GBRR's locomotive maintenance crew tore into new aquisition ex-CN GP9 #4235 Sunday, and found their work cut out for them...
When I popped the shell off, planning to remove the added weight on the roof of the shell, something didn't look quite right in the mechanism. So I put in on the track and ran it, and the motor still sounded like it was struggling even with the shell and its weights off.
Then I removed the shell from the other Athearn GP9, former Milwaukee Road #2387 (it doesn't bear a number but I found a website with Milwaukee Road's all-time diesel roster and randomly picked a number that they'd actually used on a GP9 to call the engine by). Then it became obvious what was missing from CN 4235...the flywheels!
There are #2387 and #4235 in the "maintenance yard" (three tracks nailed directly to a 4' x 8" piece of wood with crossovers between them for storing cars and engines that need couplers replaced, details glued back on, don't run properly etc). The missing flywheels mean that #4235 is going to reside in that yard quite a bit longer than originally anticipated.
On the plus side, removing the weights was easier than I'd expected since they weren't in any way fastened to the inside of the shell-they were just resting on top of the motor frame! First picture shows the weights in place, second after they fell out.
When I popped the shell off, planning to remove the added weight on the roof of the shell, something didn't look quite right in the mechanism. So I put in on the track and ran it, and the motor still sounded like it was struggling even with the shell and its weights off.
Then I removed the shell from the other Athearn GP9, former Milwaukee Road #2387 (it doesn't bear a number but I found a website with Milwaukee Road's all-time diesel roster and randomly picked a number that they'd actually used on a GP9 to call the engine by). Then it became obvious what was missing from CN 4235...the flywheels!
There are #2387 and #4235 in the "maintenance yard" (three tracks nailed directly to a 4' x 8" piece of wood with crossovers between them for storing cars and engines that need couplers replaced, details glued back on, don't run properly etc). The missing flywheels mean that #4235 is going to reside in that yard quite a bit longer than originally anticipated.
On the plus side, removing the weights was easier than I'd expected since they weren't in any way fastened to the inside of the shell-they were just resting on top of the motor frame! First picture shows the weights in place, second after they fell out.