I have never seen an Athearn RDC with anything but rubber band drive.
I have two I am going to power. One will have NWSL power truck. The second will be a power/trailer combo (A’la ATSF), and the lead power truck will be from an Athearn GP-35.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
Hopefully the small windows in the front will hide the Athean GP35 motor and power truck.
-Kevin
While it sounds crude, I made an adaptor for an Athearn switcher truck to fit inside a frame I had been given which had already been altered. I did try the same size wheels but it was too close to rail level and the darker underframe is not noticeable at regular viewing distance.
I have had a number of motors in it from the original Athearn motor turned on its side, a Mabuchi can motor, a vending machine motor and have had it running with a Canon motor driving the one truck. The Canon was/is best of all. It runs as well as the Proto I have - which looks silly on my curves- but closer to prototype speeds.
PM me if you think a photo might help,
Cheers From Australia
Trevor
Editor Railway Modeller Australia magazine
That’s an interesting idea. I think I have a few retired Athearn BB locos that I could try to repurpose to power one of my RDCs. It’s been a long time since I looked under the hood to see what it would take to do such a conversion. I’m thinking it should only be necessary to power one truck although picking up power from both trucks would make it less prone to stalling over unpowered frogs or dirty spots on the track.
When thinking about using a drive from a regular diesel loco, keep this in mind.
The prototype RDC truck has an 8’-6" wheelbase and 33" wheels, Athearn I believe used the correct wheelbase but with a 36" wheel from their passenger cars.
A Bloomberg diesel truck hasa 9’-0" wheelbase and 40" or larger wheels.
So transplanting the RDC sideframes to the diesel truck will be problematic.
Sheldon
That is exactly my plan. I also intend to add some roof details like perhaps a couple of EMD rectangular stacks and a winterization hatch in the F-Unit style.
EMD Made the 567 diesel in an 8 cylinder version. I think it would have one of those and be half of a GP-9!
Welcome to my world of nonsense!
-Kevin
I just received the P1K RDC I bought on ebay and now see how much the Athearn ones are shortened. I bought these on a whim at a train show and didn’t pay a lot for them but now have to decide if it is worth it to motorize them and add a decoder, especially now that I have a full sized one. Until I made the impulse buy, I hadn’t planned on having any RDC units. I’m thinking they could just run from the staging yard to my main passenger station and then back into staging.
What road name are your Athearn RDC’s? Let me know if they need a new home.
Yes, the Athearn RDC is about 72’, the prototype was 85’. The other spotting difference is the radiator housing on the roof. On the Prototype, and the correct length models, it is off center. The compressed Athearn model has it in the middle.
While I do have some 80’ heavyweight cars, I avoid 85’ passenger cars, even with my large curves. It would take 48" radius and another 500 sq ft to tempt me into 85’ passenger cars… I don’t see that happening.
The whole selective compression thing depends a lot on your goals, and the kind of scenery you build in my view. My layouts have mostly been built with most/much of the train viewing at 3-6 feet away.
A train of 72’ cars, on large curves, 6 feet away provides a bit of forced perspective…
Sheldon
My Athearn RDCs are both B&O. A dummy coach and powered combine. I disassembled the mechanisms on the powered unit to see what it would take to convert them to DCC but I should be able to put the parts back the way I got them.
I have three Athearn RDCs, and one Rapido RDC.
With my layout size, and curve radius, the Athearn models are better suited.
-Kevin
I model the B&O… And I would not mind a couple more RDC’s.
Sheldon
I can let you have them for just shipping costs since I don’t think I want to go to the trouble of remotoring them and adding a decoder. My layout room is a mess and I’m not sure where I have put them. I know the combine was disassembled when I was looking at options to remotor it. I can leave it like that or reassemble it. I’m pretty sure it needs new rubber bands. Give me through the weekend to restore some order to the train room and I’ll get back to you.
OK, when your ready, send me a PM if that feature is still woring for you. If not, you can find me on Facebook easy enough.
Sheldon