I’m thinking about converting an Athearn Blue Box N.Y.C. PA1 to a rubber band drive with an old model power motor. Has anyone done this? How do these drives perform at low and high speed, and if anyone has any history on these drives that would be much appreciated. Thanks!
You’re kidding, right?
Why would You want too?
Don’t go with rubber band drive. they had poor powering and poor motor to wheel energy transfer resulting in POOR PERFORMANCE. i would get a new motor, new flywheels and new drivetrain. that way you can upgrade to dcc if you wanted to and they also have way better performance then thr old rubber band drive.
Why do you want to go back 70 or more years in technological development?
You will have two speed options: fast and faster.
Mark
If you want good performance you can count on, DO NOT use rubber band drive. I have a few Athearn RDC’s that have rubberband drive, and they are sitting on the shelf looking as “pretty” as they can. I tried replacing the bands, but that was happening every TWO weeks. Even doing that, I wasn’t getting anywhere near the type of performance I wanted out of them. Invest your money on what the other posters have said, motors with flywheels, you will DEFINITELY get a whole lot more enjoyment out of them.
As I remember, the old Hi-F rubber band drives had two speeds. Dead stop and fly off the track! There was no such thing as slow speed operation and the pulling power was terrible.
He must be pulling our leg.
Joe
50, maybe 55 years. 60 tops. While they had their drawbacks, you have to admit that the rubber-band drive was one of the quietest drives Athearn ever put in a locomotive.
When I pulled my old trains out of the attic about 5 years ago, I had a couple of these things. I even put decoders in them. Then, I pulled the decoders back out, because, as we always say, if it doesn’t run well on DC, it won’t run well on DCC. I removed the motors, driveshafts and rubber bands, too, and now these are dummy engines. Believe me, that’s the best thing you can do with those old Hi-F drives.
Back when AThearn offered you the choice of rubber band or gear drive, the rubber band version had one big advantage - they were 8 wheel pickup, while the gear drive locos only picked up on one side of each truck. Eventually Athearn figured out how to get 8 wheel pickup AND use the gears.
My favorite rubber band loco was the RDC - somewhere north of 200mph top speed and if you killed the power it would slide to a stop and then snap back about 5 feet when the rubber band unwound. Death by whiplash for all the HO scale figures riding in it.
I take that back, my favorite rubber band drive loco wasn;t an Athearn, it was the Lionel HO ‘bumper car’ as I called it when I was little - HO version of the O-27 track maintenance vehicle that had big bumpers on it that made it reverse when it hit a track bumper. Very touchy - go too fast and it would bounce off the track when it hit the bumper, go too slow and it wouldn;t puch the switch and reverse.
–Randy
I’m not pulling your leg, I wainted some info and I’m glad I asked before I tried it. I didn’t know how bad they really were [:O] , I spoce I could beat the T.G.V. in the 1/4 mile. (sliding half the way [(-D] )
Thanks!
I have one here on loan, it is a RDC car. With what Randy said, I got to add a decoder! It all ready has a newer motor. Andrew (Simon 1966 son) is bring over his Euro Train and I was going to race it with my Eries. Sound like I may have a ringer up my sleeve.
Cuda Ken
Actually made by Athearn for Lionel…
Sure about that? The flat motor says Rivarossi all the way.
–Randy
The circa 1959 Lionel HO was a mix of Athearn and Rivarossi production if I recall correctly. What I had was a “Hustler” that was a dead ringer for the Athearn “Hi-F” rubber band drive Hustler, but the Lionel version had a good motor with gears (and headlights!) so in that sense they sometimes improved on their model. the Lionel one ran fast but not like that Athearn speed demon!
I was intrigued by the earlier poster saying his rubber band drive engines were quiet. My rubber band drive F-7 was noisy but in a peculiar way, sort of like a New Year’s Eve noisemaker (a gear and a piece of tin). It pulled OK but did not have smooth running or any slow speed capability at all. Some guys reported good results consisting a rubber band drive with a gear drive engine, so I’d double head my rubber band F7 with my Penn Line geared F7 – that smoothed out the speed issues but I had so few cars back then and the layout was so small I had no need for the added pulling power assuming there was any.
Now, back to this guy’s proposed project (which would make a great Model Railroader article for the April issue) some older engines did have a pulley drive where the cable was like a spring. That was common in O scale trolley cars in the 1930s and elaborate versions would offer a choice of pulley sizes so you could alter the max speed. In O scale such drives were whisper quiet. Later some O scale guys even explored a sort of chain drive like a bicycle chain. I have seen the pulley type drive in HO but my impression was it became less practical in the smaller scale.
Dave Nelson
I have no idea why Athearn took that direction, probably about economy, the MRR mags were the same critical about the band drive. Articles on slowing down the Hustler and so on, and why Ernsts came up with re-gears of the Hustler and RDC. My Hustler has an Ernst and new boxcab top to mod into an electric loco, slow and good puller for its size.
I’ve seen soe HO brass MU cars with the spring belt drives and they were anything but quiet. Of course there were plenty of issues with bras of various vintages - in particularl these came with a non-powered trailer car but couldn;t even move themselves on level track.
Here’s an article that has lots of pictures of the '59-'63 Lionel HO equipment: http://www.norcaltca.com/pdf/Newsletter-Mar%2006-rev2copy.pdf
–Randy
I agree that the Athearn rubber band drives aren’t good for low speed operation, and sometimes it’s very hard to make them run well at all. My Hustler can’t go less than 20 scale MPH, but it’s a very smooth runner and a good puller. My RDC never ran real well no matter what I did, so I threw together a single axle gear drive.
A combination belt and gear drive can actually run extremely well. I have a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 and 2-10-0, which both have a cogged belt driving a worm, and they’re some of my smoothest and quietest running steam engines.[:D]. I wonder how a diesel with a similar drive would run?
I’ve got the Athearn RDC with rubber band drive, and it’s terrible. Looks likely that I’ll upgrade the motor to a replacement module from North West Short Line (www.nwsl.com), it can be adjusted to run with DCC and the size of the motor frees up the interior for seating & lighting.
Ian