Hello all! I have been away from my trais for at least 20 years now. I went down in my basement to look over some of my old things and found an Athearn SD-9 model. On the box it was labeled A " Hi-Fi " series. It has a rubber band drive and is, quite frankly, kind of funky looking. Does anybody remember these?
Everywherewest
Are you SURE it says “Hi-Fi”? I remember those as “Hi-F” the “F” stood for friction. I have a much later vintage SD-9 (about 1988 or so) and it has the standard Athearn Blue Box driver (modified with a DCC decoder).
Cheers,
Ed Briley
Independence, MO
Hi ED,
I have the original box, it is yellow with red lettering. On the end of the box it says Freight series. It is a GP-9( sorry if If I said SD-9). My eyes are going bad, it says Hi-F powered.
I don’t think Athearn ever made a SD 9 with rubber band drive…As I can remeber the RDC, F 7 and GP 9 where the only rubber band drives maybe their GP 30…I had one with regular gear drive…Cox 47
Yes those HI-FI GP7s was the pits due the the rubber bands breaking…A lot of the Guys back then would use a double shaft Pitman motor and small rubber bands that look “O” rings while other modelers would use the Hobbytown drive for the Athearn GP7…Athearn still stocks the HI-FI rubber bands.
The “Hustler” switcher and, if memory serves, the first release of the Boston & Maine 4-6-2 were also Hi-F rubber band drive. I had a rubber band drive F unit as a kid, circa 1965. It pulled surprisingly well. It did not move smoothly at slow speeds. It was noisy. But it was surprisingly cheap, $3.98 from America’s Hobby Center. And I found that the rubber bands that my sister got for her braces were even better than the ones that came with the engine.
Dave Nelson
‘Hi F’ drives were all rubber band drives that ran like stink and took 1 amp to 2 amps to overcome friction & start. They sold for $10 - $15 and required an extra wide body’s for the motor, and came with horn hook couplers. They were the ‘default’ F-7 HO drives of the day.
Were superceded by Atlas / Kato GP-7’s and Stewar/Kato F-7’s which looked and ran much better. 4 units could run on the same power as 1 Hi F, and pull 4X as much. Today Atlas GP-7 and Proto 2000 F-9 Geeps are the ones to look for, and the old Atlas/Stewart/Kato’s F-7’s show up on E Bay. I have each but don’t mix them due to different gearing, etc.
I do. The hustler was notoriously famous for its rubberband drive and was sometimes discussion in MR articles. Its top speed was maybe 400 smph.
Ernst made regearing kits and made a gear conversion for the hustler.
The early RDC was a small motor/gear drive but the new one was rubber band.
Ernst made a regear also for it.
My Hustler is getting converted to a single truck electric freight engine.
A new body was/is available for the hustler to make it a box cab diesel.
I have a number of these in my collection. Pretty much everything that’s been said above is true. I actually installed DCC decoders in a couple of these things, and discovered that they didn’t work well enough to merit a place on my layout. They would not run at reasonable speeds, but would fly around the layout so fast that they could actually fly off the tracks on a sharp curve. I pulled out the decoders and put them elsewhere.
I’m thinking of the Ernst re-gear option for my Hustler. I took the GP-9 and F-7 apart, removed the motors and drive mechanisms, installed Kadees and spruced them up a bit, and now they run as “honorary” dummy engines in consists.
I have an Athearn RDC that has been in my collection from the earliest days of my layout.
Still planning to run it now that Im thinking on converting to DCC. Might try something different with the rubber bands though. Might see if I can obtain some CD player drive belts and use those instead.
James
The RDCs had Hi-Fi rubber band drive - and they really do go like stink. ANd then kill the throttle - the RDC will stop and snap back against the rubber bands with a jerk hard enough to throw any passengers on board back to the station they came from.
But in the early days when they offered both gear drive and Hi-Fi drive options, the Hi-Fi versions had a distinct advantage. They had all-wheel pickup, both sides of both trucks on a typical diesel. The early gear drives only had eg 4 wheel pickup, right hand side of one truck and left hand side of the other. Newer Athearn of course is gear drive AND all-wheel pickup.
–Randy
ATHEARN HI-F DRIVES were designed some 50 years ago , The shells they came in have outlived the drives.
I THINK spending money to convert them to DCC is a waste. For starters, the motors pulled too many amps. A PPW chasis brings it in line with todays Atlas and Kato **.**25 amp products, and makes it worth worth ‘DCC’- ing.
http://www.ppw-aline.com/custom_built_chassis.htm
If you want to keep them to use ‘on-the-cheap’, go ahead - but best to lay-in a supply of rubber bands. If ONE goes, the engine cannot overcome.