I started up this one just for some conversation and curiosity.
Myself I feel I have pretty good equipment, I own several Athearn Blue Box units, alot of people consider these a lower life form but I have had some real good service from the ones I own, it takes a little work I have remotored, regareard and added coutnless details!! No, they are not as good as a P2K or a Kato, but these repowered units run very well and with the details they look nice too!! I really like the P2K’s I have !! Who could ask for more?? They are ultra smooth runners with great detail work and paint jobs, but you’ll spend 3X the price you would for a Athearn BB. I have only one Kato (AC4400CW), Great looks ultra smooth… one small thing I have noticed, tell me if you have noticed anything like this, Several of my Athearn BB units, SD9, U30C and U36C will out pull this unit up a hill!! Even though the Athearn’s are an entry level engines!!, I was a little suprised by the difference of ability between the two!! Whats your take on this(your experience)??
One more thing, I have a Last generation (yellow and white box) Atlas GP40 that is a quite poor performer, it stalls at low speeds and does not have near the pulling power as most STOCK Athearn BB units
Looks like you and I are on the same level. I have allot of the BB Athearns, they are great runners, a bit week on details, but can be spiced up with aftermarket parts to make them just as good as the expensive ones. Hard wiring the contacts direst to the motors helps them quiet down, and replacing the wheels with NWSL nickle silver helps allot. I have quite a few P2K’s too, great looking details and good pullers and quiet! We have to deal with the gears splitting in them, but it is a quick and easy fix! I bought a Kato about a year ago, and sold it the same week on ebay, nice looking paint and details, but week on pulling power. I am surprised about your older Atlas, I have several of these and they all run pretty good, yours might need a good cleaning on the contacts.
One you did not mention is the spectrum line of GP and other engines they make, I have been buying those for about 6 months now, And wow! Great runners! a bit weak on details, but good low speed response and heavy like the P2k’s! I’ve got a freind of mine who has quite a few Broadway Limited’s! There nice looking, and good runners, but the price is way out there, I’ll pass on those for now!
ICRR1964, what do you mean by hard wirng the contacts direct to the motors? I have a BB that just last week I put a decoder in. I still have the puppy open (waiting on LED) and would like understand this before closing her up.
Hard wiring; there is a long flat metal clip on Athearn BB units that runs from each power truck over the motor, remove this and solder a wire in place of it, makes a real improvement in electrical pickup and cuts down on noise too. PS I will try to post a Pic later tonight if no one else gets to it first.
In N-scale, there is definitely a difference related to what you pay. Kato, Atlas and Intermountain are the higher end (short of the new entries with sound), and they generally run well right out of the box. As a result, the bulk of my fleet is Kato and Atlas with 2 pairs of IM FTs.
Still, I have three sets of LifeLike FA2/FB2 combos. I had to re-wheel them since the flanges were too large. The replacement process is a snap. Decoder installation is not plug n play, although not extremely difficult. Their claim to fame (other than being the only FA2/FB2s I can find) are that they will pull my refrigerator. Very heavy for N-scale locos. Of course, these aren’t “cheap” but compared to the Katos and Atlases, they are the lower end. Well, they were cheap in this case since I bought them from a hobby shop that was getting out of the model railroad business.
I use to be in HO, and I think Athearn BB are much the same way. They sure aren’t fancy, they sure aren’t quiet, they aren’t the smoothest at low speeds, but they are easy to work on, upgradeable and tend to have some pull to them.
There are certainly some lower-priced workhorses out there. These are often worth the effort to keep on the roster.
Back 30 years ago, the basic Athearn BB engine was what most of my ‘fleet’ consisted of(F7/GP9/SD9). All had the ‘sintered’ iron wheels replaced with Jay Bee N/S ones, the motor was ‘hard wired’ and the gear trains were cleaned up/adjusted. They ran very good, but when the new Atlas RS3/RSD5/RS1’s came out I sort of ‘Alco-ized’ the fleet.
What many folks seem to fail to understand is that there really is nothing ‘wrong’ with the basic Athearn BB engine. What has changed is:
o - New technology is available(both appearance and drives)
o - Modelers now seem to be more picky about road specific details
o - Many modelers want ‘RTR’ and then complain that a certain road specific detail is
not on a model(they just do not do a lot of detailing/painting any more).
