I was looking on eBay today at the n scale big boys and challengers made by Athearn and noticed that some of the models are marked as genesis by their sellers, and some aren’t. Normally I would figure that some were miss-marked as genesis (or non-genesis) online, and that the two variations are actually the same, but there is a significant price difference so I’m not sure. I know that the genesis line is Athearn’s high-end stuff so I would think that a model as expensive and complicated as the big boys and challengers would be included in that line, but most descriptions don’t seem to make a point of saying so.
Are the two options actually different or is it just inconsistent-labeling? And if they actually are different, which one is recommended?
It’s a mixture of that and the fact that most manufacturers have really bad backreferences to old products, so it’s difficult to actually find out anything.
even Model railroader is inconsistent, for the 2008 Athearn big boy they said it has 3oz of drawbar pull, but the 2013 Athearn big boy only has 1.6, how does that make sense??? Either one is more powerful (supporting the idea that there is indeed a genesis and non-genesis model) or Model railroaded is just inconsistent, which (based on their other reviews of near-identical products) seems more likely. It makes it very hard to cross-reference things to find out what you need to know
Interesting… drawbar pull is the one thing I never pay attention to. My maximum train length is 12 cars, with 6-8 being normal, so drawbar pull is not a concern of mine.
We should probably not get too far off topic before you get an answer.