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I need a 1990ish C&NW 6-axle for my ore trains, and I've pretty much narrowed down the choice to the Athearn RTR SD60 or Atlas C40-8. Since I have no experience with the Athearn RTR locomotives, I have a few questions that I hope someone here can answer:
-What motor does it have? Is it the old blue box motor or a can motor?
-How does the drive compare? It is an upgraded drive from the blue box line, but how smooth/quiet is it?
-What about the gear ratio?
-DCC friendliness?
-How does the detail and painting compare to Atlas/Kato?
Basically, I need it to run MU'ed with an Atlas GP40. I know that the Atlas Dash 8 will work, but the SD60 is calling to me (and is a bit less expensive). However, if is significantly faster or slower than an Atlas, it does me no good.
Well i Have A Athearn Sd75 Genisis.
Motor: Is an upgrade to the BB its a can
Dcc Friendly: Extremely A Monkey could do it
Painting detail: its not kato but persoanly i like it better then atlas but havent had much expiernce with atlas
Noise: Compare to a BB its like a feather hitting a pillow (you can barely here it)
it runs smooth littel noise.
And about the Consisting with the atlas loco's there shouldnt be a problem with dcc you can always change the starting speed's and things to get them too work together.
I have an Athearn SD60 CNW. The motor is a lot smoother and quieter than blue box locomotives. They nned details added. I used Atlas parts, such as wipers and mu hoses, it lloks good. the paint is good on it also.
The motor in RTR's are the upgraded Hexdrive can motors, is essetialy the same motor, with the different way to attach the drive shafts. BUT I have to say, that I've heard ALOT on the quality control on these motors, some are better then kato, some are worse then Bachmann... No where near the old BB's "same everytime". A majority though, have seemed to be much better, my RTR's are.
My RTR D9 has preweathered grills!
DCC should be quick plug, again, my D9 is, how ever my first Hexdrive (a SD40-2 Snoot) is not.
Gear ratio is the same.
Never had a new Athearn SD60 but i'v got a good stable of P2K SD60's very nice but there is a fair bit of work to install DCC
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