New Member Intermountain and Athearn

[unionironworker]

first I would like to say hello as I am a new member to this forum. I am from a Railroad family of three generations. Ok, I just recieved my new Intermountain HO scale Union Pacific ES44AC (Gevo) today and my new KCS EMD SD70ACE a few days ago. I am way happy with both models. They perform great. I was a bit nervous about the Athearn model as I have had at best so so luck with that brand. I also have a MTH EMD SD70ace demo unit that runs ok, but derails most of my trains or uncouples from them. Sort of funny becuse I have had to send back 3 MTH models to the ebay sellers becuse they had problems. I purchased a Atlas GE Dash 8 "spirit of America" last month and it so very nice. Ok, here is the interesting part. Now that I have 8 DCC models I am going to either store or sell off all of my Athearn Blue box models that i custom built thinking they were the bomb! About a month ago I built a KATO SD38-2 EJE and put a DCC system in it. Now I am hooked! I bought a TECH 6 controler and retired my old controler along with the DC master for my broadway limited AC6000 group of locomotives. Does anyone elase have this problem where there wives cannot make them stop buying engines! I know my TECH is not technicaly a DCC controler I guess but I just love the way it works. For several yrs I have run long unit trains of coal and grain on my layout with Athearn blue box engines that I "gut" and run as DPU's or helper engines. Of course they are "dummy" units but I run my own "free lanced" RR that interchanges with CSX and NS so it is fun none the less. Probably like many of you I was in the Army and my son is in the Army infantry and is gonna be deploying very soon ( again) to Afghanastan for combat so i do not have a lot of time to spend with him and he does not like my hobby? We both love weapons and military but I wish he would get into my hobby I would give him most if not all of my 50 Athearn Blue box engines. Thank you and may God Bless and keep you safe

 

[roadrunner]

My wife says I have an addiction of buying engines, have bought over 55 new engines in the last 3 years, all Athearn, Kato, and BLI. Just got the new Intermountain es44ac. I bought 6 SD70mac bnsf 9647 vommit bonnit cause they were on sale, 5 sd60's on sale for $35 who wouldn't at that price, numerous ac6000 on ebay for 75-100 new. I see that price I'm buying. Got 2 non sound ac6000 for $45 apiece (new). Bought 30 6pack Walthers rd4 cars at $30 apiece. yeh, I have an addiction. Wish your son well !!

 

[Cjcrescent]

Converting those older Athearn BB's to DCC isn't hard at all. The only issue would be what is their stall current? If these are Athearns that have been run a lot, the stall current may not even be an issue at all.

If you liked the way they ran and you still have a soft spot in your heart for them, why not convert them to DCC. Doing one or two at a time over a period of months shouldn't be too much of a strain on the modeling budget either.