I do find some of the older yellow box Atlas/Kato engines very hard to find. I am on the hunt for a pair of the Clinchfield GP7’s to little or no avail. Just camping out on the bay and watching is all I can do with no shows to attend. The Kato plastic handrails of that era suck at holding paint if you do the safety end colors, but they are very forgiving being handled to and from the club layout. Or for those of us that are a bit ham fisted in handling models. Kato really set the bar high when those drives hit the market in the first Atlas Alco road diesels. I only wish the Roco drive models had that same silky smooth and quiet drive with good headlights for analog era running. My very first one was a RS3 in blue N&W colors for my 16th birthday. I has just joined the local club and 1960 was the cut off year for motive power at that time, so first gen diesels. The layout was based on the Clinchfield and the N&W was the closest thing dad could find with the help of a couple of the senior club members helping him chose something somewhat approiate to run on the layout. Mike the Aspie
Yes, those Rapido RDCs are irresistable models. Mine is truly gorgeous.
I used to be able to buy Athearn undecorated dummies for next to nothing. They make good looking models for photo diorama props.
The prices on these are shooting upwards. I think people are buying the dummies just to get the handrails. Athearn replacement handrail sets are selling for crazy prices now.
I harvested the hadrails from a dummy GP38-2 because of the prices.
I only have one Atlas/Roco locomotive, an Alco S switcher. It is just as good a runner as my Kato NW-2 is.
I know that is way too small a sample size for anything meaningful.
-Kevin
Different strokes. I’ve sold off nearly all of my Athearn blue box loco’s and all of my Atlas yellow box. Different reasons but most of them were lacking in one way or another.
Examples of why.
Atlas yellow box D&RGW GP7 - the paint was wrong. The black looked more like dark gray and the orange too redish. Also the paint did not adhear well to the metal fuel tank, which btw was the wrong size.
Atlas yellow box GP40’s had a horrible misshaped fuel tank with big slot in the side. Sure you could fill the slot but the fuel tank still look really bad.
The Atlas yellow box RS3 was too early for my era.
Athearn BB GP40-2: when Atlas came out with their GP40-2 with the correct nose light (a signature feature of the D&RGW) the BB became surplus. I might have the pieces of one in a box somewhere still.
Athearn BB tunnel motors, surplus with the newer RTR tunnel motors were released - the new ones had the correct nose light, plow and see through tunnel air intake.
I had a few Athearn BB F7’s, but I always hated the oversized misshaped windshields; so those got sold off when the much better looking Stewart F7’s came out.
Maybe my rose colored glasses got lost along the way.
I had rose colored glasses, too, but when I see what some of the new locomotives offer, it’s easy for me to leave yesterday to the history books. I have fond memories of 1980’s model railroading, but am leaving that era behind for good.
My last Atlas Classic Series engine is on ebay now with bids, as I’m updating my locomotive fleet again. I do not have any ScaleTrains stuff though, only Bowser and Genesis.
John
I had some nostalgia for a while, sure for the old blue box F7, but like John says, it’s not hard to pass on items. It helps to thin the herd as well.
I like some older models, Athearn BB, IHC and Rivarossi steam, because I am able to add my own detail to them. If they don’t run well, I can try fixing that and it’s usually a little easier than newer stuff. I enjoy adding detail parts and doing that to a newer model is tougher for me to come to terms with if it involves cutting and filing.
Yes! That is a big appeal of those models.
