I’m just getting back into the hobby after a 10 year absence. My new layout is being wired for DCC and my MRC PA2 should be arriving today. I keep hearing people refer to the ‘old blue box Athearn’ locomotives. How old are you talking about? All my Athearn locos came in a blue box and were purchaced new between 1985 and 1996. I decided on trying out a DH163AT (Digitrax) decoder as they had a 1.5amp rating and come prewired for Athearns. What’s the typical amp draw of these locomotives and do they do well on DCC? They run just fine on DC.
BB Athearn is referring to non-Geneses locos and cars. I, myself, call the old Athearn locos and cars in kit form “old blue box” as most Athearn now days is RTR not kits.
The old BB’s are generally the ones with open frame motors, using the frame as a motor “ground”, and a single bulb headlight that makes the whole front end “glow”!! Newer ones have a can type motor, a printed circuit board, more realistic headlights, and an isolated motor - which makes converting to DCC much easier. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZku8qp0BBs will give you an excellent tutorial on converting the older BB’s to DCC and fixing the headlight!! My [2c]
OLD ATHEARN BB ENGINES. IE**:** ''Shake the box" plastic kits**,** and once described as “Agricultural”, and which dominated the Industry in sales.
“Old” BB locos took 6 volts and (depending on the motor) 1 amp; .75 amps; and .5 amps to run. They used the same size wheels and drive components, therefor most ran at the same speed. All came with ‘horn-hook’ couplers
Prices varied through the years from $10 to $25 new - (at least the ones I bought did).
Negatives: Plastc bodies, cheap motors, iron wheels, single 12V cab light.
I have several Athearn BB Locomotives that I have upgraded to DCC. Any of the Digitrax 1 AMP or higher rated decoders should work fine. Be carefull as Athearn BB locomotive motors are grounded to the locomotive frame. You will need to isolate the motor from the frame or you will fry your decoder.
For my layout I need a fleet of SD40-2 and the Athearn BB work great using a very inexpensive Digitrax 121/123/125 decoder. Since I only need head lights and motor these decoders are all that I need. I run them in a consist of three or four units. These locomotives are great pullers. I will pull the guts out of one of the units in the consist and just put a sound decoder in it to add sound to the consist. (As suggested by Joe Fugate).
While you are upgrading to DCC you should also consider replacing the lights with mini bulbs or LEDS.
I had a Blue Box Milwaukee Rd SD-9 that I bought in the 1970s. The trucks had metal sideframes, and the drive included the old iron flywheels. Impressive pulling power and actually had good crawl speeds, but also drew over 2 amps! Last I checked, that would make most HO/N decoders say “POOF!” [:O]
I kept it very clean and gave it away to the teenage son of a friend who had a DC layout running with newer Bachmann (junk) locomotives. He was very thrilled with it.
If your BB Athearn was pulling 2 amps, I’d guess that the motor had a weak magnet. If you’d re-magnetised it, it wouldn’t have taken half that much power, and it would have run even better. And those were Zamac (a zinc/lead alloy) flywheels, not iron. Iron is also lighter than Zamac, thus having less mass - a critical requirement in a flywheel. To my knowledge, Athearn has never used iron in their flywheels.
They started putting the Zamac flywheels in their locos in the Sixties. Before that, they did not use flywheels.
‘old’ blue box means any Athearn loco that came in the “blue box” in a kit form. Since then, really since the last 6 or 7 year (chime in you experts) Athearn has offered RTR yellow box version of the old blue box loco’s that have been upgraded in various forms. Some, like the GP40-2, are assembled with plastic hand rails, better paint job and improved hex drive, but are NOT DCC ready. Other RTR yellow box loco’s have many more improvements like the SD40T-2 which have upgraded tooling and rail road specific details applied, and are DCC plug ready. Genesis are the premium line which are a several cuts above the best RTR loco’s, with better drive, more detail, and better chassis/shell. The Genesis F units are gorgeous - best looking F units on the market.
