Yesterday I recieved an Atlas GP40 in the mail. It’s one made by Roco. It had a little internal damage and the rear drive shaft liked to fall out but that is fixed now and it runs very well. It’s about as noisy as some of the better Athearn BB locos. The detail is nothing to write home about, about the same as Athearn and it has an Athearn style drive, not that I’m complaining. I only paid $20 for it. The handrails are all intact and it runs like a champ. I would like to know about how old it is. If it helps it has nylon worm gears.
I know this model was around when I started seriously modelling in the early 80s, never owned one but saw pix of them. I’m guessing it’s around 25? I have an SD35 of the same build type. The detailing on the accompanying GP38 model was even worse, their idea of what a GP38 was meant it was missing access doors.
The Atlas (Roco) GP-40’s were first advertised in Dec 1975, so that unit could be over 30 years old. These were among the first correct width hood units that were made and forced Athearn to come up with their correct width hood units.
My exprience with these units is that they were very smooth running, much more so than the Athearn Blue Box units. You may have a cracked gear in one of the trucks. At the hobby shop I worked at we had one running all the time the shop was open for over a year before we hade to replace the wheel wiper pickups. That is about the only thing that ever went wrong with these units. The main thing was the bad looking fuel tank, one could mill it down and cover it with a current Atlas GP-40 Tank.
I have that exact same locomotive and I purchased it brand new in 1984 at a hobby shop in San Francisco for $45.00. It still runs like a champ and has never given me a single problem.
OK, that gives me a good indication of it’s age. Since it’s such a good runner it’s going to be in line for a decoder. It was a real trick installing Kadee couplers on it but I did it.
As I recall, the early Atlas units were fairly much “bomb proof” with their only “achilles heel” if you will, the insulated wheels which had a relatively weak bushing from the axle causing the wheels to run out of gauge or untrue depending on the damage to the bush. Hopefully this will not be a problem to you.
It should be fairly straight forward to turn up another in a form of plastic if you need to.
Enjoy your unit Jeff, hope it gives you many years of trouble free service,
A modeler on another site went 5through many back issues of ‘Model Railroad Craftsman’ to find it but he finally found the information I was lookin for. It seems that Atlas released the GP40 in two runs, the first in the mid 70’s (Their first venture in HO) and the second sometime in the 80’s. He says the main difference between the two runs is the number of flywheels. The earlier run has two flywheels while the later run has one. My unit has two flywheels so it appears that it’s from the first run. That makes it the same age as my oldest Bachmann loco which is also a GP40, but unlike the Atlas unit, it’s been completely rebuilt to keep it running.
I have a Santa Fe “Blue Bonnet” HO Atlas GP-40 that I got for $15 in 1978 from a fellow student in high school. Equipped with twin flywheels. Other than needing lubrication it still runs remarkably smooth and crawls at about 3 smph. The old saying "Runs like an Atlas" has very good merit.[C):-)][tup]
Had planned on stripping and repainting the shell into SCL, but have decided to leave the original paint job intact. I do plan on installing LED lights, filling in the annoying gap in the “split” fuel tank, and adding some minor detailing to the body and underframe.
Jeffery,what coupler did you use (KaDee) and what did you do to install it.I have a SD35 and my buddy has both the 40 and a 38 that we want to convert the couplers on.
I don’t know what Jeffery used but I have always widened the coupler pocket out so it would accept the Kadee #7 with the ear filed off. It has an offset head that raises the coupler to the proper height to match the Kadee guage.
I simply pulled out the pins that held the horn-hooks in then flattened out two brass Kadee centering springs, cut them in half and tossed the piece with the hole in it. I then made a hole in the remaining pieces no bigger than the pin that held the old couplers in. I placed a Kadee #5 in the position the horn-hook had been in, placed the flattened piece of brass on top then pushed the pin into position. I pushed it in enough so that the coupler can move from side to side but can’t flop around. Be advised that since there’s no centering spring the coupler won’t self center. This doesn’t present a problem for me since I don’t do a lot of switching. I just couple the loco(s) to a string of cars and let it go.
The Atlas GP-40, SD-35, FP-7 and the SD-24 (irrc) were of a mid 1970s vintage, and were the Gold Standard of the day. They were one of the first mass produced diesels with scale width hoods, can motors, and dual flywheels.
Until the late 1980s, they commanded high prices, even on the secondary market, as they were very smooth runners and great pullers, that looked good.
I sold off most of mine, as they were the ONLY GP-40 available (I modeled Chessie then in HO and still do now, in O scale) until Atheran brought out their GP-40-2 in the early 90s.
I took care of the split in the fuel tank on my SD35 by simply using a piece of tape then painting it black. Not the most effective method but looked better than it originally did. Still was shaped wrong though. The wheelset on this engine fell apart for some reason and it really couldn’t run anymore, but it was always a favorite of mine as I liked the detailing and the correct dimensions on it. As I said, I didn’t care for the looks of the GP38 as they cut off the first engine access door and it was very noticable.
I got another Atlas loco in the mail this morning. Same type, Roco/Atlas GP40, Rio Grande #3045 with snow plow attached and Kadee couplers installed. This one won’t be repainted per say but it will be patched for the L&A Railway. It did need one minor repair. The rear truck was falling apart. Upon inspection I found that the locking tab had broken off. After making sure that everything in the truck was clean and in it’s proper place I installed the cover as it should be and put a dab of Super Glue gel where the locking tab should be. The gel won’t leech into surrounding parts like regular Super Glue will and is easier to remove if need be.
I have said it time and time again, Atlas has the best loco’s (even though this one was made by Roco). But just think, there are still some real GP-40’s out there earning thier keep for railroads. Mostly GP 40-2 but some of the original GP-40 too. I have been in this hobby for 20 years and ran them all, Bachmann, Athearn, Kato, IHC, BLI, and Atlas… Atlas is number one in my book. If I had to give a good runner up it would have to go to BLI. I have been buying some of thier locos as of late and they seem to be very reliable just like Atlas.
