Heiden Transmission for Athearn Loco's

[dragenrider]

I found an advertisement in the Feb. 1983 Model Railroader for Heiden Transmissions. Presumably, they work the same way Ernst gears do to slow down the Athearn locomotive's speed to a more proportional crawl. I've regeared many of my loco's with Ernst but never heard of Heiden.

The only other reference I could find on the internet was a comparison in the 1982 summer edition of Model Railroading. Can any of you shed any light on these gears and how well they worked? Are any even still out there?

Thanks!![:)]

[fmilhaupt]

The Heiden transmission was a pair of multi-gear gearboxes that you would assemble and install in place of an Athearn locomotive's flywheels. My experience was that it was noisy and more work than installing Ernst regearing.

I installed a set in an Athearn SW7 shortly after the transmission came out. It was a fussy job which ended up producing an extremely noisy switcher with a lot of new friction in the system. I used the switcher for about 20 minutes before I decided to pull the transmission and reinstall the flywheels.

Ernst gearing was relatively new at the time. It was considerably easier to install, and while it resulted in a locomotive that was a bit noisier than a stock Athearn, it made nowhere near the racket that the Heiden transmission did.

The Heiden transmission didn't last very long on the market, and isn't missed by anyone I know who tried it.

[dragenrider]

Thanks for that informative post. I agree with your take on Ernst. They make a louder engine and take some tweaking, but they do produce a slower, better running engine.