I noticed that my beloved CN 1706 GP7 had started to slow down and run rough of late. Even after a thorough track cleaning. I decided that this meant I needed to clean its wheels. I took it upstairs to the kitchen table and out of the gloominess of my basement…into the day light. I flipped the unit over to look at the wheels, and low and behold imprinted on the underside of the metal fuel cells is the word KATO!
The box it came in says Atlas Master Series GP7 - Canadian National 1706, which matches the shell of the loco. My question is…how can it be a Kato, when to my knowledge, Kato has never produced CN GP7 1706? or has it? How can it be Atlas Master Series with KATO imprinted in metal on its underside?
So what exactly do I have? Is it possible that an Atlas shell is on a Kato chasse? I am seriously considering bringing it back to the shop for an explaination. What do you guys think? Is it possible that the LHS put the Atlas shell on the Kato loco? Why would they do that?
It’s not the LHS, that’s they way they used to be made.
Kato used to make the Atlas GP7 drive, along with the RS-3 and RS-11 (and IIRC, the RS-1). The GP40, FP7, S-2 and S-4 were made by Roco. This was all back in the “yellow box” days of Atlas in the 1970’s-80’s.
I don’t know when Atlas switched from Kato to Chinese copies (which is what they are using now).
I did notice that it says MADE in JAPAN immediately below the KATO stamp. I take that to mean it’s a better quality engine. Is that an acurate assumption?
Thanks for the reply Paul. “Heavy sigh of relief!”
Trevor[:)]
Atlas production for the GP7 has been in China for some time now. With a ‘Master Series’ box, I would not expect the Kato chassis. I suspect that the drive might have been swapped at the LHS. I really have seen no performance difference between the original Kato drives from the 90’s and the current ‘Kato Clone’ out of China.
I think that Kato still made the drives for Atlas diesels for a little while when Atlas started their Master Series of engines, but I’m not 100% sure. There is a small difference between the Kato and Atlas motors now. The Atlas motors have 4 small holes on each side of the motor, and the Kato motors don’t.