Basic Athearn Locomotive Question - Genesis vs RTR


AllenRockwell

Professional Model Maker
Currently all of my locomotives are Tower 55 or Athearn Genesis ... however I have my eye on an Athearn "Ready To Run" SD60 (stock #78811), UP#2215.

My question is; Once I get this unit and put a nice quality Tsunami decoder in it will I see a huge difference in performance (power, smoothness, etc) from the higher quality Genesis series? Will I be sorry if I get this "lesser quality" model?

I am not concerned with cosmetic quality differences ... I can deal with those issues, but if runs like crap I'll be unhappy.

Thanks.
 
I can tell you that I have not been very happy with my Athearn RTR's. I have about 8 Kato's and 5 Athearn's with a couple of BLI unit's also. The Kato's are awesome drives, the BLI's pull a lot better and about 25 cars up my grades (2.5-3.%). The Athearn's are not weighted properly and trying to weight them with a Decoder and speaker inside the shell is difficult. Not to mention the drives are noisy even after breaking them in with various methods I have found. I am not buying anymore of them unless they are dummy units. I have been scoping out trying to find some T55's and even looking at some OMI stuff. How do you like your T55's?
 
I've found Athearn (HO) RTR and BB drives to be quite noisy in general. Not all but most. But it's hard to beat the price.
 
A little petroleum jelly in the trucks (after cleaning out the current lubricant) works pretty well to quiet them down.
 
It's pot luck. I don't have any Genesis Athearns, but either blue box or RTR models. Some are quiet, some are noisy. I've done some things to quiet the noise like keeping the motor clean and lubed and making sure the gears in the trucks are lubed, as well as making sure the motor isn't too tight or too loose in the frame.

I've noticed that when I program the decoders and put in a speed table or set basic speed (vstart, vmid, vmax), and the loco moves more slowly, the quieter it gets.

If you want an alternative to Athearn Genesis, then look at Atlas Silver. All my Atlas locos (Trainman, Master, Silver, Gold) are nice and smooth and quiet. The only problem with Atlas is that if you are into modern, in service now locos, then they may not make it (right now it seems that older GE units and Geeps) is where it's at, not SD70ACes or the like.
 
Ironically the worst Athearn locomotive I've ever had was a Genesis model, more specifically, a light pacific 4-6-2 with a busted drive gear and bearings that wouldn't seat properly. A second Genesis, an F unit, just never ran properly at all until I put a BB drive under it. As a consequence I've never bought another Genesis loco or accepted one in trade. I have plenty of BB Athearn's that all run well and many of them required some work but that's normal in my opinion for a $20 loco and I have some RTR models that run well but required a little work, usually redoing spotty solder work. Some of the solder joints were so bad that the wires would come off if they were touched. Also the point where the wires connect to the board causes some problems. This worked very well on the Proto 2000 locos I have but it doesn't seem to work as well on the Athearn locos. In some installations there wasn't enough exposed wire to touch the board and in some others the connection was just plain loose. So as a matter of preventive maintenance more than anything else I toss the little press on caps and solder the wires to the board.
 
Athearn Genesis starts up way too fast because the motor runs faster than all others at any given voltage. I emailed Athearn and they said that the gearing is the same, but the motors are different.

Athearn RTR has improved over the years. The new RTR is almost as good as the Genesis.
 
My Athearn RTRs are a like noisy but the noise can be fixed. My Genesis units are quite and smooth running units.

-Damian
 
i have only one genesys and bunch of RTR. as said before RTRs vary. i have one that runs like a dream and then several growling ones... but they by no means bad
 
thats been known for years ar the Athearn growl, most of the engines do it but it can be fixed. i have one Genesis and all the rest are RTR, they all did the same growl but got them to quiet down. Im very happy with my RTR engines, all UP by the way =) Another thing about locomotives when you first buy them brand new out of the box, CLEAN THE WHEELS! these engines are new but the wheels are sometimes dirty as hell
 
Thank you all for your comments.

I rolled the dice and picked up a RTR SD40 today and put a Tsunami decoder in it tonight and I have to admit that I'm fairly impressed with the results. The model needs some additional detailing on the outside but as far as how it runs, it seems nice.

I'll post a video of it tomorrow on my YouTube channel ( http://www.youtube.com/user/AllenRockwell )
 
I have a couple RTR but no genesis (CF7, GP35 and SD45 all with the quick plug dcc socket and all lettered for Santa Fe). The RTR are quite decent for a sub $100 locomotive. Detail is nice but obviously nowhere near what you'd get on a genesis. As for the drives, well they are noisy. For me, I think Athearn RTR is an effective way to build up a sizable fleet of work horses if you dont have thousands of dollars to splurge on DCC+Sound equiped locos.

Having said that, I have preordered a P2K dcc + sound loco and if its any good I may just retire my fleet of Athearn RTRs, simply because I'm too lazy to install decoders and sound systems myself and I find that we as modeleres often tend to buy more locos than we actually need. (As an example I dont really need those SD45s but the do look good at the head of a 50' mechanical reefer train...) If I can cut down my fleet and rather buy good quality high end locos then I'm happy to do so.
 
The Proto 2000 uses QSI sound (which isn't the best) and also doesn't speed match with other brands, (or even with each other for that matter) as they have different gear ratios as well as a low max RPM for their motors so they have a lower top speed.
 
Thanks for the info. It wasn't my intention to say I'd replace all my Athearn RTR with Proto 2000! Rather that i'd replace all non dcc and non sound locos with dcc + sound locos from a variety of manufacturers, Athearn Genesis, Proto2000, Broadway Limited, etc...
 



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