Athearn GP38-2

[Diesel-Electric]

Hello there,


One of the items I'm getting for my new layout is a HO scale Athearn GP38-2.

I have been reading around about the Athearn GP38-2 (and other Athearn diesels in general): there are modelers who seem to love these and also a group saying it's good as long as one "tunes" it up before usage and another who say they are not good at all.

I would like some advice on it!


Thanks in advance!


Diesel-Electric.

 

[Espeefan]

Is it an old blue box model or one of the newer RTR in the blue & yellow box models?

The basic Athearn drive is pretty sound. They may be a little noisier than something by Atlas or Kato, but the are well built, rugged, and pull reasonably well. There are ways to tune up the basic mechanism. A search of this forum will probably turn up several discussions. CJ Crescent is an expert at this. I had many in my earlier modeling life, but they were replaced as I shifted to steam power, and updated models with better details. I still have several, a GP-35, and some SW7/9's, SW-1000's, and SW-1500's. They are good to go out of the box, or can have details added to kick them up a notch.

They are not "top shelf" but are quite servicable. You should do fine with it.

 

[Diesel-Electric]

Is it an old blue box model or one of the newer RTR in the blue & yellow box models?

It is the newer RTR in the blue & yellow box models (Getting it brand-new).

I'm generally very reluctant generally to pull apart a HO scale locomotive. So are the newer Athearn RTR GP38-2 good to go out of the box?


Thanks again in advance! Also, thanks for the reply!


Diesel-Electric.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I've had several of these models. Two were well detailed shells on blue box drives and one was the weel detailed shell on a RTR drive. While the two with BB drives were somewhat noisy they ran well. The one on the RTR drive was a disaster right out of the box. Issues with loose wires, a bad motor and some kind of gummy stuff that was supposed to be lube.

 

[diburning]

ALL of the Athearn GP38-2s are the same tooling. The RTR is the blue box shell with the blue box drive, but with hex shafts instead of universal couplings. The shell is exactly the same, but has grabs and plastic handrails installed. They are not DCC ready, and still have the arc-welding headlight.

 

[ICG/SOU]

I like them. They are not DCC ready like an Atlas Trainman, but have nice detail and painting. I have several.

Run it some, and if you don't like how it runs, post the symptoms and we'll try and help you with it. Otherwise, it will probably run ok.

 

[Espeefan]

I bought a couple of RTR SW-1500's and they ran fine right out of the box. Both were DCC ready. The factory light board was set up for either the 8 pin plug or the 9 pin JST harness. One got a DH-163, and one got a Tsunami 645 non turbo. That was a shoehorn installation but it worked. .

All manufacturers have had quality issues to some extent, but chances are, your loco will be fine.

 

[Diesel-Electric]

They are not DCC ready like an Atlas Trainman, but have nice detail and painting.

Yes ICG/SOU, seen the pictures of GP38-2s in the Athearn website, it seems that the detailing is really nice for the price (at least in the pictures).

I'm not running DCC, and I have no intention to upgrade to DCC any time soon. Almost all the locomotives in my roster are standard DC and non DCC ready except for one, a Proto 1000 GP15-1.

The only upgrade I would want to do is to add a constant brightness and directional headlights lights circuit to my standard DC locos. Has anyone in this forum done this upgrade? I would like to know/how it is done.

I will be getting the Athearn GP38-2 then, thanks for the input guys!


TC!


Diesel-Electric

 

[ICG/SOU]

Whether you wire it up for DCC or not, you're looking at about the same amount of work. You have to put in a light board and hardwire the locomotive and then add the lights.