Stalling and growling

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have four engines, all of which are four axle. An Atlas Trainman, a
Walther, and two Atherns. The Atlas and Walthers are about two years old. I just purchsed the Atherns from a private party and they told me one was seldom used and the other was never out of the box.

Here’s my questions:

  1. Both of the Atherns will stall at slow speeds when they are at a turnout, however, neither the Atlas or Walthers stall and crawl along very nicely. The turnouts are Atlas. I don’t think it has anything to do with the insulated frogs, because they stall before they touch the plastic. Anyone have any ideas why this is happening?

  2. The Atlas and Wather are very quiet runners, but both Atherns are what I would call growlers. Are Atherns known for this? If not, what can I do?

Thanks,

2

Are the Athearn’s blue box models? DC? If so they probably still have the metal strip that connects the trucks to the top of the motor. It’s very common to lose contact at these moving joints. What you can do is remove the strip and solder in a couple of pieces of flexible wire. That will eliminate the loss of contact. Make sure the wheels are clean. Most of the older Athearn’s I’ve seen are growlers. That’s more or less normal for them. Nicknames for them are often ‘growlers’, ‘rolling coffee grinders’, ‘pepper mills’ among others.