Athern quality questions
- Thread starter jim81147
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By your description, they sound like Athearn (originally Globe) F units sold in the old blue boxes during the 1970's through the early 2000s. However, in my memory anyway, I have never seen an Athearn F3A/B in the blue box line - those were F7A and B units. The F7A had steam generator details molded in to the rear roof, which was fairly rare in the prototype - mostly GN or NP had them and D&RGW bought only 2 of their F7A with steam generators.
As for running qualities, it was somewhat pot luck with the blue box F units - Athearns quality control was all over the map. Some worship them, but I've had my share of coffee grinders too. I sold off my last Athearn blue box F unit (originally to be bashed into an F9A) about 15 years ago because Stewart had produced a much nicer looking and running (KATO buttery smooth drive) F9A and painted in D&RGW single stripe to boot!.
During the past 15 years, Athearn has been offering up the old Globe tooled F7 in their RTR line and put a pretty paint job on that old 1950's tooled shell, but AFAIK, they have made no improvements or upgrades to the shell itself - it still has the oversized windshield openings with the squared off corners although the drive has probably been improved. Athearn recently moved the old F7 to their Roundhouse line, which was a move to segregate their older low detail models with cruder tooling from their RTR line and the Genesis line. Of course as far as F units go, there is a lot of choices on the market these days to fit every taste, from Athearn Roundhouse and Bachman (on the low end) to Stewart/KATO/Bowser (on the mid-upper range) and Proto2000, Intermountain and Genesis (on the high end)
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montanan
Whiskey Merchant
If you ordered the Genisis series, you should have a couple of good locomotives. I hadn't bought any Athearn locomotives since the 80's after Atlas introduced their Alco RS locomotives with the Kato drives. A few years ago I picked up a Genisis F-7 and was very happy with it. Excellent locomotive. You should be very happy with them.
Yes, the Genesis GP9's are nice. I opted not to buy the sound equipped to save on cost, but I also read on the Yahoo Groups Rio Grande email list that the Tsunami in the last run of D&RGW geeps didn't have the correct horn on the chip. The Tsunami's installed by Athearn aren't the full version, but rather partially stripped down. I don't know if the newer Tsunami 2's have corrected the non D&RGW correct horn issue but the horn sounds are reportedly much improved. The original Tsunami's had good engine sounds but were roundly criticized for having weak horn sounds.
N
NP2626
Guest
My opinion: Athearn was the back bone of the hobby in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s... Their Blue Box kit locomotives where as good as it got, back then. Could they be made better, you bet they can. Can they hold their own against what's available today? I certainly feel so. What Athearn produces today with their Genesis, Athearn Ready to Roll and Athearn Roundhouse products are very high quality products. My biggest problem with Athearn is they advertise items which tend to be out of stock and they want you to pre-purchase items they will eventually be selling! Much of what is spoken about at the website is not available.
By the way, the companies name is spelled ATHEARN and not ATHERN.
By the way, the companies name is spelled ATHEARN and not ATHERN.
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I like Athearn's website because you can see past, present and future offerings. If you want to see what they had, but are out of stock, you do can do a search and then check the "View Retired Models" box and the page will update with items no longer in stock. Some may ask, why is that useful? Well, for one thing you can find out what Athearn has made so you can search for out of stock items at train shows, on Ebay and on train swap sites.
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=F7&OA=True&PageSize=72
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=F7&OA=True&PageSize=72
Greg@mnrr
Section Hand
I still have an Athearn F3 A and B unit. The B is a dummy unit. I can't tell how old these are or when I purchased then new. I put the A unit on my test track with DC and it started and ran fairly smooth. Testament to their ability to endure time.
The dummy unit will get steel wheels and a weathering job and be consisted with another, newer proto consist.
I would compare the motor and gearing of the old Athearn units to the automobiles of the 50's and 60's to the present cars. New electronics, comfort items, better engines, great performance and improved paint separate the cars of the past with those today. No difference with model locomotives.
Like autos, modelers like to upgrade older model locomotives with new motors, electronics and lighting.
Greg
The dummy unit will get steel wheels and a weathering job and be consisted with another, newer proto consist.
I would compare the motor and gearing of the old Athearn units to the automobiles of the 50's and 60's to the present cars. New electronics, comfort items, better engines, great performance and improved paint separate the cars of the past with those today. No difference with model locomotives.
Like autos, modelers like to upgrade older model locomotives with new motors, electronics and lighting.
Greg
By your description, they sound like Athearn (originally Globe) F units sold in the old blue boxes during the 1970's through the early 2000s. However, in my memory anyway, I have never seen an Athearn F3A/B in the blue box line - those were F7A and B units. The F7A had steam generator details molded in to the rear roof, which was fairly rare in the prototype - mostly GN or NP had them and D&RGW bought only 2 of their F7A with steam generators.
