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I am fairly new to this hobby, and I was wondering, is there any way to power the "B" unit to my Athearn F7 A&B, to aid in pulling a moderately long train up the 4% grade at one point on my 'under construction' layout?
WHere do I look, where do I go to find info on this?
If I were doing what you have in mind I would go to Ebay and either look for a powered B unit and swap shells if necessary or find another A unit and swap the driveline out and install it in my B unit.
Assuming you have the older blue box Athearn units, it's easy to find powered A units on e-bay, as Johnathan wrote. You can swap the A unit shell with a B unit shell and it will fit fine. If you can, try to find one of "Super Power" models. They have a huge weight and it really increases the tractive effort of the unit.
If you have one of the newer Genesis A-B sets, you'd need to buy a powered B unit but they are much more expensive than the older blue box units. The powered B unit is a good bit less expensive than the powered A unit so it doesn't make much sense to get another A unit and swap shells. If you find a good deal on an A unit, I'd run them as and A-B-A lashup with the B unit remaining the dummy. The B unit doesn't add a lot of extra weight to the train. A 4% grade is awfully steep, though , so you may find that adding yet another powered unit. like a GP-9, in the middle or at the end as a pusher is needed if you're trying to get 20 or more cars over the grade.
I was actually thinking of getting anotherA unit as well, and I wanted to power the B unit, to totally eliminate any concern about making it up that grade...the elevation I have set up is as follows...over 127" with a 36" radius curve, the track elevates 2% grade for about 48", 4% grade for about 24" and then a 3% the rest of the way, and the locos sem to stall a bit at the 4% section...and the plaster is don, so changing that now is not an option...
right now I am running the F A and B with a "Cornwell tools" GP38 to keep the train moving...it is only temporary...
I do have plans to get another F A unit as soon as the paychecks are back in sinc...
That's qquite a stiff grade for a mainline railroad, especially since it on a curve, which adds the equivalent of another 1% to the grade. You didn't anser the question asked about what type of Athearn F units you have. As I wrote, you can get the older blue box units at a reasonable price on e-bay. Newer Genesis usints will cost a lot more money. If they are the older F's, I'd actually get another powered A and powered B units since that will give you classic A-B-B-A lashup and give you plenty of tractive effort for the grade. If they are the Genesis variety, I'd pick up some inexpensive DCC equipped Bachmann GP-30's or GP-35'. You can get two of those for the cost of one F unit and it was common to mix F units with later GP power for helper service.
Oh, yes, it helps to tell us what road you are modeling since there are some practices specific to a certain road and you might as well get them right if you have the chance.
The F Units I have must be the older blue box...they (it wasn't)that expensive...Right now, I am not really modelling any specific road, although the A-B Units that I currently have are Reading RR. This is kinda like a "Practice" layout for me, to learn techniques and what not. This platform will be stored most of the year, and will be used to display my wife's St. Nicholas Square Collection Houses. When I am done building this one, I have a space in the Basement roughly 11x14 to build a more prototypically accurate platform...
In that case, keep checking e-bay for powered B and A units. Like I wrote, a powered A-B-B-A lashup looks really good and will pull the grade fine. Even if they are not Reading, you can mix almost any Eastern power together since the coming of the Penn Central bought all kinds of color schemes running together. Of course, you'd want to avoid this kind of grade on your "real" layout but anything to keep the wife happy.
