I read somewhere that the shells on Bachmann’s new GP7 shells were made with the same tooling as the old Front Range GP7’s from the late 1980’s. Can anybody confirm or deny this? I have a few FR geeps that are nothing but window dressing on my layout. But if I could get Bachmann drive mechanisms under them, they’d have a new lease on life.
I originally hoped to use P2K drives, but the Front Range shells are cast so radically different from the P2K’s that I’d have to cut up the FR shell to the point where it would lose it’s structural integrity. And I simply don’t feel like having to strip and repaint several new P2K geeps.
I have heard the same thing, but dont know if its true. My wife got a Chessie GP7 for Christmas and I upgraded it to golden white LED headlights last night, it its set up for sound, the fuel tank is set up for a speaker and the inside of the fuel tank cover is predimpled for drilling speaker holes. The new drive does run really well. Cheers Mike
It is not true- the Bachmann GP7s are all new tooling and are not based on or from the old Front Range toolings. This was noted on more than one of the other modeling forums that I subscribe to- that said aside from the missing grab irons, I have come to understand these are decent models.
Hmmm…I thought it seemed too good to be true! So the bottom line is that I can’t just swap the bodies if I buy the Bachmanns, I’d have to strip and repaint them.[sigh] Thanks anyway for busting the myth…
Front Range became Loads by Fred (LBF) became Hubert’s became defunct, and maybe a couple of other names in between. Bachmann had nothing to do with it.
The Front Range shells were picked up by another company years ago. The name escapes me(Trains Unlimited??), but I do not think they ever produced any more shells, just sold off the remaining inventory…
With respect to the Atlas GP7s, Atlas has publicly stated on their own forum that the tooling for the GP7 is worn out and needs to be redone. They are in the process of determining if this is a worthwhile endevour or if they would be better off putting the effort into a new model (i.e. not necessarily a GP7).
The Front Range frames will accept Athearn trucks, or with minor modification Bowser/Stewart trucks. I do not know which motor your models have, but many came with Mashima motors - which are 2nd to none.
They DO have Mashima motors Nigel, but I think one of them is defective. The loco shakes visibly when I run it at its lowest speed setting. Would Athearn power trucks enable them to run at slower speeds?
Sounds more like a power pickup issue and not a internal motor issue, or a bad axle gear. I would tear into the one that has issues before condeming the Mashima motor I believe it was Trains Unlimited that marketed the old Front Range Geeps for awhile. One of the local shops has 2 of them in NKP 5 stripe colors new in the box for sale. Mike
I’ve made up my mind to order one of the Bachmann GP7’s so I can check it out close up, inside and out. I’ve heard it has a great drive mechanism. I’m gonna find out. Off to the Bachmann site.
EDIT: So much for that idea. Looks like Bachmann is out of them for now.
Look on the Micromark website. They appear to have them in stock. Frankly, the existance of Bachmann GP-7’s comes as a complete surprise to me. I don’t remember ever hearing that these were to be produced. I’d be more curious if I didn’t have enough various geeps to meet my needs.
This should. The club I used to belong too had four of the mashima powered Front Range geeps and we were never happy with the perfomance, they all did the “herky jerky” The clubs two Atlas ( with Kato motor ) GP7’s always outperformed them. One of our memebers had heard ( this in itself could be urban legend ) that origianlly Front range had hopped to use Athearn gearing and trucks with their new GP7 ,for whatever reason the deal fell through and Athearn did not give or sell the truck to Front Range and they enede up cobbling together their own design which was shipped with the units. We bought four sets of Athearn trucks and put them on the Front Range Geeps.I would say that the performance was greatly improved,still were not a close to Atlas perfomance but they held their own and ran almost as well as the Atlas’s. The kicker now will be finding the Athearn power trucks to pewrform the transplant(s) with.
I ordered one from MB Klein the day after Christmas. It arrived yesterday. Out of the box, it’s noisy and has a vibration at slow speeds, and has a tendency to bind on curves and switches. Other than that it’s great. Seriously, at higher throttle settings, it settles down, runs quietly and smoothly. The detail is not bad for Bachmann. I’m happy with my GP7, although I will have to do the pearl drops and lube treatment, and check the drive alignment. It won’t be the first time that I had to re-work a new engine, but at least this time, I didn’t pay a lot for it.