Athearn Santa Fe Heavyweights

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I was looking into getting some of the newer Athearn Santa Fe heavyweights. I like that they now come with black roofs.

For years I’ve run some really old cars (from the mid 1970’s). They are all Pullman green without black roofs. But the pictures I’ve seen of the new cars seem to have cheaper looking lettering. The lettering on my old cars is really sharp. And the color is good too.

So I was wondering if anyone has used these relatively new Athearn Santa Fe heavyweights? Any opinions? Also, what are the car numbers and names of the issued cars?

I don’t know if it is worth it to replace my old cars just because I want black roofs. And I do not want to repaint my old cars either, even though it would be fairly easy to do.

I should add that Bachmann, or other true scale cars are likely out of the question. I have to use the Athearn cars because the line I run the heavyweights on has a very tight radius…although not sure what it is, my Bachmann 2-8-0 works great pulling a 5 car Athearn heavyweight trainset.

2

Southwest Chief,
I heard through the years that the Athearn Heavyweights are not prototypical.(I don’t really know that this is true). The Walthers Heavyweights are nice, but way out of my price range (between $34.00-$42.00 a piece). Here’s a link to the Santa Fe historical Society http://www.atsfrr.com/index.shtml (They should have some info on the names of each passenger cars and numbers). [:D]

3

The Athearn Heavyweights are “shorties”.However these short cars did have prototypes…I am not sure if the Santa Fe car had these short Pullmans or not.

4

The Athearn heavywieghts are not correct for any Santa Fe car. Well the baggage could be modified to work.

Anyway I need to use the shorty cars due to the tight curves I run this train on. I have a double track mainline. Unfortunately because of space constraints, the inner track has a fairly tight radius in spots. So my Hi-Levels get the outer track and the shorty heavyweights get the inner track.

Here is a great link for anyone interested in HO models that are correct for the Santa Fe, and cars that are close and how to modify them:
http://www.trainweb.org/jssand/Protot/Index.htm

5

I could have sworn that the Athearn heavyweights have always come with a black roof! What color are yours? Why don’t you just paint the roofs of the ones you have black? Seems like about the easiest paint job in the world.

6

My Santa Fe versions are all one color, Pullman green. They were originally my dad’s and date from the mid 1970’s (Blue Boxes with the rusty looking steam loco on it).

I suppose I could repaint them. However since the roof is the same piece as the car I’ll need one heck of a good masking job. And I’m not sure if I want to repaint my dad’s classic cars.

I can post a photo of my cars if you want, but I found this on the web:
eBay Link
This eBay auction is for the same exact sleeper I have. Notice the all green body, and lighter (almost gold leaf) lettering.

Now compare that to the new (well new to me) Athearn car:
New Athearn
Notice the black roof, bright yellow lettering, and different car name.