In my more than 50 years of model railroading I've collected quite a number of locomotives as well as rolling stock.During the first decades most of my purchases were Athearn BB's with an occasional Tyco and Roco/Atlas. Later of course came Atlas, Kato, Steward and Athearn rtr and Genesis. Most of my earlyAthearns (U-boats, SDs and GPs) still haul trains on my layout although I musat confess that they all have their original motors replaced by can motors but they still have the original gears and wheels. Sure they are a bit noisier than their modern brethren but some of them sound remarkably like a diesel engine and therefore the noise doesn't bother me a bit. They lack the beautifull detailing of ther modern Chine made locomotives bur with a bit of superdetailing they are not that much inferior in appaearance.The modern locomotives have fine scale handrails among other fine details but I'm surely not the only one who has occasionally damaged these delicate handrails. Give me the sturdy and only slightly oversized metal handrails of my BBs anyday and moreover they hold paint much better. Another plus a found out is the in my experience perfect conduct of track electricity to the motor. The sintered wheels are reputed to bed less conductive but my BBs never stall whereas some of the other makes do occasionally and then need a gentle nudge to get them moving again. These are some of the reasons why I felt I had tot pay tribute and give credit to the quality of Athearn's BBs.
Hans
I got a GP38 that I used for the base to create a low nose NS GP35. I need to replace the motor with the DCC one Atherean has, and get some of the motor parts (I am missing a connecting piece between the truck and the motor.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
I'm also a fan of the good old BB loco. I have several, and a lot of them have been updated with better lights and decoders, while maintaing the original motors. I have found that the "gold or brass" colored motors are a good inexpensive update to the older darker colored motors, and are far more suitable for DCC adaption. And I have a few that still have the cast metal sideframes, although I have replaced the motor, as I just mentioned above, or have used them as non-powered (dummies...I hate using that word) to fill in consists. I like these because I can still use metal wheel sets, and hook up lights, even though it's non-powered.
You can shave off the cast on grabs, add your own, and other details, and you have a great looking model, although some detail fanatics will call out the fact that some of the Athearn shells are way out of size, such as the width of the SD45 nose and hood. And I guess if your building an absolute model of a particular prototype, this can be important, but it's never bothered me.
Those that have run a lot of Athearns, have probably experienced this, as I have, every once in a while you come across one that seems to out run some of the others, in performance, noise and starting speed. I've got a few GP50's that fall into that catagory, and some GP35's.
I like this article the best, as far as a "how-to" for maintaining and improving the BB loco:
http://www.mcor-nmra.org/publications/articles/athearn_tuneup.html
Mike.
My You Tube
I'd still have and run my original GP-35 had it not been lost in a fire. I do have enough BBs that they could run my RR. I'm still quite fond of them. I have plenty of the newer locos you mentioned too. Dan
Got Athearn?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVxbqUyLRQ4&list=UUoW4ujV1WBLIHRwYyJbLCNg
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I've put new chassis under old shells, or gutted the motors to create dummy engines. Some are "sound dummies" with decoders, lights and speakers but no motors.
These engines have been with me for over half a century. I can't give them up, or even keep them in a box. I want to take them out and run them, even if they need some help from a Proto to get them around the layout.
They are old friends.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Actually the old Athern BB's offer a lot of possibilities for those who like to tinker with and customize their engines. You can start with engines pulled out of under-the-table boxes at train shows and bought cheaply. F-units can be detailed with a "diesel dress-up kit" after the shells have been stripped and custom painted. Motors can be cleaned and lubed or replaced. gears can be replaced if needed from old chassies kept in the parts box for that purpose. If you like to operate some of your trains running opposite the flow of electricity for head-to-head meets, you can simply drop the trucks and swap them end-for-end and your Athern BB becomes an opposite runner. The older units are durable and easy to work on and, since they are not costly, you can weather them without fear of ruining a valuable piece of equipment. I operate a considerable fleet of these units, including several A-B-A lash-ups and have had a lot of fun with them over the years. The newer Athern Genesis locos are fine pieces of equipment, to be sure, but you can't beat the cost of the earlier models and meeting the challenge of upgrading and detailing them is a lot of fun!
These are all mostly stock. Factory paint. Factory lettering. I got some Blue Box GP's. I installed constant brightness lighting in all three. Added light shields to keep the headlamps from shining out the cab windows. Changed the road number on two of them, so as not to have three GP's all sporting the same number. Just painted over the factory numbers with Floquil B&M blue and re decaled with Microscale sheet 87-934. Painted the truck side frames with dark gray auot primer to kill the plastic glossiness. One of these days I'll give the F units the same treatment.
And some F Units. I glazed the windows and cleaned all the gears in the truck gear towers. That made them run quieter. And hardwired the power with so,me 1/4 inch FASTONs. Both units took a dreadful fall off the AVRA modular layout to the floor at the Hanover show. They are currently on the RIP track, but they will run again when I get around to working on them.
And some more F units. These are straight stock. One of these days I'll do some work on them.
They all run good. And I have had a lot of fun tinkering with them. And the price was reasonable.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dstarr: That blue & white B&M F set is beautiful, just beautiful!
