Now that DCC has come out and is common, are you less like to buy an dummy (unpowered) locomotive?
I have noticed that Athearn is not making much any more and am wondering if this is the reason why.
I believe in one type of dummy. These ones are used to help out with the layout. Very handy.
I only used powered locos. If I’m going to be running a consist, I might as well reduce the strain on each of the decoders.
With all of the consisting possibilities i see a dummy as a waste of money. My only reason to buy a dummy now would be to have the room for a video camera.[:D]
I can see only 1 type of dummy that I would like. Dummy units, especially F’s and E’s are great places to put sound units!
10-4 on that! With a streamlined carbody there’s plenty of room for premium sound as well as all of the special lighting effects. I’m only planning to do this with one of my dummy FP45s and one P2K E7B.
I’d rather have the majority of my small fleet to be powered.
(I plan on having a max of 25 units)
I sill use an occasional dummy here and there. As mentioned before they are good places to install sound. Before I went DCC I had a small fleet of dummies, that I put a lot of work into; weight, details, and painting. I would hate to just shelve them!
The salesman in the first LHS I ever went to asked me a question that formed my opinion of dummies: He said, “What function do they serve other than to make your train one car longer?” Ever since then I have collected all power units. The other guys have made a good arguement for sound, but otherwise…[#ditto] [#ditto] [tdn]
I guess then I am a dummy as I have alot of them. When I run a F7ABBA or ABA I don’t need all of them pulling. I enjoy the look, and have enough powered equipment. I also run GP9s that way 1 powered and 2 dummies. I also use a helper engine on one of my 50 car coal trains that is a dummy.
Oops! Forgot to mention that according to a dealer that I spoke to, Athearn is no longer making dummy locomotives. Makes sense though, as for a another $10 you can get a new powered P2K from a discounter internet dealer.
I don’t want this to be just a rumor, so the thing to do would be to e-mail Athearn directly and ask them.
I doubt DCC has anything to do with it since multiple powered units of the same type and manufaturer have no problem running together on either DC or DCC. My personal guess is that the manufacturing cost of a dummy has risen to the point (especially with today’s highly detailed diesels) where the difference really doesn’t make enough difference to sell them significantly cheaper than than powered units. In any case, the same chassis is used for a dummy as for a powered unit. My guess is that most of the cost of a Genesis unit is in the tooling to make the shells, separate detail parts and chassis.
That being said, I personally prefer that dummy units be available. An ABBA set of powered F units are overkill when it comes to handling most trains that would fit on even a large home layout. Ted York runs 4 unit F sets on his Cajon layout with 24 car freight trains and one or two 2-10-2 helpers. The F’s by themselves are more than capable of handling such a train even on the steepest portion of his layout, unless he guts some of the units of their mechanisms and uses them as spares.
Andre
In N scale, they’re a wizard place to put a sound decoder. 