I have many older engines that I bought in the late 70’s early to mid 80’s and then had to store them for a long period of time due to being in the service and not having somewhere I could really set up and run a layout. Now that I can I have found that many of the engines I have the motors are either weak or DOA. I don’t want to turn them all into dummy units but looking at repowering them as well as updating them with DCC. Most of the equipment is either Athearn or AHM/Riverrossi. Any suggestions on motors and DCC equipment that I could use to install in the engines. They vary from Steam to Diesel. Thanks.
FOr the Athearns, it’s pretty easy. Alliance has repower kits for most every AThearn diesel ever made. http://www.alliancelink.com/alp/
The Rivarossi ones will be a bit more complex. If you have some of the REALLY oldones with the absurdly deep flanges, you’ll probably want to get them turned down as well so they run well on modern track. Around the late 60’s/early 70’s they changed to a different but still oversize flange that usually works ok. Newer production finally has proper size flanges.
–Randy
I don’t want to sound like a wet blanket, but since these are thirty to forty year old locomotives I think you will be time and money ahead to place them back in the box and store them in the far recesses of your attic or basement. The present day offerings are generally light years better than the best of what was available thirty years ago. If you are just getting back into the hobby you had better prepare yourself for sticker shock. Go out and buy a quality DCC system and a quality locomotive with a factory installed sound and motion decoder. Same applies to track, turnouts and rolling stock. Get the best that you can afford. Then, after your “hobby skills” have returned and you have a layout in progress you might amuse yourself some day by dragging those old locomotives out of the closet . I’ll bet, though, that when you compare them with the new stuff you will decide they are not worth the time and money to ugrade and back in the box they will go… Keep reading these Forums and you’ll quickly get a good idea of what, and what not, to buy.
Split Reduction.
I do have some of the really old units with the deep flanges on them, how or what is the best way to turn them down in order to run them on my layout? or am I doomed to run code 100 on the whole layout? I don’t have a lathe so I need some help on how to turn them down.
SteamDemon
Steam Demon.
Your handle may speak volumes about your tenacity. However, do you really love your “old” locomotives so much that you now want to turn down the “over sized” flanges so that they can operate “poorly” on code 83 and code 70 track- even though you don’t have a lath or any way to do it except maybe sandpaper and a file.
I am beginnig to suspect that your post is a gag and I got sucked into it.
Split Reduction - Do you know what it means?
Here are a couple links that address the pizza cutter wheel issue:
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/164871/1814577.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/138111/1543271.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/178728.aspx
I assume that we’re talking steam engines here. If you’re talking diesels with pizza cutter wheels, my personal opinion would be not to waste your time.
I, too, am returning after a hiatus of twenty plus years due to the demands of family and career. Now divorced and retired, I am getting back into the hobby, carefully removing the bubble-wrapped 6’-0" x 2’-6" sections of railroad, sporting handlaid code 83 and code 70 rail on Campbell Profile ties on homosote/1/2" plywood on "L-girders, and unpacking the dozen and a half brass Camelbacks collected over the years and preparing to re-motor and DCC/sound decoder them, one at a time until they’re all done.
Would you offer me the same advice? I’d rather change hobbies to say … I don’t know … counted cross stitch. I didn’t work hard, save pennies for a whole lot of years , look long periods of time for exactly the type and wheel arrangements of locomotives I wanted for on my freelanced prototype railroad that I’ve been developing for a couple of decades, just to be told I should now put them in boxes in the back of a dark closet and buy some “they-all-look-alike-but-the-paint-scheme” diesel locomotive just because that’s what everyone else has! If you are telling me, as some self-appointed “Expert and Director of the Hobby,” that my choices have become that limited, I’d just as soon go up to the American Legion and join the “rest of the old farts” enjoying some adult beverages.
I have noticed that there is a tendancy to go R-T-R, rather than to build anything these days … the young guys don’t want to take the time to build anything. Personally, I see that as an effort to sidestep the reality that they don’t know how to build anything and a
It’s not a gag, just sentimental value for some of these engines, some were bought with hard earned money, others were gifts from my late father and uncle who both worked for the B&O and as such bought me many rolling stock and engines for my layout knowing my love for the Road. So for me it’s more a labor of love to bring them back than a cost issue for me. It takes me back to a time before I was in the service and seen and done what I did for 221/2 years in places I don’t want to ever go back to. But enough said about my service past, the issue for me is saving these engines and bringing them forward to run with newer equipment. I plan to buy newer equipment to run on the layout as well. Right now I am working on benchwork, but before I start laying track I am trying to find out what is my best bet when it comes to trackage issues.
