I am considering purchasing 3 of these coaches and 1 cab car and was wondering what everyone had to say about quality. My last purchase from the Athearn RTR line didn’t go so well[:(!]. I purchased a Dash 9 in the BNSF “Swoosh” scheme and the paint chipped off the handrails, one of the pickup wires from the trucks came unsodered, and the motor became rather noisy within 2 months (and yes, I am gentile with my equipment). Now, I know rolling stock can’t have the electrical problems that the locomotives do, but I was wondering if there was any other common flaws I should know about.
Mine are 3-4 years old, don’t know if the moels have changed since then. I have a 4x8, so they will only negotiate the outer 22" dia loop. Prone to derailments. They are way too light and don’t have interiors or lighting. Adding interiors, passengers, and lighting should bring them up to weight and help with derailments (all wheels ARE in gauge and trucks are free to swing) I’ve seen better couplers (KD’s) so they will get changed out if I ever get the new layout with 24-30" min radius’!! Untill then, they are “running” in a storage box!! They do look good, so [tup][tdn][%-)]
I have 24 of those Bombardier cars, some from every run of them that Athearn put out so I would call myself an expert on them. They don’t like small radius corners, Lou’s 22" corners are way to small for them and that is why his derail. The diaphragms are spring loaded and tend to bind up and push cars off the rails on small radius corners. You can file some of the BACK SIDE of the diaphragms and that will give you a little more clearance. Adding longer couplers will also give you more clearance. Personally I think they look wrong with long couplers, I prefer them nice and tight. I installed #5 Kadee couplers on all of mine and that brings the cars closer together to give them a over all better and more realistic appearance. Lou may need to take another look at his, all of the Bombardier cars have interiors. They were never produced without them. They come apart very easily if you choose to add passengers. Your going to have to take them apart anyways because the trick to getting them to run perfect is adding weight. I’ve added 2 ounces of weight to each car and now they are flawless. Pushing or being pulled they simply don’t derail. I run a GO Train set at train shows and they will run all day long with no derailing issues on my club layout. You need to be honest with yourself if you plan on purchasing a set. If you don’t have at least 30" corners then stay away from them because they will give you nothing but grief. That’s why I have so many, people got fed up with trying to get theirs to run on a small radius corners so I got them cheap. If you have nice big 30" or more corners then your going to really like them. The paint is very durable on the cars and I’ve never had any issues with chipped paint.
I should have added that two of my cars are undecorated kits that I plan on doing up in advertising cars. They are very cheap to purchase if you look around and are handy with an airbrush. The kits obviously have the same issues as the RTR’s.
TA462 - Dave, I stand corrected!! I just dug them out to see - I didn’t remember the interiors[:I] Where did you add the weight, and did you light them? If you did light them, how? Thanks [:)]
EDIT: and that’s why you read all the posts beforehand. TA is right, look better with tight coupling. They run better with long. your choice. But I had to put longers on, I couldn’t even get them to track on 30-36" consistantly otherwise.
They are cool though. I have the TREs behind an IHC Bicentennial GG1
Where did you put the weight? I tried it over the trucks, throughout, nothing made any difference to me.
I’ve tried adding weight everywhere, over the trucks, in the middle, in both areas and on the roof. I’ve settled on installing 1 ounce stick on wheels weights on the roof as close to the back as possible. If you take one apart you will see there just isn’t any room for weight in them except at the very back on the roof. I tried using lead shot between the seats over the trucks on the lower level but I had to glue in a lot of them to equal an ounce. I’ve found that as long as the weight is there it really doesn’t matter were it is. I’ve ordered 500 passengers, thats all I can afford for now, I’ll weigh them before I glue them in and see how many it takes to equal two ounces. Realisticaly I’m probably going to need another 3000 or more to fill up the cars. I can’t believe how expensive people are to buy.
I’ve purchased a couple sets of Rapido’s lighting system just to see how difficult it will be to light them. The problem that I think I’m going to have is just the amount of room inside, there isn’t any. I’ve played around with one a little bit but it seems impossible to hide the lights from anyone that looks inside the windows. The top level I might be able to do but the bottom level I’m not so sure. I was thinking about maybe installing a couple battery’s where I installed the weight and using LEDs for lights. That idea seems to be the better way. Once I get my people I’ll probably try to do one. If I can hide the lights to my satisfaction I’ll post some pictures on how I did it to give you a better idea.
I have 3 of the Athearn Bombardier Bi-Level cars and for the most part they run quite well on my layout. There are a couple of tight curves where the diaphragms bind which bug me. I am thinking of ways to eliminate the problem. Increasing the curve radius is not really possible in my layout, but thought I could either remove the diaphragms (would not look good), shave them on the inside as you suggested, or install longer couplers. I’m leaning toward installing longer couplers - just enough to stop the binding. I figure a slightly longer distance between cars would look better than cars without diaphragms.
I have 5 ea Sounder, Metrolink 10yr anniversary and Caltrain with matching F59PHI’s. They run fine, look great and are cool modern passenger units. Ditto on the Radius, couplers etc. I’ve considered drawbar connections when I finish the layout’s passenger right-of-way.
My old layout in my last house, I had one curve, in a tunnel that was made using Atlas 22" radius snap track. Not once did any of my Athearn or Walthers cars derail in that curve, even going fast.
I would recommend Athearn to anyone, but this is my own opinion.