i’ve discovered that all atlas diesels arent created equal! trying to run powered units together without too much variance. i always thought that if the 2 or 3 diesels were made by the same builder, that they would most likley run together. i have 3 sets of likelike fa’s, bought at different times that run ok together. my gp 35 and b36-7 atlas locos dont mate well. i thought they would. so my question is…will my b36-7, made in 2001, mate with a b23-7 made in 2005? they look identical. the b 36-7 has a nice bright headlight and runs perfect, and i would like a mate for it. thanks…
I seem to be the only one that knows how to do this; I have tackled this subject before and I will do it again.
Determine the relative speeds of the locomotives you wish to mate together and arrange them in the inverse order of their speeds i. e. slowest loke leading the pack–fastest loke trailing the pack. You have to establish a setting on your power supply and adhere to it. Hook this fasterst unit to a train, crank your power supply up to the established setting and see what happens. If the train gains on the next fastest locomotive start adding cars and continue adding cars until the next-to-fastest locomotive is now faster than your train. Hook this next-to-fastest locomotive to the front coupler of the locomotive currently pulling the train, crank your power supply back up and start adding cars until you have repeated the step with what has now become the next-to-fastest locomotive. When you finally have joined the last locomotive to the string add one more car–a caboose is a perfect addition here if you are still using them!
What you are, in effect, doing here is continuing to add weight to the train to slow it down. When it has slowed to less than the speed of the locomotive in front of it then you are going to add that locomotive to the consist and effectively turning it into a helper.
I need to add a word of caution; if when you couple that first locomotive to your train it runs slower than the locomotive in front of you then you need to start removing cars until your train begins to gain on that locomotive in front. When that occurs you are going to want to add a car in order to slow the train down to where it is just barely running slower than the uncoupled locomotive.
Just out of curiousity I once coupled three Cary/Mantua Mikados up to one DC power pack and pulled eighty-six cars. I also have used it to make Kato and Atlas N-Scale engines run together although in that regard all of the lokes involved must r
i can do that, i like long trains anyway. i have 2 mkt atlas gp 40s that run really close to each other but they were, i believe, made at the same time. many thanks…
Becareful!!! The newer Atlas locomotives have the slow speed motors and can’t run with the older Atlas locomotives.
Soultion short of DCC is to operate the older Atlas engines together and the slow mos together.
So you see Atlas locomotives are created equal if one understands the different style of motors Atlas uses.
If an engine is running really slow, it’s more likely because of the lightboard than the motor.
Atlas (and many other manufacturer’s) engines built in the last 10 years or so have a green lightboard that allows the engine to have constant lighting and automatically-reversing headlights. Power from the wheel pickups goes to the lightboard first; it sends the first X volts of power to the lights, so the engine will sit still with the headlight on until you put more than X volts of power on the track. Only the power over X amt is applied to the motor.
If you remove the lightboard and hardwire the motor and headlight connections, the engine will start on less power and run faster.
You could wire a small pot in series with one of the leads to the motor. That will allow some tweakage…
David B
i’ll eventually find another engine to run with my b 36-7. i only paid 30 bucks for it brand new on ebay. it runs slower than the gp 35s, although they run just fine also. i have started to go to the atlas website looking at the past releases. i can then tell when each engine was made and if from the same batch. that should help, right??? i have to order everything, no hobbyshop to test these things out…
Keep in mind that locos change their behaviour over time…
David B
will do david, thanks…