Do you remember when Athearn had a f7 with rubber band drive. Its was my first HO loco.
I’ve been pulling my old trains out of storage. I have three of these drive-belt engines. I’m hoping I still can get the belts from Athearn. They are listed (as noted above) on their web site, but they will not move into the “shopping cart” if you try to mail-order them. I’ll be checking with my LHS this week to see if they can order them. These same belts were used on older Atlas turntables for the motor drive unit.
I know it seems like a Don Quixote quest, but I’m hoping to restore these old things to operating order, and maybe even upgrade to DCC. It would certainly be easier and probably more economical just to go out and buy new engines, but they’re kind of like old friends by this point, and I’d hate to put them out to pasture without at least trying. They do have a lot of room inside the shell for the electronics, at least.
The point about the big axles is important, by the way. With drive belts, there is a similar relationship between the motor shaft and the axle shaft as between motor gears and axle gears. If you drive very thin axles, then the wheels will spin very quickly, much faster than the other engine will be going. Also, you will reduce the torque on the drive wheels, so your pulling power is greatly reduced.
You also need overly thick axles to gear down motor/wheel ratio. Better to do what the R.R.'s did - add an engine.
While searching for traction tire substitutes, I found some neat little bands at Wal-Mart. They aren’t really rubber but are an elastic type and are pretty durable. They are available in a clear/whitish and black and are in several sizes. The clincher is that they are in the ladies hair band section. What a model railroader won’t do for parts.
Randy
Since some people mentioned SPUDS and Fleas, look into the Bowser Interburban/trolley drives. They may have a suitable wheelbase and is in current production.
I was at my LHS, and asked if he could order Athearn drive belts. He asked if I had a part number, which I quoted from the above posts. He was a bit skeptical, but went on-line and found the part. A week later, I’m the proud owner of a small plastic bag with a bunch of those little belts. Cheers for Athearn and Maine Trains in Chelmsford, MA.
I used to have 4 of the rubberband drive F7’s. Used to take them to a club in Venice, California where the inventer, one Robert M. Smith, used to hang out while working on his version of carrier control, simular to GE’s Astrac. This is in the early '60s. They were sure noisy pulling a string of cars up a grade, but they were the only thing available back then.
Bob Hayes
of all the crazy things to do…
well they have sound boxcars…
some lines using helper service cut in locos in the middle of the train as well as the back. Just a part of the operation fun.
more like with all the fiddling your doing by the time your done you could buy another loco…hint hint…
ah well, its a boxcabless
I forgot to post. But I actually got the thing running the other day. I’ll post pictures soon. Now, im not sure i can really put it in a train though, its REALLY fast, i guess it might just be kind of a novelty. Ill put a decoder in it when i get around to it…