Cedarwoodron
Of the 63 diesel locomotives I have, 50 are Athearn BB. I still look for BB's before going to anything else.
What I have always liked about the BB's is that they are generally generic versions of a locomotive making them highly 'customizable', I also like them for durablity. Compared to todays RTR or Genesis, BB's are nearly bullet proof which for me being arthritic and very klutzy is a good thing. Two years ago I bought a pair of RTR SD60's and every time I've had to handle them I end up damaging parts. They run a little better than the 8 SD40-2's I got many years ago that still have original motors. Their detail was...was...much better, now they are a patchwork of CA and look as ragged as their BB brethern.
Mind you...I certainly am not picking on Athearn. Contemporary Bachmann, Atlas, Bowser, etc all pose difficulties for a kinked up clod like me. I would gladly surrender some of that detail to get some durablity back.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
Athearn BBs were my first "model locomotives" (1970s). Since then I've sold / traded all of my powered BB units except for two SCL U33Bs. Although the Athearn BB EMD hood units look glaringly wide, the GE BBs don't look as obvious due to the radiator housing section being wider than the hood section.
The link is a thread in which talented modeler CMarchan did a beautiful job updating and detailing an Athearn BB U33B into a U36B:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/161905.aspx
Although they've been on the back burner for a long while, I still plan on updating my two units.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
I have bought a lot of 'BB' locomotives over the years. In the 70's/80's I had a good fleet of Milwaukee Road engines that were detailed/painted/lettered. I rebuilt all of the drives:
Trued the motor comutator
Adjusted brush spring tension
'Hard Wired' the electrical pick system - Much more reliable that those 'rusty' snap-on metal things
Replaced the 'sintered' iron wheels with either JayBee or NWSL n/s wheels
Added 'constant lighting'
All of my Athearn GP7's were redetailed into GP9's(9 of them), 4 SD7's, an ABA & an AB set of F7's, and a couple of switchers for my 'operations' layout After detailing/painting, the 'fat body' GP's really did not look too bad(until I bought 3 P2K GP18's that were converted th phase 3 GP9's). The 'fat body' Athearns really stood out then! I also has a lot of Rock Island U-Boats and CGW F's. If one cleaned up the 'flash' on the gears, they were decent runners.
As I got into DCC in the late 90's, I started to pick more P2K GP's and the old Athearn fleet was sold off on eBay and at local train shows - I got my mileage out of them!
I always found them to be a reliable running model, and one could always get 'parts'. For those into redetailing and kit-bashing - Athearn was a staple item. I did convert one of the GP's to DCC, but spending more money on them did not seem to be a good investment when I was buying correct P2K GP's from M B Klein for about $40 each!
Today, my roster of Milw stuff is mainly P2K engines. My 'modern' stuff is BNSF and is made up of Atlas & Kato engines - Some of the smoothest and most reliable engines I have.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
I have 3 BB Baldwin switchers converted to DCC for my steel mill, and they continue to by good little work horses.
Other BB's in my roster are not yet converted to DCC. These are 1 SW9, 7 GP7/GP9's, 7 F7's, 1 RDC, and 3 GP35's.
Other BB's I once owned have been sold over the years.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
My very first diesels were Athearns before they became Athearn: an A-B-B-A set of Globe F-units. They were in Santa Fe Warbonnet paint when I got them, then spent some years in CPR maroon and grey, before getting the dark green and double grey of my freelanced road. One unit had one Lindsey power truck, the others were dummies:
This NW2 started as Athearn's original SW1500 - a misnamed SW9, I think. This one has a very large Sagami can motor - so large that I had to use a mill file to widen the interior of that famous overly-wide hood. It also has Ernst gears and a GSB cab interior, along with Tomar track wipers. No matter how much crud built-up on the wheel treads, she'd keep motoring along. Eventually, the build-up would get so thick that the loco would begin to bounce when pulling a heavy train and the crud would then start to flake off in chunks - self-cleaning wheels!
These monsters (there are three of them) started as U33Cs:
I remotored them with two Mashima can motors each...
...then ballasted them to just over 33oz. apiece, re-dubbing them U36HTs (High Traction):
Drawbar pull (measured) is 8.3oz each:
This pair started as a project to recreate two prototypes of my favourite road, and specifically the paint scheme and lettering. Except for the numerals in the number boards and the stripes on the pilots, all lettering and striping was done with paint, using dry transfers as masking devices in order to get the proper matching colours for both the paint and lettering. The custom-mixed paint (Polly S) was brush-applied, and the cab heralds were done freehand, using a fine brush. This freight GP7 was originally a dummy:
...while this passenger GP9 used the Athearn motor. Both units were originally equipped with the metal-sideframed trucks, but I later replaced them with the better-detailed plastic ones, and equipped both locos with can motors. Both units have been ballasted to about 18oz. each, and are decent pullers - the passenger units ran long hood front, the freights short hood front:
These ones, Athearn's ubiquitous SW1500, have been re-worked as SW1200RS locos, very commonly seen on CP and CN trains in my area. I based the paint scheme on that of the TH&B's switchers, substituting green for their maroon, and replacing the cab herald with oversize numerals. All lettering is painted, as with the TH&B units, although it was done with an airbrush:
I replaced the original motors with Mashima cans, and the trucks got Juneco Flexicoil sideframes to replace the original metal AAR switcher sideframes, and all were equipped with Ernst gearsets. Later, when Athearn offered more modern switchers, I swapped out the original trucks for ones with the better-detailed plastic Flexicoil sideframes, although I had to sacrifice some of that weight for the improved appearance. I also removed the Ernst gears, as the units were too slow to be used in their intended role as roadswitchers. At about 12.5 oz. each, these were great pullers and ran extremely well together or with my Bachmann Consolidations. DC-powered, I hard-wired the motors, but used short pieces of rail and rail joiners to allow the trucks to be easily removed for servicing:
While mine were all re-motored and re-detailed, Athearn locos were an important part of my enjoyment of this hobby. I've backdated my layout to the '30s, so the TH&B geeps see little use. The others have all been sold off, and all are, for various reasons, missed, especially the SWs.
