Athearn Blue box vs RTR Loco's

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


V

Victor Ferguson

New Member
Has anyone compare what's different between these Athearn Locomotives?

I have read the RTR's are smoother running. Are the running gear different?

How?

My local store has a large quantity of the Blue box loco's still and I have been buying them over the RTR because of them being kits and for the price.
Thanks for the help.

Victor:confused:
 
Keep buying BB, they're fun! But RTR do tend to run alot better than Blue Boxes. They also look way better.
 
The blue box locos are very basic and usually need some work on the motor and drive to be good runners. Sometimes you can get a real gem that runs great out of the box. The RTR locos have already been worked in most respects to be smooth running out of the box. They're much more detailed though the hand rails are on the fragile side and tend to break easily. On about a third of the RTR locos I have I found the motors were bad. I sent the motors back to Athearn and they sent me free replacements.
 


The RTR's have most of changes in the shells and details. They do look better than a BB loco out of the box. The mechanicals aren't all that much different than a BB other than a slightly better motor. The newest RTR's have lighting boards with proper headlights but the older RTR's still have the brass strip and the crew frying headlight. If you can find the newer RTR's at a good price compared to the BB's, I'd buy them. Otherwise, the BB's can be made to run and look every bit as good as the RTR.
 
Even some of the newest RTR GP38-2's still have the crew frying headlight, which I replace with LED's and a dropping resistor, they light the stock headlight lenses up nicely and the side glow give the number glasses a nice back lighting effect. I have a pair of the INRD (Indiana RR) GP38-2's. The drive train improvments that I can see are better "dog bone" style drive shafts from the flywheels to the trucks, cleaner gear castings inside the trucks and nickle silver wheels instead of the older sintered iron wheels on the Blue Box engines. The basic GP38-2 shell is idential with slot for the coupler boxes that are frame mounted, plastic Athearn horn and crew frying headlight bulb. They did upgrade to the new fine scale plastic handrails. They run a bit better than a BB model, smoother and quieter out of the box and they only get better with time. I replace the dumb contact strip with wires soldered to the truck tabs and the motor top like we all have done on the BB engines for years. Cheers Mike
 
Although most of my engines are BB's I have been buying more Rivarossis', Mantua's, and such since I have been getting more steam engines. As far as me diesels, I have been leaning toward Spectrums, Genesis', Atlas, Broadway Limited, and Proto 2000's.

Still even with the new more modern additions, I have over 50 BB's. Some have been re-powered, just ran to death. But we must also consider, some are over 40 years old.

I buy all that I can find that that I can use.

And I still have many that need to be converted to DCC. Someday they will get done, but I keep adding more to the list. Gotta quit shooting myself in the foot I guess.

IMO, Athearn BB are simply the best engines one can buy if you are just starting out and on a tight budget. And I've been at this, off and on, over a period of 50 years.

Bob
 
You must log in or register to reply here.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top