As for running qualities, it was somewhat pot luck with the blue box F units - Athearns quality control was all over the map. Some worship them, but I've had my share of coffee grinders too. I sold off my last Athearn blue box F unit (originally to be bashed into an F9A) about 15 years ago because Stewart had produced a much nicer looking and running (KATO buttery smooth drive) F9A and painted in D&RGW single stripe to boot!.
During the past 15 years, Athearn has been offering up the old Globe tooled F7 in their RTR line and put a pretty paint job on that old 1950's tooled shell, but AFAIK, they have made no improvements or upgrades to the shell itself - it still has the oversized windshield openings with the squared off corners although the drive has probably been improved. Athearn recently moved the old F7 to their Roundhouse line, which was a move to segregate their older low detail models with cruder tooling from their RTR line and the Genesis line. Of course as far as F units go, there is a lot of choices on the market these days to fit every taste, from Athearn Roundhouse and Bachman (on the low end) to Stewart/KATO/Bowser (on the mid-upper range) and Proto2000, Intermountain and Genesis (on the high end)
montanan
Whiskey Merchant
I will have to agree that there were some problems wit the old blue box Athearn locomotives in the time period you mentioned. I was just starting to gather up locomotives as my ted lightly with a Teflon grease. layout only had a few feet of track down when I picked up an Athearn F-7 that was undecorated that I wanted to custom paint for the Northern Pacific. At the time there were no properly painted F units. Athearn's verstion was painted green. WRONG
This is what I ended up with. Looked good but ran like crap at first. While working on the shell, the sintered iron wheels were replaced with nickle silver wheels from NWSL. The gear towers on the trucks were the next step. There was a lot of slop with the worm gear and this was taken care of with one tiny washer. The worm gear and the gears in the truck were then lubricated with a teflon grease and the trucks were hard wired to the motor instead of using the original strap. What a difference these changes made. Out of the box the locomotive was drawing over three quarters of an amp and after the work was done to it the amperage drew was about a tenth of an amp. None of these improvements cost much except for the new NS wheels. The performance was also improved dramatically. I also had a couple of geeps and an SW-7 that all got the same work over improving their performance also.
Then, Atlas brought out their lone of Alco locomotives. Game over. I was immediately hooked on the superior performance of the Atlas locomotives.
One thing that did still bug me with the improved Athearn units was the tendency that they had to pick up so much speed on down grades and losing so much speed on upgrades with a string of freight cars. The Atlas units did not do this. As an experiment, I picked up a can motor from NWSL and put it into the F-7 mainly because it was easier to remove the shell.
It was like day and night. With the can motors the Athearn locomotives ran almost on par with the Atlas locomotives, and at almost the exact same speeds. All of my remaining Athearn locomotives then got a motor transplant.
My main motivation for this was the speed changes on the grades. If you don't have any grades or if the speed changes don't bother you, taking a few minutes to tune up an Athearn blue box locomotive will gretly improve the locomotive.
Guess I'm just a bit too picky, but this F-7 has been running like a gem on my layout for over 25 years.
This is what I ended up with. Looked good but ran like crap at first. While working on the shell, the sintered iron wheels were replaced with nickle silver wheels from NWSL. The gear towers on the trucks were the next step. There was a lot of slop with the worm gear and this was taken care of with one tiny washer. The worm gear and the gears in the truck were then lubricated with a teflon grease and the trucks were hard wired to the motor instead of using the original strap. What a difference these changes made. Out of the box the locomotive was drawing over three quarters of an amp and after the work was done to it the amperage drew was about a tenth of an amp. None of these improvements cost much except for the new NS wheels. The performance was also improved dramatically. I also had a couple of geeps and an SW-7 that all got the same work over improving their performance also.
Then, Atlas brought out their lone of Alco locomotives. Game over. I was immediately hooked on the superior performance of the Atlas locomotives.
One thing that did still bug me with the improved Athearn units was the tendency that they had to pick up so much speed on down grades and losing so much speed on upgrades with a string of freight cars. The Atlas units did not do this. As an experiment, I picked up a can motor from NWSL and put it into the F-7 mainly because it was easier to remove the shell.
It was like day and night. With the can motors the Athearn locomotives ran almost on par with the Atlas locomotives, and at almost the exact same speeds. All of my remaining Athearn locomotives then got a motor transplant.
My main motivation for this was the speed changes on the grades. If you don't have any grades or if the speed changes don't bother you, taking a few minutes to tune up an Athearn blue box locomotive will gretly improve the locomotive.
Guess I'm just a bit too picky, but this F-7 has been running like a gem on my layout for over 25 years.
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