Sheldon,
They were the Atheran RS3s. While they did look good, neither one ran particularly well. The only Genenis I ever owned was a 2-8-2 Mike, which did run smoothly but bent a side rod 2 or 3 times before I ended up giving it away.
I would be willing to try a Genesis diesel but they don’t currently offer anything that interests me, or fits into my early 40s freight layout scheme.
Tom
I was just wondering. My RS-3’s run fine, but I have heard others say they had problems with them.
As I said, I only have them and Genesis F units for my 1954 time frame - those new fangled diesels - all look the same to me…
Sheldon
I have several Intermountain ES44s, and am quite happy with them. They have some little issues (truck sideframes and duel tank aren’t that well done), but overall they’re very nice models, and they seem to run well. The Loksound is fantastic as well, though as others have noted, you can always install that (and LEDs while you’re at it) in the Athearn model.
The Athearns are really nice detail-wise, especially with all that underframe plumbing (and much better truck sideframes), but they do have a major limitation: because Athearn made them from modifying the old Tower 55 tooling, they only represent early phase production units, and even then only a few variations.
As a CN modeller, there’s nothing for me - they didn’t do CN units, and the versions they did do wouldn’t be correct if repainted for CN. Same applies for some other versions (like NS). Intermountain covered a lot more of this variation, including the unique cabs, front and rear ditch lights, and several other details for the CN and NS versions. The CN one had some faults still, but it’s pretty close.
Intermountain has also produced more recent production variations, which had different hood designs and other unique features, like the high rear headlight, PTC antenna arrays, and the new nose styles (door swapped sides, nose recess on NS, etc.)
Now the OP mentioned that he was looking at a BNSF loco, so he may wish to consider a few things. If all you care about is that it’s a BNSF GEVO, then the Athearn likely wins for detail, and you could add Loksound (though if you want the convenience of sound pre-installed, the Intermountain is still a great choice).
However, that Athearn unit is an early-production model with the black New Image (“swoosh”) logos. It’s also an ES44AC. Intermountain offers the following options for BNSF:
To add to my other reply: I wouldn’t worry too much about the visible wires to the trucks on the Intermountain. They’re hardly noticeable unless you’re looking right on eye level with the top of the trucks, and that can be minimized by painting the red wires black (so they don’t stand out so much) and maybe adjusting them a bit too so they’re less conspicuous.
As for coupler height, my Intermountain locos seem to be just fine. I can’t speak for the Athearns, though they’re likely alright. Remember though that Athearn also uses plastic McHenry couplers, while Intermountain uses Kadees.