Tower 55 Locomotives

[nadnad]

Hello All,

I have a chance to purchase a slightly used and in good shape Tower 55 Locomotive and I was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on the overall product before I purchase it since I have never owned a Tower 55 Locomotive.  Conversely, should I just save my money and wait until Atheran Genesis releases their new locomotives with the Tower 55 tooling?  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Nad 

 

[7j43k]

I've got three of their ES44DC's. I think I'd recommend waiting, though price might affect your decision.

As T55's, these locos had/have some kind of problem with their running sound while they're in the DC mode. I think Athearn will clean this up. To find out more, do a forum search, either here or on Atlas, for discussion about the matter when they were released.

Also, I'm unimpressed with the sideframes (cast on brake lines--really dumb looking) and that they chose to cast the air tanks in relief (as opposed to showing the full-round air tanks, as Atlas did). Athearn will probably fix the former problem--don't know about the latter.

Athearn will probably make new handrails (in plastic) rather than re-use the T55 method (metal handrails and plastic stanchions). To me, the good part about the T55 method is that everything can be made straight and square. The bad is that they cast the stanchions in plastic and made them too fat. I expect Athearn will thin down the stanchions.

I believe the ditch light housings are way too big on the T55's--Athearn will most likely shrink them.

I haven't run mine much, so I can't really provide much info there. They seemed like they might be good runners. Athearn seems to be spotty, as far as running. Some are great; some aren't. So, you're taking a chance there.

T55 stuff was touted as being very road specific. I expect Athearn to keep this up with theirs.

Ed

[cacole]

I have two of the Tower 55 GE ES4400AC locomotives.  They were made by Ajin Precision in Korea and are very smooth running mechanisms and are highly detailed; but I was very disappointed with the quality of the sound produced by the Digitrax SoundFX decoder that was used in them.  I eventually changed to a Quantum Revolution sound decoder and they now sound much better.  I run them only on DCC.  The only complaints I have ever read about them are from people who try to run DCC equipped locomotives on DC, which is not the way they are intended to be run.

[7j43k]

cacole

I run them only on DCC.  The only complaints I have ever read about them are from people who to run DCC equipped locomotives on DC.

My locos are from T55's first run. That run was supposed to be runnable as either DCC with sound or DC with sound (auto-switching between each). There was some sort of problem with the DC with sound mode--I don't recall it real well, that's why I suggested doing a search to back in the olden days (I ordered mine on 9/25/05). I do not recall whether T55, in subsequent runs, corrected the DC/sound problem.

Ed

[rrinker]

 They CAN run on DC and do auto-detect (unless previously programmed not to). HOWEVER - and this is an issue with all sound decoders that can work on both DCC and DC - unless you want the loco to unrealistically start rolling before it makes any sound, they are set up so the loco doesn't start rolling until the track voltage reaches a level high enough to activate the sound electronics and then some. That way, DC users can have the loco sit making idling noises without moving. However, this is usually somewhere around 6 volts or so - half throttle for a standard 0-12 volt DC throttle - and almost 3/4 of the travel of the speed knob. Your non-sound locos will be moving at a decent clip while the sound one just sits there making noises. Forget running a sound unit with a non-sound. Fine control? Well, you have make 30-40 degrees of knob travel to equal stop to full speed. Far from satisfactory. And there's really nothign can be done about it without changing somethign in the system - different form of power that can drive the decoder without moving the loco, or something else that would mean a new power pack and might not be 100% compatible with plain DC locos. You might think PWM would work, since it enables constant lighting on DC locos, however a PWM square wave is too close to the DCC waveform and the decoder can't handle that as 'plain' DC. So we're back to two different sound units, once for PWM DC and one for DCC. That would work - the DC version could have idle sounds as soon as the track was powered, but is there really a market for such a thing? 2 different decoders, that would need to be swapped, or else a more complex decoder with a manual switch to set it to run on PWM or DCC. Plus of course switching your DC power system over to a PWM product - and there aren't too many of those on the market, outside of the Aristo Train Engineer.

 Bottom line, if sound is a must-have for you, you're far better off switching to DCC instead of trying to "make do" with a less than ideal experience.

                                                --Randy

 

[csxns]

I have two no sound and run on DC only and they are great running modern power.