I will offer my experiance with the two I own for whatever service it might be.
Some years back I purchased two of these in Western Maryland, test ran them at the time, they ran great. They have been idle for a while, and a few months ago I attempted to run them.
I found two problems, the classice cracked axle gears, easlily replaced from my vast inventory, and cracked u-joint female ends on the worm gears, three out four locations......
Walthers has no more parts, I bought the last set.
But ended up not using them. In place of the u-joint I simply clipped the end off the drive shaft and replaced the u-joint with a piece of flexible rubber/plastic tubing.
They both run great again.
No motor troubles here, but not many hours on these yet.....
Sheldon
I have a Atlas RS-3 lettered for Cotton Belt (SSW) with a decoder installed. I haven't run it that much because Ive been working on my ATHG Santa Fe SD75M fleet.
Do Atlas models suffer from cracked gears like P2? Or is Atlas's drive mechanism better quality?
While Atlas locomotives can develop cracked gears, it is in nowhere near the numbers that Life-Like's gears split. And generally, Atlas axles don't crack when they haven't been run.
In my case, I've had over 30 Atlas GP7s, RS1s, RS3s, RSD5s and C424s since the late 1980s. Only one has ever developed a cracked axle.
As for Proto diesels, of the dozen GP7s, BL2s and RS2s I've had, every one developed at least one cracked axle at some time. Once I replace a cracked axle with an Athearn part, it doesn't usually crack again.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
So you're saying the chance of cracked axle gears on Atlas Locomotives is much lower than on Proto Locomotives?
Just wanted to make sure.
ATSFGuy So you're saying the chance of cracked axle gears on Atlas Locomotives is much lower than on Proto Locomotives? Just wanted to make sure.