Worlds fastest model train in any scale.

[santafemikie]

I don't know about the whole world, but I definitely had the fastest Hustler in town. My young son broke one of the Athearn drive shaft nubs. To repair it, I replaced the nubs with 1/8" tubing  with a groove to retain the rubber bands. I was just trying to get it to go as my son was in tears. Go it did....I didn't really think about it at the time, it made the little unit REALLY go! I never tried to figure what it did to the final drive ratio but it was apparent something was different. Nothing could even come close to it on the modular club 24 foot straightaway. Further, it never even started to follow the 32" radius curve at the end it just went straight off the table and into a basket filled full of fascia curtains held by one of the members. They all wanted to see how far it would fly but I didn't want to destroy it.

Mike

[hobo9941]

I hesitate to admit this ....when I was a lad I used to set up my mother's laundry basket at a strategic spot and let the Athearn Hustler fly off the end of the layout and sail through the air, landing -- if i did my planning right -- in the soft confines of the laundry basket.

My kids used to do that with slot cars. After I carefully explained how to slow down on the curves, and keep the cars on the tracks, they would see who could fire the car the farthest across the room. I can still hear them laughing up in their room.

[dti406]

One of my friends had the Atlas Propeller Driven engine from back in the Late 50's or early 60's.  We used to see if we could get it around the layout because although it started up slow it increased speed so not only would it not go around curves, the slight jog to get around some plumbing would set it airborne off the tracks.

http://hoseeker.org/gallery/index.php?album=athearnmaingallery1%2Fathearnaccessoriesnontrainitems&image=Turbo_Racer_Atlas_early_60s.jpg

 

Rick J

[Texas Zepher]

Every year the Youth in Model Railroading club here in Denver has a fun day.    One of the events is a locomotive drag race.   The first time my  children entered, they each entered a rubber band drive Athearn.  There were two Hustlers which took 1st and 2nd place.   The third was a F-unit would probably have taken third had it not had problems.   The next year, knowing other childern were going to show up with rubber band drives, I changed the gear ratio by adding a tube over the metal "drive" shaft.  We won once again.   Last year all the children at the club were clammoring for the Hustlers with rubber band drives so I rounded up two of the Marx diesel switchers and we entered those.  Our third entry for my daughter was once again the original F unit rubber band drive.  I figured out that that power supply for the "race track" was not providing sufficient current for the original Athearn motor, so I replace it with a high efficient can motor.   It ended up being so fast I was embarrased to have entered it.     It was in a different time zone.   The two Marx units and the other kids Hustlers were maybe 1/4th the way down the track when this unit was done.  Oh by the way, the Marx units were faster than the Athearn Hustlers, but they didn't win because it was a single elimination race and they came up against the pink warbonnet before the Athearn's did.

Here is my daughter's pink war bonnet sitting at the starting line.

Next year I had planned on dragging out the Tyco Turbo trains to give to the boys (yes I have a box of them somewhere).  We will see how they do.   For my daughter we have a new trick to try, it will be a steam locomotive.

[gmcrail]

Back in the early 60's, when the Hi-F drives came out, I think it was Model Railroader (or maybe Model Trains) did a speed test of the Hustler.  IIRC, it was around 465 sMPH...   Last I heard the record was unbroken by a stock (unmodified) HO model locomotive.

[RockyMountainRailway]

I have a Hornby Southeastern Trains Class 395 Javelin that goes a scale speed of 200 MPH