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[quote user="LongIslandTom"]Yep, though Athearn's DD40's prototype was never actually built in real life.  It's got a spartan cab similar to the DD35A, rather than the wide-nose comfort cab on the DDA40X. The Athearn does have a very similar mechanism to that of the Spectrum all-wheel-drive DDA40X.  It came with a fat hood though, because when Athearn first came out with it, they didn't have a motor narrow enough to fit under a scale-width hood. [/quote] I'm no expert on this, but I do own an Athearn version of this.  My understanding is they built the model while the DD40 was being toured around and being offered for pre sale.  Then as luck would have it, no one bought it.  So they put the model out as a "what would they have looked like"  The motor is not behind the cab, it is between the narrow parts of the shell its just set toward the cab side so you can see through the center open area with nothing but a drive axle going across which is powering the rear truck. The later Athearn model of this came with fly wheels as well, mine does not have them, but it still runs well with a Lenz BEMF decoder installed.  I also added ditch lights, a headlight in the rear, a brass horn and repainted and re-decal'ed it to a Pennsy scheme similiar to what it had initally.  It is quite the puller and looks good cruising our 30"+ radii.
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