Electrically, my SD-9 was an exception. My other older Blue Boxes averaged about between .75 and 1 amp in current draw (still high by today’s standards. I have a few BBs left that I’m gradually selling off in favor of the more accurately detailed P2K units. I am keeping one SCL U-Boat which I plan on turning into a “cutaway” unit (open body panels so the prime mover can be seen) for display in a locomotive shop on my planned layout.
I actually liked the wheels on the Athearn units. I know they weren’t supposed to be that good but I thought they provided a lot of traction. They sparked a lot though. I remember being told these were the best engines you could buy, despite inaccuracies and the over wide hoods.
6 volts and 1 amp to run Athearn BB GP-7 (9)'s were replaced by Atlas imports with Kato drives that both ran and looked better. That, and Stewart/Kato ‘F-7s’ ended Athearn’s dominance.
Old BB’s are cheap, and still run, and that is a good reason to buy them. Best REASON not to buy them is …
Current ‘popular’ priced MRC power pak’s are designed for today’s low current motors, and with 1.5 - 1.7 amps can’t successfully run run BB’s in multiple lashups without risking overheating (and shortening their life). MRC’s cheapest rated 2.5amp supply is now $129 (#9500).
These are old. The lead F7 was built some time back in the Eisenhower administration.
The color scheme, I believe, is the Milwaukee freight pattern. It’s a very different color from the Milwaukee F7’s offered for sale today, which all seem to be the passenger colors.
This is a pair of GP-9’s. The one on the left is an old Athearn (Kennedy/Johnson timeframe) and the one on the right is a modern P2K.
The old Athearn geep was a rubber-band drive, and is now a dummy engine without a motor. Likewise, the trailing F7A and the F7B in the top picture are dummies. The lead F7 still has its original motor and drive train, plus a DH123 decoder. I cleaned up the motor and gears a bit after its 40-year slumber in the attic, added a LED headlight and Kadees, and I was able to get it to run. That was, however, my only success out of the 10 or so engines I tried to bring back to life.
I haven’t checked the specs on older vs newer MRC power packs. However, in tests done on 1980’s era blue box HO Athearn diesels (MR and MRG magazines) the max amperage was usually about 0.5 amps. So for the last 20-25 years of blue box engine production, the amperage hasn’t been excessive. Probably its the 1960’s - 1970’s Athearns that had a substantially higher draw by what I’ve gathered. Perhaps that is your definition of “older BB” vs the 1980’s -2000 blue box engines. I don’t know when blue box diesels ceased production in recent times, however. Those are just gross date ranges from memory.
An ‘old’ blue box Athearn loco has the following features:
Jet 400 motor (road locos) or Jet 600 motor (SW7 & S-12)
Zamac flywheels
Metal truck sideframes
‘Crimp over’ handrail stanchions
A ‘new’ blue box Athearn loco has:
A flat can type motor
Brass flywheels (road locos)
Plastic truck sideframes (except the Trainmaster)
‘Slide on’ handrail stanchions
I’ve owned both types, and neither version runs better than the other. The major problem with Athearn blue box locos is the drive train. The couplings between the worm gears and flywheels are quite large and cause some friction, and the gears need a lot of breaking in before the loco will run smoothly.
DG:
Which is a thing that really annoys me about MRC. WEEEEEAK. Power is cheaper than efficiency, for the locomotive maker, but not for the powerpack maker! And most of us have one powerpack and several locos, so who ends up footing the bill?
(I think they do this to economize on semiconductors. Their older rheostatic packs were quite reasonably powered,which is another reason I get annoyed by their present power limitations).
I strongly suspect a lot of the current-draw problems with older Athearn motors (with one Alnico block magnet) stem from weakened magnets. I have an old motor from an Atlas TT (which I’m pretty sure is an Athearn motor) and its magnet is incredibly weak.
I don’t think Athearn’s dominance was ended by Atlas and Kato. Those were always high-end, and were and are out of reach for many budgets. I think Athearn just started sharing the good-basic-product business with Proto 1000, upgraded Bachmann, Trainline, etc…and maybe Athearn themselves lost a little distinction as the “Ford” of the hobby when they started chasing after the high end. But it all sort of happened at once, so who knows?