I have many Athearn BB, one thing I always liked was the ease of switching shells. Years ago I got a bunch of extra shells $5 and dumies $10 so that 10 powered chassis became 20 different engine roadnames. Multipler F7s, GP35, GP9, of course, but also SD45s and F45s switched around. And also Gp38-2 and GP 40-2
When I was about 20 or so I bought the parts from the train store I worked for to rebuild two Rivarossi Y-6B 2-8-8-2’s. Never again. We had all the parts to build a new one just from parts, but the parts were not cheap. The plastic driver centers are horrible, and eventually all drivers will need to be replaced as they start turning on the shaft and then it just binds up. Even after you tear it apart to replace all the drivers, you still have the 3 pole motor powering the thing, which is just utterly terrible. For the cost even today of buying and then rebuilding a Rivarossi 2-8-8-2, one could easily buy a lightly used BLI diecast Y-6B, or one of the factory refurbished ones when they are available, or a good used Proto 2000 2-8-8-2, and then you’d really have something that is light years better than the old Rivarossi that you can run the wheels off of. I’ll never touch Rivarossi steam again. Besides, the store eventually blew out all the parts–so they are gone and the opportunity to even obtain all the parts needed to make a Rivarossi 2-8-8-2 run half way decently is most likely gone with them.
At least with old Athearn or Atlas diesels, they can be nearly bulletproof if well taken care of. The Rivarossi steam is not even in that league.
John
I love my blue box / yellow box locomotives. One of the big reasons is because they are easy to work on. I do not have much money invested in them, for example I think I paid $15.00 for a SW7 (labeled a SW1500) in 1976. My yellow box Atlas engines were acquired for $25 each. I have the detail parts and drive parts to make better models out of them. To date, my first hardwired DCC install was a BB F7; it works/runs great. It is a hobby in and of itself to rework these locomotives.
I do. I’m old school and mostly run old/older dc locomotives. I only have a handful of new/newer locos. Most of my fleet is 20 years old or more, some of it is as old as 1950s era, most of them run quite well. I like a lot of the older models because many of them are generally more durable, easier to service, you don’t have to be an electronics guru if something breaks, and models of many of the prototypes I like were only made in a certain time period, and haven’t been made since. The only time I buy new is if it’s all that’s available, or less expensive than used.
Modeling 1900 means 19th Century steam only, and being on a limited budget (until the last year or two) means no brass. Not that there were a lot of brass models of 19th Century prototypes. And most of the brass geared locos I can now afford have the same “too large” problems as their cast counterparts.
In the past, I had a pretty limited selection - Mantua General, Ten Wheeler, and Twelve Wheeler; Roundhouse Old Timers; AHM/Rivarossi Americans, with Bachmann being the new source. Geared locomotives - Roundhouse Shay, Keystone Shay, Roundhouse Climax, AHM/Rivarossi Heisler. Of the geared locomotives, only the Keystone Shay is scale size and appropriate the to era without considerable modification. The same is true for the rod locomotives - considerable effort is needed to make them run well and look good - with the exception of Bachmann. Bachmann steam usually runs well, but when it doesn’t, it really doesn’t - and there’s very little I can do to fix a faulty Chinese mechanism.
Mantua 4-6-0 and 4-8-0 used the same boiler, mechanism, and grossly out of scale cab for both models. Roundhouse also used the same boiler and mechanism for the Old Timer 4-4-0, 2-6-0, and 2-8-0.
Luckily, I’m a lone wolf model railroader building a small layout, so 3 engines that run well is quite sufficient.
My trials and tribulations with these locomotives have tempted me to buy a Bachmann On30 loco to at least be able to run trains quickly.
Fred W
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it’s always 1900…
Hmmm wELL, You are talking about a transistion era. I contend there is a huge difference in the AHM, Athearn blue box with open frame motors, Atlas Roco Yellow box, HobbyTown, and Model Power “old” locomotives and What I call the “2nd generation” locomotives you are talking about. With Athearn it was the SD-40 that actually had a scale width hood! While it is true that the Atlas RS-3 came in a yellow box it was one of the last yellow box (then S2, S4, and GP7 as I recall). I consider that RS-3 locomotive to be one of the “Wonders of the Model Railroading World” as it set the new quality standard by which all others would be measured from that point forward. It wasn’t long after that Atlas switched to the RED “Atlas Classic” box. Stewart was the first to pick up that challenge and run with it. I don’t consider the Atlas RS-3, or its decendents nor Stewart to be “old” school locos, but the first of the modern.
