Just bought an Athearn GP38-2 with a Christmas gift certificate. Tested it out, and it had this huge bulb in the cab but no headlight, no rear lights, or marker lights. Plenty of light in the cab, though.
My first impulse was to return it. But I figured all the Athearn GP38’s would be the same, and this is all I could afford. So I decided to install some lights. I’m sure there is a much more elegant way to do this but I have been in the hobby only since April 2010. I had 2 small bulbs, plenty of wire, and a soldering iron.
That is what we (on the forum & what not) refer to as a ‘Blue Box’ or ‘BB’ model. As it is a very simple Athearn mechanism. I’ll forgive dating it but it seems non-Y2K, if you know what I mean…
Although they can be built into nice models, (as you skillfully demonstrated) they seem aged in the technology department.
I have a lot of these, & hope to make them as nice someday, like you did.
Very nice job! You are a model RailRoader!!! Congrats!!!
Yep, that’s a blue box Athearn all right. I also did the brass tubing lamp holder in the long hood and placed the short hood lamp above a home made cab ceiling, to light the short hood markers and the head lamp. There is enough room above the ceiling for the classic 4 diode constant brightness circuit. I have three of the Athearn Gp38’s so fitted.
You don’t want the light to show thru the cab windows. Having a light in the cab after dark is like driving your car with the dome light on after dark. Nobody does that.
This looks more like one of the “interim” models as it has the delrin handrails and the seperate grab irons, sort of the transition between the basic Blue Box and the latest RTR versions. I have some of these, not BB and not the newest versions either, they came RTR in the new style box but the drive is basically the old BB kind.
Rule #1 seems to be that there is always “the exception” to rule #1
Good job! This is one of the ways you become a model railroader. You can also save more money if you don’t mind used or older equipment that can be upgraded.
I have run it. I don’t have much experience model railroading yet but it seems to have pretty decent low speed operation, and at higher speeds it moves right along fine…
It is noisy at low speeds. However, since I don’t have any sound in my locos, I kind of like it. After all, something that is supposed to be pretty large should make a noise.
And yes, I have lubed the loco. I call it “Scale Noise”
There are a couple of pics of the GP in the WPF thread.
