I was reading the V&O story. Granted the book is 20 years old. But I did tend to agree with him on the point of keeping costs down by running pairs of powered & dummy locomotives on your trains. But from what I can see everything is powered these days.
My Proto 2000 engines, E8/9’s have one powered one non powered.
So I guess they still do them but that they are being extinct. The reason I heard about why they are diminishing is because of the small difference in cost in between powered and non powered.
Magnus
When looking for dummy locomotives, I’ll check out eBay or local listings to see if anything cheap is available, especially Athearn BB’s.
If they are powered & a road I’ll probably not use much I’ll switch the drivetrain out & put it into a loco I want to have powered turn.
Gordon
I model in N and a dummy is really pointless. Every bit of power you can put into these little guys helps smooth things out. There are even people that are using powered boxcars as cheater helpers in thier trains. The only reason I may add a dummy is to make room for sound, this would allow for a larger speaker. I would run two powered and one sound unit. Although some of the newer sound equiped units look like they still have plenty of pulling power, so maybe no dummy again.
Dummy locomotives come from an age where high-amp-draw locomotives ruled the roost. Having a few dummies in the consist allowed more trains to be run.
Now a-days, most locomotive offerings draw almost no current (think 0.05 amps) as opposed to .5 amps (typical Athearn draw). Hence, we have removed the need for dummy locomotives.
Another driving factor is cost. It doesnt cost the mfg any less to produce a dummy locomotive, it actually costs more. More because of the extra tooling required to produce the dummy parts.
David B
My problem is that with a layout without DCC, it isn’t easy to run two powered locomotives without burning one of them out.
Ah, I didn’t know the whole skinny. I was a kid when I used to see alot of dummies. If I remember right the dummy athearns were exactly the same build as the powered units. The just did not install the motor and drivetrain.
And I have never had the chance to use or witness DCC operation either. That was the other thing i was considering. On my fathers layout if you tried to run 2 powered units together invariably one engine would be pushing the other or break away and run off from the other. It seemed that no 2 locomotives moved at the same speed for some reason. Especially if you had an athearn and an atlas together. They just didn’t seem compatible
Huh? In all my years of model railroading, I have never, ever heard of a locomotive burning out because you are running 2 together in DC.
David B
yeah i never ruined an engine either, but they frequently didn’t play nice with eachother. why is that?
and how does dcc correct that issue?
I made a dummy out of a brand new Athearn SD40-2. Bought 6 powered, 5 accepted the DCC decoder with grace and run fine, the 6th did not. It is now a dummy.
Bob
Good example of making lemonade out of lemons. but for me only reasn to have dummies is to bulk up the roster for little $$$
David 2 of my Athearn GP38-2s or 2 SD40-2s or GP40-2s draws 1/2 amp…My newer Athearn RTR draws less a tad more then 2 Atlas locos.
As far as a dummy locomotive there is less cost…All they use is the frame,trucks and shell.
Say what!!!
I been running 2 -4 units together for years without burning up any motors.
I even have a Walthers GP15 that plays nice with my Athearn RTR CF7s and GP35s.
Athearn BB F7’s come one powered - one dummy in a set, I just got the A-A Minneapolis and St.Louis set. I’ll add a powered chassis to the other one and have them both powered and on DCC. They still make other dummies, I saw a CNW AC4400 dummy at the last flea market. A nice thing about a dummy is it has all the extras - handrails, window glazing etc. but without the motor. Stewart F units come in powered/dummy sets too.
Back when Athearn dummies were $9.99 each, you could have a nice running chassis and have a couple of different bodies you could use with it - handy if you like to change eras, or are changing the railroad you model.
As has been covered, under DC it’s often hard to get two engines to run together at the same speed without tinkering with gears or diodes etc. (although Atlas engines seem to be pretty good together). Running a dummy made it look like a prototype multi-unit consist.
This goes back at least to the Lionel Santa Fe F3’s back in the forties, those sets came with a powered A, a dummy A, and IIRC 4 passenger cars.
But now with DCC it’s really not that necessary, since it’s easy to speedmatch two or more engines to run together. About the only use now in HO anyway is to use say a dummy to hold a large speaker, like say a powered F7A and a dummy F7B behind it.
How much are your Atlas units drawing and what is it that they are drawing? I have a Rampmeter which measures amp draw within 0.01 of an amp (the ONLY way to measure DCC amp draw accurately) and all the Athearns I have tested (keep in mind that I work in a well known LTS and I have the opertunity to test new units out of the box all the time), test around the .5 of an amp mark. Typical Atlas locos draw less than 0.05 amps. That is a huge disparity between the Athearns and the Atlas locos. Either you got God’s gift to Athearn locomotives or you got horribly bummed out Atlas locos. I find as a rule that Athearn locos draw 10 times the current that Atlas and Katos draw (save the Genesis line…different motor).
David B
You can program how much voltage the motor recieves through the DCC decoder. Hence, you can make any make of locomotive run with and other make of locomotive.
David B
nice
A friend of mine makes custom engines for his private railroad, and he makes engines that are numbered with an even number powered, and an odd numbered engine is a dummy.
I prefer dummies, so I make my own.
I take an Atlas C424 Shell, and assemble it. Then, I buy a C424 frame, coupler boxes, and truck sets, and assemble them. Instant dummy that don’t cost a lot (approx $24). Now, I have an undecorated C424, of which I can paint in my own private paint scheme.
I run my trains with one dummy and one powered. I make my custom engines in pairs (i.e. 2 C30-7’s, B23-7’s, and so on) so that I can run the pair but not with the consequences of having each engine having a different speed.
I do wish that Athearn would make the RTR engines as dummies also, but it’s just as easy to take an Athearn motor out as to put one in. I have seen some very low prices on the RTR engines, so I can afford them. And, I can get a free motor if I want to take it out…
Phil
This is kinda off topic, but where did you get the book? I’ve looked everywhere, and can’t find it!