I have an old Athearn C30-7 Engine that is dead to the world. I dont like athearns gear drives on these, so I would like to swap it to an Atlas C30-7 frame…
Anyone know if it will fit?
thanks
Welcome to the forum Tundraspyder !
I wasn’t aware Athearn made C30-7 shells. The Atlas shell is better that Athearns early U boat shells.
I don’t know if you can mate the Atlas shell to a Athearn U-33-C frame or not. Besides,the Atlas frame & motor. Far better running than older Athearn workings.
Might have to heavy work the Atlas frame just to fit. Dunno,wish I could help…
Atlas C30-7’s you can find fairly cheap on e-bay. Why not go that route ?
I wonder if the shell is maybe a Railpower? I think Athearn took over Railpower, IIRC. I’m not an Athearn expert, but I also, have never known of an Athearn C30.
From what I have been able find out, if the shell is a Railpower, it should fit on an Atlas C30, or a U boat chassie, like a U33 or U36C. If you Google, “Railpower C30-7 shell, Atlas frame”, you’ll get some results that will answer your questions.
Mike.
Mike,You are correct on both accounts. I’m surprise Athearn hasn’t done the C30-7 as a RTR locomotive.
Yes, they were RailPower, but no, it will not fit the Atlas drive. At least not directly. I know that because I just tried it. The walkways on the Atlas units are seperate pieces, not integral with the shell. So the Railpower shell will not slip over the body weights, especially at the cab end due to some internal interference.
I’m pretty sure that the Railpower shells were made to fit Athearn 6-axle U-boat frames. This is evident by the 2 per side lugs which were positioned to fit the 2 per side pins on the Athearn blue box frames.
From what I’ve read, I believe the Railpower shells were made to fit Athearn chassies.
I’m thinking that if the OP can’t upgrade his excisitng Athearn drive, or find a replacement, he should look into the many Atlas C30’s that are on Ebay, as was suggested before.
Mike.
Hummm. Thought I just wrote that[:)]
Yep, you did, I was just agreeing, or concuring. [:)] I can never get the quote thing to work, so sometimes I’m not always clear. Sometimes Fire Fox cooperates with this site, sometimes not.
Mike.
I think it’s time Athearn should re-release the C30-7.
It could be a RTR or Genesis model with DC/DCC.
Thanks for the replies fellas. For some reason I am just now able to reaccess this post. Odd.
came up because I custom painted a BN C30-7 before there were at on the market probably 20 years ago. Back when BN was testing different oils and had different colored number boards based on the oil it was using. The drive seized up over time so I was hoping to be able to put the shell on a new better drive frame. Of course it’s probably better just to grab an atlas and move on.
i also kit bashed to c36-7’s in UP that I really want to get running smoothly. So these are the ones that really need a new drive. The gears in those athearn uboats ate just aweful and unsable with any modern drive system.