Time move forward. As much as I liked my ‘detailed/painted’ fleet of Athearns 20-30 years ago, I sold off the ‘fleet’ in the late 90’s and now have a nice fleet of correctly painted/detailed Atlas/P2K/Kato engines. I have even gotten into ‘steam’ since good running BLI/P2K/Spectrum steamers have become available. I still have one old Athearn BB GP35(WSOR) in the display case. The engine has an old Digitrax DH140 decoder and working ditch lights. With a good paint job, and the usual ‘mods’, it ran at the club show and no one seemed to notice the ‘fat’ body(it was running by itself), and since the gears were cleaned up - no Athearn ‘growl’.
Athearn is the best bang for your buck specificly the b-b kit. i have a gp38-2 that has slow speed running almost as good as atlas sure it has the famous “growl” but for the price who cares? mine has a stamp on the box (from the LHS) it says $27.50, thats cheap, written on the box is Jan. 1994. so it’ll be 12 yrs. old in a few months. if that ain’t value i don’t know what is. the details are okay (i’m not a rivet counter) i think it looks good and mine is missing the handrails and number boards!
To reply about your Kato Ac4400 not pulling as well as some other engines, I have noticed this on mine, too. It is becuase these locos. are very light compared to many others. I think that is due to the fact that the fuel tank ( which is usually a solid chunk of metal, and therefore makes up a good bit of an engine’s wieght ) is hollow on these units in order to make room for installing a speaker for a DCC sound system.
I should look into that, I know it’s a little light, and to tell you the truth i never thought of putting the weight there!! I do know there is not much room for it else where. Thanks a heap !!! You may hav just saved this one from E-Bay
My history with Athearn is probably a little different than most of the people who populate this forum. I consider myself an experienced modeller, but one area that I truly hate doing and seem to have no success at is to modify (replace wheelsets, gearing, motors, etc.) a loco to make it run better. So, I need something to run great RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. I freelance, so I don’t care about railroad specific details or paint schemes. I also model the 1950’s, so there are no Genesis products except for their F7 and their steam which would interest me.
With that said, my first engines were rubber band drive Athearn’s from the late 1950’s. They had brass wheels and were fairly heavy and really didn’t run too badly.
Then Athearn went with the ‘sintered’ metal wheels (which were dirt magnets), lightened up on the weight and went with much cheaper motors. To me, the trainmaster, GP-7/9, S-12, etc. were oversized pieces of junk that weren’t worth the price, no matter how cheap. They didn’t run any better out of the box than a Tyco. I understand they have made some improvements with the wheels and motors, but the body tooling is still from the 1950-60’s. So there are still no Athearn locos on my wish list.
Along came Atlas, Stewart and P2K and my problems were solved. They were great out of the box, came in many styles of the 50’s and were properly scaled and detailed.
I could find P2K locos in the $29.95-$39.95 range and Stewart and Atlas engines at 20% or more off list price. So, for me, these engines are so much better a bargain than Athearn Blue Box. I felt as though I was throwing my money away by purchasing an Athearn that wouldn’t run at switching speeds no matter what I did.
Now, I have heard that some of the new modern Genesis is great and many modellers love them. But, as they are with the exception of the F7 all modern engines, that is of no benefit to me. I see Athearn is finally coming out with a new milk car. I believe it’s the first steam er
joey, what you say is true. I’ve found my friend’s LL Starter Set Quality (i.e. not so good)loco can make it up my notorious 10% grade without any difficulty period! Its amazing! Like the LL, my older locos that I bought used can make it up the hill. However, my newer higher quality locos can’t make it at all! Thankk goodness that grade is on a branch. Go figure.
Kato & Atlas make great locomotives.
I have seen all kinds in actions on layouts but I still prefer Athearn.
Eight of ten locomotives I bought this year were Athearn.
Half BB the other half RTR. The 2 non-Athearn were Proto 2000.
I’ve said this in other posts I prefer Athearn because they are durable & I want my kids to be able to enjoy my hobby without the constant nagging or freaking out from me when they go you pick a locomotive up.
I do have some that I will freak out over but I those will be kept out of site unless I"m around.
I think a couple of BB F units will suffice for them!
