I love it it's great


M

MikeJ

Member
Today I bought for $55.00 this 1980s Athearn B&O DD40X.
I know your thinking "The B&O didn't have any DD40X locomotives."

You're right they didn't. In fact I said to the guy "The DD40X was a Union Pacific Locomotive." He goes "Yeah I know, but in the 1980s they just made, locomotives in any road names." It's great it's a B&O DD40X standard cab it's really incorrect, but it's great at the same time, I love it wrong cab, wrong road names, it's great I love it.

It pulls like an absolute dog too. I bought it because I just thought it was cool. This locomotive does run, but the guy I bought it from said "It' runs a little rough. It needs some cleaning up."

It does this locomotive has 2 motors and pulls like a dog it's so funny this big 8 axle locomotive pulling 15 cars over loads my transformer and stalls out going around curves.

I guess my big question is how do I get this locomotive to run a little better and pull better, it's got the guts, it's got 2 motors and 8 axles, it just runs real rough.
 
There's a number of things this old engine could probably have attention to ....

You might want to check the motor brushes and see if they are worn and how bad. While you have the brushes out, it would also be a good time to clean the armature, it is no doubt carboned up as well. The next obvious thing would be the wheels. The older Athearn engines used sintered iron for wheels as opposed to nickel silver like todays engines. You could replace them with nickel silver wheels, but I'd try giving them a good cleaning / polishing first.

Those few things alone should make a noticeable improvement in how your engine runs.

Mark.
 
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