All my Athearn Blue box that I am “satisfied” with have been remotered with can or coreless motors, flexible tub drive shafts, and regeared to get rid of the grinding gears noise. Atlas yellow boxes did not require as much rework but still work.
You ask what I prefer, and I have to ask prefer for what? Do I need a single loco that will pull 100 cars up a grade then an OLD HobbyTown E7 would be the loco of prefere
Im with ya.
Im not knocking the new stuff, i have some. Some are pretty nice. Some are tootle. The word you mentioned… ‘price’… yeah, that ruins it for me and the hobby too.
I can get my BB’s and YB’s just as highly detailed (just as fragile). And they already run just as good as any Stewart, Kato, and certainly better than the Protos.
So at 1/4 the cost and NO discernable advantages, Id rather have 4 than 1.
Why would I own any of the new stuff? Because you cant get an Athearn E7A, or an Atlas NW2 in HO.
PMR
Except for a SW8, all my older Proto 2000 locomotives run as good as my Stewart switchers & F-units and my Kato NW2. And I don’t find the detailing all that delicate - even on the newer locomotive offerings. (I don’t know. Maybe I just have a gentler touch when it comes to handling things?) The older Proto 2000 rolling stock kits are a different story. The stirrups on those those were especially delicate and prone to breakage.
Tom
Not only were the stirrups incredibly fragile, everything else was too!! Lift rings, grab irons, exhaust stacks…you name it. They would all break if you even thought about trying to pick one up.[|(][:(!] It was a hard way to learn how to delicately handle a locomotive, but now I always think twice before deciding where to put my fingers when picking a locomotive up, regardless of the brand.
Dave
Many of the old Athearn’s have long hoods that are wider than the prototype, in order for the old coffee grinder motor to fit. It is has been awhile since I did anything with a Blue Box, but I think the SD40-2 and the GP38-2 were the first with a scale width hood. Having a long hood that is noticeably wider than the prototype is a HUGE disadvantage.
There is a picture in this thread that shows the difference between a wide body and a scale width Proto.
Just building a bunch of Proto 2000 tank cars. The “scale” grab irons and stirrups, brake lines etc are just stupidly fragile. I’m just leaving most of that detail off. It hardly survives the assembly process.
Lovely little models but proof of the assertion that you just can’t build a scale model in HO, these detail parts are just too tiny when actually moulded to scale.
Which neatly begs the question(s) yet again: how much “scale” detail really works and its companion question: how much detail can you really see anyway on a model train viewed from a normal operating distance at normal scale speeds and yet another question: why would you need to or even want to have that level of detail if you just like running trains?
Your personal answers to which explain whether you still like BB models, or not.
Those older Walthers and LL Proto tank car kits were horrible to assemble, IMO. They are probably going on 20 years old now, and the detail parts may have been plastic and not wire. I would not use them as a measure of what the market has to offer now.
Most modern models have wire details, or plastic that is more flexible than the previous thin plastic used 20 years ago.
I have purchased quite a bit of new equipment in 2020. Most issues with details has been with them falling off, needing reattaching, not really breaking.
I pick up all new diesel locos by the middle of the long hood. Seems to work just fine.
And handling rolling stock isn’t really an issue since most of the fine detail parts are on the ends or underneath.
I have five Life-Like Proto-2000 8,000 gallon tank cars painted and lettered for the STRATTON AND GILLETTE.
Detail Associates made tank grabs and dome grabs from wire that replace the plastic kit parts perfectly. I used Tichy wire grabs for the frame. The stirrups are the kit plastic parts. They are pretty durable and look quite good.
There are only seven or eight plactic tank cars in my fleet. I have purchased brass tank car models exclusively for years because of how much better they stand up to being handled.
-Kevin