I have 16 Steam Engines, and 12 Diesels that I am looking at in my collection. that’s alot of equipment to just write off. Sorry not trying to be rude, just a little sensitive about them.
SteamDemon
Ok I read your links you provided, and thank you for them, the question is would it be better to pull the wheels off and “file” them, if so could I use the diameter from a newer engine’s wheel such as Athrean or others as a go-no go gauge or is there a scale size I can translate using an outside micrometer to measure the flanges to make sure I don’t go too far? Since I am retired I have plenty of time just need the intel so I can move forward without wrecking them. Thanks,
SteamDemon
Nice to kow someone shares my views of being old school when it comes to building your layout. Half the fun is the labor of building and detailing equipment and buildings. I have many engines and rolling stock that I spent alot of time super detailing and weathering to get that look that I wanted from them. My biggest project was renumbering coal cars,I have 75 Athearn coal cars and they all had the same road number on them, so I spent alot of time remunbering them so that you don’t see a long coal drag with the same car zeroxed as it goes by.
When I got back into the hobby, I had boxes of trains that had been stored for 40 years. I, too, looked into resurrecting these old warhorses. It takes more than just motors. In all likelihood, the old wheels are pitted and corroded, and won’t make good contact. Then, these old engines have a well-deserved reputation as “meat grinders” for the sound the gear towers make.
Of the dozen or so engines that I carried with me all those years, only one worked well enough to get a decoder and actually stay on the layout. Forget about a sound decoder. This one sounds like a kitchen appliance, and after listening to it go once around the layout, I’m disappointed that I don’t get a pina colada for all my suffering.
Instead, I’ve turned two of them into dummies. The old F7 has a sound-only decoder and headlights, so it runs in a consist with an old shell that I put on a new chassis. If you really like the old engines, take a look at getting chassis replacements. You may have to do a bit of “body work” to get it to fit, but it’s an upgrade option that can give you the best of both worlds.
When I was looking for a re-motor kit for an old GP9, I came across a brand new one, out of production and on sale for less than the cost of just a motor kit. When I got it home, I immediately realized that I wanted a model railroad with great-looking, smooth-running engines. I wasn’t really interested in a nostalgic re-creation of my childhood layout, noisy engines and all. The old geep has Kadees and nothing else now, and maybe it will get a sound decoder of its own one of these days, but its days of doing the grunt work of pulling trains are over.
When I decided the time had come to once again get serious about the hobby, I still had “The Plan,” the three-ring binder with the whole thing laid out, the plan I had been fine-tuning for over thirty years, the railroad name, the history, the locale, the reason for being, the USGS maps, the locomotive classifications and the numbering system, the freight car classifications and that numbering system, the passenger car classifications and that numbering system, the MOW numbering system, etc.
Back in the early 1971, when “The Plan” was in its infant stages, motive power was determined to be Wooten fireboxed Camelacks, since the Lehigh Susquehanna & Western was to be a northeastern Pennsylvania Coal Hauler. I put my very first HO locomotive, a Varney F3 (from a Kix cereal box-top offer when I was seven) that I had put a single truck power conversion in and given an “8 year-old’s Pennsy brush paint job” on was put carefully in a box, where it rests today as a memento of where I started) and then my first locomotive purchase after saving for a long time was a Gem Reading I10sa Consolidation, in 1973, then a Reading A5a 0-4-0, then another, then a Reading B8a 0-6-0 … and the searching and buying continued. The most recent addition is an OMI Reading D-Class American. There are now 14 Wooten fireboxed Camelbacks and three rear-cabbed Wooten fireboxed locomotives on the roster, including a late 1940’s vintage Mantua hybrid brass w/ zamac cast boiler Reading G1sa Pacific that I have super detailed with dozens of Cal-Scale parts, on the current roster!
