When I was a young teen I had a small layout going on a 4x8 that my father had gotten built for me. I had a bunch if engines but my two favorite ones were a powered and dummy Conrail GP9 highnose combo that I just thought looked so cool. Well, when I grew up and left for the military the platform got stashed away but my beloved GP9’s got sold at a yard sell along with all the other stuff. [V]
Now that I’m getting back into the hobby I would like to restore as much of my old line as I can rememeber. I’ve done a few searches and all I can find is the GP9M with the short nose. [xx(] I don’t remember what the manufacturer was but I did buy a lot of Athearn back then so it might have been that, but more than likely it was like a model power or something cheap.
Can anyone help me out with trying to find this setup again. I checked E-pay and pay and pay and all they have is that DARN (sorry) short nose yucker?
I think what you had was an Athearn.My 1996 Walthers Catalog shows Athearn high hood Gp9’s both powered and dummy versions lettered for Conrail.The catalog number was 140-3160 for the powered version.One thing I can think of would be to put a “wanted” ad in MR or RMC. What Athearn called a GP9 was actually a GP7. Joe
If nothing else, you could get an undecorated engine, or a relatively plain engine from another road, and give it a Conrail paint job. The decals for Conrail should be readily available, and you might even be able to find a rattle-can of spray paint that’s close enough without having to go with an airbrush.
My guess is that Conrail never bought a “new” GP-9 high-hood, but ended up repainting them from roads it acquired. So, a re-badging would be completely in line with actual history.
An old Athearn GP9 had a non-prototypical wide hood to house its engine. I have a couple of these (dummies now) and also some Proto 2000’s. I took a photo of the two different models. The old Athearn is on the left. Both of these are Milwaukee Road. The old Athearn was from the early 1960’s, by the way, so newer models don’t necessarily look like this.
(EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to paste in the link the first time around.)
New model engines are much more efficient than old ones, by the way. There’s no point in looking for a dummy engine. You can get 2 powered engines for not much more. If you always plan to run them together, get one with sound and the other without to save a bit of money, and then you’ll really enjoy them once again.
By the way, both Trainworld (http://www.trainworld.com/) and M.B. Klein (http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/) sell out-of-production models like GP9’s for very good prices. If you’re willing to re-paint your engines, you can get these very cheaply.
YOUR OLD GP9 High Hood was probably an ealy ATHEARN diesel painted in many popular road colors of the period.
These were replaced by much better running Proto 2000 GP7 or 9’s (The Athearn was called a GP-9 but was actually a GP-7) no matter since they were nearly alike.
Both Proto and Atlas have made the GP-7/9 and most RR’S rebuilt theirs into low nosed versions, for better visibility.
Thanks Mister Beasley, that was some great advice, I never thought about just running two together under power…hmmmmm, which would equate to running longer trains. And who doesn
Athearn makes a very nice Geep. I also think the SD and GP-9’s are the best and my favorite locomotive. If you want to super detail it. look for a company called Details West and Detail Associates. They have a large array of detail parts for a geep. some pewter and some plastic.
Athearn SP Black Widow SD-9 (I couldn’t find the picture of my Geep-9)
Don,For your information.While dated that old GP7 seems to have a cult following…Outside of being a foot to wide that old gal is still a nice geep for its age.I see they are getting harder to come by at the local train shows while there is a glut of older P2K GP7/9s at $40.00-50.00.I seen many Atlas GP7s for $55.00-65.00.
my LTS has a stash of high nosed atlas GP9s and if im not mistaken a couple of them are conrail. they wont be open again until friday, but i can head over there and check out what theyve got if youd like.
Thanks Atomic, I’m not ready to buy just yet, but I’ll keep that in mind. In the mean time can you find out what manufacturer and prices for me? I’d appreciate it.
The GP9 offered by Walthers P2K division is great. I have a C&O version and it runs so quietly and calm, with nice LED’s installed and its DCC ready, but I haven’t seen a Conrail version of this engine. Good luck with your search.
I cannot answer AltoonaRailroader’s question directly but it does sound suspiciously that he is talking about one of Athearn’s GP9s; his topic, however, raises for me a question about this model from Athearn.
The only Athearn units I owned when I was an HO Gauger were some GP30 body shells which I had mounted over Hobbytown drives. Over the years, however, I encountered numerous references in the hobby press alluding to Athearn’s hoods being a scale foot too wide - seven feet instead of six feet. I never had an opportunity to observe this allusion until Atlas introduced their HO Scale offering in the mid-70’s when I did observe an Athearn (dummy) GP9 running in consist with one of Atlas’ new SD-units; the nonscale width of the hood became painfully observant in this situation.
As I understand it Athearn had acquired the dies for this GP9 with their acquistion of Globe Models in the late-50s - the Globe model was die-cast if I remember right; the size of the motors available at that time necessitated this wider hood - Cary Locomotive Works was forced to offer their die-cast body shell for this unit with an over-wide hood because Athearn continued to use a too-wide motor despite the fact that narrower frame motors had become available. I was not really aware that these things - GP9s - were still being offered; my question is this: did ole’ Uncle Irv (& Co.) ever redo the dies for this unit to reduce the hood width or is it still being offered with a one foot too wide hood?
R. T. POTEET,
None of the Athearn “wide-bodies” have never been “fixed”. For the ones that are the same, they may be replaced with Rail Power Products shells (didn’t RPP do SD9’s?) or all new tooling, but for any of the ol’ wide-bodies, they won’t fix them.
The Athearn GP30 tooling, BTW, was “lost” many years ago. IIRC, they cut another model into the dies. Likewise, the ol’ RDC tooling apparently broke shortly after the P1K RDC’s hit the market.
Paul,A lot of those wide bodies are no longer being made…Athearn no longer makes the hand rails for the GP7 or any metal hand rails per my inquiry 3-4 months ago…
I do suspect we will see a RTR SW1500 some day.
As we both know that GP30 was a big joke and was produce for a year.IMHO it should have never been produce even tho’ I owned two of those units in the mid 60s.
It wasn’t until several years later after I sold off my two GP30/Hobbytown lokes that I learned that the GP30 had an offset cab which was lacking on the Athearn model; I do know that the individual who purchased my units eventually discarded the GP30s and put GP35 bodies on them.
