Athearn Quality?

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The drives are hit & miss. All but two of my newer "hex" drives (out of 10) are prefect. I'm having issue's with the F59PHI's.

I'd still recommend them, they're hard to beat on the value. I'm sure you'll get lots of replies saying "junk", usually referring to the drive though.
 
I'd reccomend them. Like Josh said, its hit and miss, but thats with any mfg.
I have a RTR Sd38 that came with a bad dcc board with a bad cap on it. But my 1st Blueline Ac6000 had a bad dcc board also.
 


The other option would be to build one out of Railflyer parts. That would be at least a year wait behind two GP60's, a GP20, a GP10, a GP38AC, and three FMC covered hoppers.

I'd rather do it right. Still not sure which was to go.:confused:
 
I only have one athearn rtr engine a rs3 and love it.plus for a electrically challenged person like me a plug and play decoder plug is nice.
 
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I bought a new GP40-2 RTR in the Guilford scheme a few months back. I was absolutely miffed about their grey and orange, she met the 91% iso pretty quick. That, and the frame was so over-buffed, all the corners were rounded. At least with the older ones all you had to do was sand/file off the cast lines to get a decent looking tank.

I love to kitbash the older Athearns, but Athearns RTR "improvements" over the BB kits are absolute garbage IMHO.


ETA: I do like the handrails though:)
 
I've only got one of the RTR Athearns, a GP38-2. The handrails and general detail are much better than the older BB models and it's reasonably easy to add DCC. The are not Railflyer or BLI quality but you can get about four of them for one of either of the above. The internals on mine are only slightly improved from the BB days, with bigger flywheels and a little bigger motor. It runs pretty quietly and it pulls like a horse. With some added details, they look pretty good. OTOH, I have an A-B-A set of BB UP F-7's that are just about to reach 35 years old and they still run and pull well. I'm not convinced some of the stuff being put out today will be around in 35 years.
 
If anyone needs any cheap prices on Athearn; Toy Train Heaven is having a big sale. The only catch is, supplies are limited & you have to call in for your order.

Larry
 


I like Athearn loco's for the everyday type running of train's. I do like to super detail and change the motors and gears with Proto Power West repower kits.
If I don't repower the unit I have a tune up routine.

The frist thing I do is remove the metal clip on top that supplie's the power from the trucks. I replace it with a 12 ga. stranded wire soldered to the top of the motor and with connectors (see pic) you would use to connect speakers to the trucks.

Then I take the trucks apart and clean the gear's of all the oil. Take one drop of Pearl Drops and run the trucks for about 5 mins forward and backwards. Reclean the gears and use a small amount of Label's grease on the gear's I found this work's well to make the unit run smooth and quite.

There is a book out there for tuning up Athearn loco's. I hope this helps.
 
Hmm! Guess just about all mine are Athearns. The ones I'm running have been modified and run great.
Willis
 
I've only just started on this great journey and have two Athearn's and one Atlas and I've got to say that I am very impressed with the quality and running of these compared to my British OO stock particularly in terms of value for money..

To get a British, Hornby (my favoured make) RTR model with working directional lights I would have to pay in excess of $180 and that's just DC so to get locos with lighting as standard is amazing.
 
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Wow, Rogue, $180 and it's just DC with directional lighting? Is that price before or after VAT? That does seem awfully steep. Maybe it's the economies of scale (more people, more modelers) but we really do get some good deals on locomotives on this side of the pond compared to a lot of UK and European models I've looked at.
 
Jim

My only British loco with lighting was bought for me by my wife for my birthday. It is an EWS Class 60 http://www.hornby.com/locomotives-89/ews-class-60-r2488/

It cost, with a discount, £90 inclusive of vat (which is currently 17.5%) which roughly translates as $180. It is my favourite UK loco with. great detail, smooth running and strong pulling power. I thought this was a great price until I got my first US model, an Athearn GP-35 which cost me £35 / $70 including postage, expensive to you guys I guess but you can see to me, a bargain! I'm very envious of the prices you guys pay but of course that's only because of the current favourable exchange rates!

It's US railroading for me from now on and I'll certainly be stocking up next time I'm over the pond which at the moment will be San Francisco next January :)

George
 
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Dang, George, that's a lot of money even with the exchange rate differences. $70 for an Athearn RTR including shipping really isn't bad since most models tend to run between $55 and $70 here. This is when the exchange rate difference is really helping you.

I don't know if you've been to San Francisco before but Franciscan Hobbies is a great train shop. For some reason, the clerks tend to be a bit surly at times but they have a great inventory, especially hard to find detail parts.
 
I've never been to California, Jim, I've widely travelled the North East (my wife is a Jersey girl) particularly NY, NJ and PA so I'm looking forward to SF. Many thanks for the heads up on that store! :)
 


Well, here is my 2 cents..I only recently got into model railroading (although I have been a scale modeller for years) I have to say that the Athearn RTR units when compared to the older Blue Box kits is a step in the right direction. The accuracy of the multiple paint schemes (I personally model the Chessie System which nobody seems to get the paint right on..) is spot on. I currently own 1 Athearn Genesis SD45-2 w/ sound, 2 GP40-2's, 2 SD40's, and an SD38. They are all ready to run and that they do great! Although they are alittle noiser than the Atlas, P2K's and Kato's I have owned or ran, they still are some of my hardest pullers! The shell details on ALL of the above locos seems more railroad specifically accurate than the 2 Atlas locos I own and aside from no windshield wipers, no MU hoses, no coupler cut bars, and sometimes no interior, they are up there with my P2K's. I don't personally like the metal fuel tanks on the 4 axle locos, but after weathering they all look the same anyways. I believe they started putting LED's in the headlights of alot of their models although I could be mistaken. All of mine shine pretty bright. As far as kit-bashing, they are EXCELLENT to do that with. I have taken off the cabs from my two geeps and replaced them with Cannon cabs. Now that they have all the other details that the rest of my locos have (MU hoses and such) they actually look better than my other locos as well. As someone also stated above, you really can't beat the price either. You are taking a shot in the dark buying that loco you listed at the beginning of this thread...It is a kit that we all know as a Blue Box kit, and although I am not sure about the drivetrain quality and such, alot of the ones I have come acoss have HORRIBLE paint schemes (bad masking, orange peel effect, etc.) and the metal handrails that never seem to be straight only adds fuel to the fire. Not all of them are like that though...If you plan on making this kit a showpiece, perhaps you should start looking into some, all, or more of the details I listed above. With alittle bit of TLC and some actually cheap, but sometimes quite hard to find railroad specific detail parts, you could turn that loco that some may call "junk" and turn it into your favorite jewel! At any rate, go to the hobby shop (if there is one around where you are) and do some inspecting...Compare some of the Athearns to some of the higher end stuff. Always do as much research as possible before buying! Hope that helps alittle more...

-Rich
 
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