I am
Steam Demon
There are alternatives to replacing the older equipment. Almost everything can be re-motored and re-wheeled. Bowser, Greenway products are just a couple of places to get replacement drivers for your steamers. NWSN is another place for motor and drives. Fabrication and some machine shop metal working knowledge are in order. Replacing the drivers is more effective than to turning down the flanges of your older units. Most of the old pot metal used is not very conductive of electricity. A wheel puller, Quarterer, selection of good files, drill press(optional), Good screw drivers, drill and bits, measuring calipers, NMRA standards gauge, vise and excellent lighting is all you need. Some searching on the internet for tender and pilot/trailing wheels.
If I remember correctly Darth Santa Fe just did a thread on replacing drivers on a Rivarossi loco just a couple weeks ago. Yes it is the last link Maxman sent you.
Pete
As others have said above, there are sources for replacement drivers that you can purchase. I don’t know what you mean by “pulling the wheels off”. If you mean pulling each driver off its axle, then you get into re-quartering them.
But, you asked about using another wheel as a guide to what the contour is supposed to look like. And you mentioned a micrometer so it sounds like you’re familiar with precision measurement tools. If that is the case, you don’t need a sample wheel. All you need is what the dimensions are supposed to be. Here are a couple links to the NMRA website which contain the informat
Thank you for the links, yes I do have alot of experience with precision work so the use of micrometers and other refined measurement tools are common place for me. Now that I have some direction for repowering and getting the wheels fixed I am feeling much better about the resurection of my engines. it’s nice to know that there are those out there that have the same love for the hobby as I do and are willing to help when someone is in need of knowledge to overcome a problem. Steam Demon
Dear Steam demon, et all.
Sorry if I offended. What I was trying to say was, if you are just getting back into the hobby, you would be better off starting fresh and get your layout under way so you can enjoy running trains. After the initial phase and things have settled down, that is the time to bring out the old favorites and see what you can do with them. As for myself, I’ve been in the hobby since 1962. I’ve been a Conductor and railroad official for over thirty five years and am now retired. I have lots of time to spend on the hobby. I have some old 1960’s mantua and Bowser steam locomotives which I “super detailed” once upon a time. These old engines are precious to me, They bring back memories, but I am not going to try to upgrade them to today’s standards. I feel that I’ve better ways to spend my time. But, that is me. As you can see from numerous comments in this forum, there is a wealth of resources out there that will let a determined individual completely rebuilt any locomotive model. All it takes is a pile of money, desire and a great deal of patience.
Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Perhaps you are not planning on building a layout and running trains. Maybe your idea of model railroading enjoyment is rebuilding old locomotives. If that’s the case, you would not be alone in this hobby. Model railroading is supposed to be fun. So, what ever it is you plan to do I hope you enjoy doing it and let none be critical- myself included.
Split Reduction- Modeling the Milwaukee Road ( very little RTR ) in Western Wisconsin.
Dear Split-Reduction, Thank you for your reply and your genuine concern for the feelings of others about the older equipment. I am building a new layout as we speak and I am at a crossroad now in regards to which way to go when it comes to trackage. Either go code 100 or code 83, which is why I have been seeking out the knowledge of others who might be able to help me in this regards. I have bought some newer equipment for the layout and they are DCC ready and since I am installing a NCE system, I didn’t know if other have had much luck in being able to bring the old equipment up to date or if I was looking at a lost cause and having to rethink the whole DCC idea in order to be able to run my engines. I hav been in the hobby since the late 70s and I am still old school on someof the ways to build the layout, but always open t newer and better ways. Especially as the years add on you find yourself a little stiffer and not as nimble as you once were when we were 20 something. lol I would love to see any pictures of your older equipment if you ever get a chance to post them. I am not in a big rush to get everything updated or revamped overnight, but have a long term project to work on when there is down time on the layout. I a would like to thank everyone for the great help and advice you have provided me on this topic, any ideas or suggestions ar always appreciated. The more I learn, the better it is for me. Steam Demon
steamDemon if you are looking to repower the AHM S1 the IHC 2-10-2 will fit has rp25 flanges and is DCC ready in order to get the circut board in the vandy cut out the coal load and trim and fit the board most of the other AHM engines can be replaced with newer equipment in time HOPE this helps paul
Thanks, this will definately help, I appreciate any help on this.
SteamDemon,
Whether you use your older locomotives on your new layout regularly or not, it is best to take apart the drive train and re-lube all of the gears and other moving parts. You will need to use plastic compatible grease and oils.
Labelle Lubricants makes some fine plastic compatible lubricants. They have a wide variety for different applications. Some modelers use automatic transmission fluid with Dextron.