athearn and today a RTR BNSF AC4400. They appear to be a good quality product and I am sure I will be acquiring a few more.
I have several RTR SD45T-2s, two GP60s, and an SD50. They run pretty well. I like the fact that the mechanism is basically the good old Athearn blue-box drive, so getting parts for them is not too hard. They can also benefit from classic Atheran tune-up techniques, like adding thrust washers to the worms to eliminate end play.
The paint jobs and detailing are generally pretty good, especially on the tunnel motors, except for the pilots. I will be adding MU hoses and cut levers, etc.
The motors run well but are a bit on the noisy side.
Im happy with them, but it seems like Athearn is up in down. Not like P2K or Kato, who ALWAYS run well together. Athearn units are either slow or fast. But yes, i love the line and will be buying quite a few more.
Alec
Athearn RTR has not given me any problem. I would say I have 15-20 of them and they have all been worth the money.
RTR seems ok. My AC4400 is a total POS, tho. The motor buzzes, the headlights went out, and the motor makes this most horrible grinding if you run it above 40% throttle. It does however, quit grinding once it warms up a bit.
I have had success with running the athearn r-t-r line EXCEPT for the ac 4400-9w. That was a complete piece of junk, and from this forum learned many others were too. It grinded, then didn’t run at all. So I do not buy that model, even though if it was successful I would have ordered a half dozen. Athearn’s loss not mine.
I have several RTR’s including an AC4400.
The only problem I had was with my P42, it needed a lube job out of the box & it’s been great ever since.
Gordon