Athearn are great for kitbashing and are durable runners.The new RTR locos have astounding paint jobs and the drive is quieter due to the hexed drivelines.Still need to add DCC plugs to some of thier line.Kato have the best drive but have oversize details.Protos shells are awesome but the driveline is lacking.Too many gear ratios.Atlas are my favorite locos.Great details,motor and paint.Top shelf stuff.Dan
i like my atlas U33C it has a huge motor ,large weights that surrond the worm housing and it is quiet. but atlas can cost well over $100 but the athearn rtr cost only $65 for a moden diesel. i can’t see spending the extra amount beacause athearns are extremely reliable. i have seen BRAND NEW athearn GP38-2 b-b kits for $30 ,as i stated earlier my old b-b is nearly 12yrs old and still going strong.
Its funny, I swore by Athearn when I first started “serious” modeling. I still have my first Blue Box U28C that I got for a birthday present almost 30 years ago, and it still runs fine. I have a couple othe BB Athearns as well. In the last 10 years, most of my loco purchases have been LL P2K, a few Atlas (have an older Atlas as well), and lately, BLI. My main reason is these locos have come decorated for the RR I model, the Burlington. I was happy to get some more Athearn’s on my roster when they came out with the Genesis F3/F7!
I am happy with my roster, my biggest problem that I had to overcome (not cured completely by the way) is wanting everything that came out in the last 2 years for the “Q”. Unfortunately the Chief Financial Officer (wife) has forced me to make choices, it was nescessary, but look at all the good stuff.
Finally, as I alluded to in the first sentance, Athearn got me into this hobby for good. Yes, compared with the new offerings some of the BB stuff pales, but to a kid, these things looked like the real McCoy. Happy Thanksgiving
I got some of the older rubber band drive units, these were great in the day they were new, but don’t let them sit around to long, the bands would rot and brake then! The first generation gear drives Athearn had were terrible, they had a dual worm drive that was in the lower truck assembly, which was drove by a large face gear. I have a couple of these that sit on the shelf. Man were they noisy! Athearn made allot of metal side frames for loco’s that had a bronze inner bearing these would run good, almost better than the square axle bearings we have now, one draw back though! dont get any oil in these bearings, you would lose some electrical pickup and start stalling in curves and switches. There are several cheap mods that you can do to Athearn BB loco’s that make them run better.
if you cannot afford new NWSL or Jaybee wheels, poli***hem using a Dremel tool with a wire brass rotor brush, makes them pick up power better, and cut down on dirt picking up.
Hard wire the loco. take the shinny clip of the top of the motor and cut the ends off so it just hangs about a 1/8 of an inch off each end of the motor, solder 2 wires from this cut down clip then. One to the front truck, one to the back truck then. Do not solder the wire to the clip with it snapped on to motor! Melt down will happen.
Remove motor from frame, and check endplay of shafts, it should only have about 5 to 8 thousands of an inch free play back and forth. Use new thrust washers to adjust end play, it will quiet down somewhat!
Remove trucks from frame and polihe small area on frame where power is picked up, and also polihe metal tab on truck that contacks this area on frame.
5.Before reinstalling motor, make sure the copper contacts that touch the bottom of frame are making good contact, adjust for best contact.
6.Disassembel trucks and check gears for burrs and flash, new ones have it some times. The trick here is to have no binds catches at all, use a small
since i don’t model diesels this is asked just out of curiousity
after you buy a BB kit , remotor , regear , add details , change wheels etc. how does the total price compare with a RTR atlas/p2k/kato engine ?
i understand it’s not all about price , that the satisfaction of building a kit so that it’s a good running strong puller is worth many many dollars and hours of fun tinkering and fine tuning . ICRR964’s tips are great , obviously he’s done this a few times !
erimer asks:after you buy a BB kit , remotor , regear , add details , change wheels etc. how does the total price compare with a RTR atlas/p2k/kato engine ?
Only those that are unschooled or believe everything the so called “experts” say add all of those items you mention.All I do to my Athearn engines is hard wire the motor pickup,oil around and break the engine in.I also add 4-6 pieces of stick on weight…This helps quiet the shell chatter.
I have yet to re-motor an Athearn, but the regearing cost me about $6 all the details are cheap and you can do it for less than $10.00 bucks… or even cheaper if you use short peices of Wire for MU hoses and and Cables. For me the best thing about modeling is actually doing things yourself( from scratch when you can ). Anyone can go out and buy a prototypical Loco… but I like to build it myself. Spending alot of money on a Loco does not gaurantee you will have a great Loco when you take it out of the box, but doing it yourself will and you will most likely have done it cheaper!!