Wayne
I also liked the BB locos. Add some detail parts and it looks close to prototype.
This is a GE U-23(?) that was cut down to make a U-18B by Chuck's Chop Shop. I bought it as undecorated and painted it.
The B&M "Slug Set" Undecorated GP-40-2 non-dynamic and a dummy GP-9 cut down, shaved styrene added along with body putty
Gp-7 BM 1715 in a simplified bicentennial scheme
I also have another GP-7 in the works, just waiting for some detail parts. All of the diesels need to be converted to DCC.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
My only Diesel locomotive is a railpower products shell, a Bluebox chasis, and a soon to be upgraded Blue box motor.'
Brought to you by the letters C.P.R. as well as D&H!
K1a - all the way
Dr. Wayne,
Athearn's SW1500/SW7/(or whatever) have correct width hoods. I've got a Southern cow/calf that I hope to upgrade someday: new motor and DCC, for sure. And maybe some decent lighting. And a Cannon cab. And sealing up the incorrect steps on the calf. And....... What's nice with this paint scheme is it's all black, so touch up paint is/should be super simple.
I'm a bit less sentimental for the fat bodied stuff. A very large bit. Somewhere I've got a BB project of kitbashing to make an Athearn-based SDP45 and SD40-2. When I find it, it'll get scrapped for parts.
Where the "BB boosters" have a really valid point is in the handrails. Not that the old Athearn ones are good enough, but they did, indeed, stay straight and square. I miss that. I would really like to see cast beryllium copper stanchions and ACCURATE metal preformed handrails. That would/could provide strong, square and scale handrails.
Ed
I like the rugged dependabily of the blue box F7's. Athearn F7 chassis are one that I use to repower the old metal body Varney F3's. It fits in the body almost like it was made for it.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
My first bluebox Athearn was a SD-9 bought on my birthday 1-11-1980.I still have ity but it ain't what it used to be.It spent almost 10nyears running 8 houes a day on a local LHS HO layout.When they sold the shop the ole girl came home'She origonally had the metal sideframe trucks but wore both of them out then went through 3 more of the plastic sideframed trucks. She went through three motors in all that running time and now has the flatcan withbturned brass flywheels.No DCC yet but that will happen this summer along with her fifth paint jub.Needs a different cab though ,if I can find one I plan to adapt a ATLAS SD 26 with the split windsheild.
Gotta love those BB lokeys. They are the staple of my motive power fleet; fun to kitbash and detail. Here are a pair of GP60s that I bashed from GP50s before Athearn produced the GP60.
My first layout, built 20+ years ago strictly used BB locomotives. They were the best bang for buck. They weren't expensive to detail and they were pretty good runners.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
I've been enjoying reading this thread. Since it started, I went out in the train room and finally assembled an SD-9 out of parts that I'd been collecting. It didn't match the speed of my other one, at first, but with a bit of tweaking, and several laps arount the layout at about 3/4 throttle, it's good to doublehead. I don't use dummies. (I wish they called them gliders or something 'sides dummies.)
Some of you guys really go to town on the modifications! A lot of nice work and photos here. All mine do have improved wiring, some have NWSL wheels, a few added details. I only have 9 BB locomotives and a couple other non Athearn locos riding on Athrean trucks. One BB is a Hustler (wip) with a Sagami can and Atlas gears, twin flywheels.. Smooth, and can go slow.
The only "gray" motor is an SW-12, It's chassis survived the fire that killed my original 1976 GP-35 , but the body was melted. I put a new one on it. It actually runs fine after a good cleaning of smoke off the vitals. I think it deserves a place on the layout. All others have Athearn gold colored motors (do those qualify as cans?)
Nobody has mentioned it here, but Athearn also helped a lot of us kids get the rollong stock on the rails. Even with it's now frowned upon generic approach, they were still better than train set junk, had body mounted couplers (freight), were easy and fun to knock together, and affordable. And you could use those nifty boxes to organize everything. Dan
Of the fifty or so locomotives on the BRVRR layout, 23 are Athearn BB locomotives. The first locos I purchased for the layout were and ABA set of F-7s in Santa Fe livery. They are still in service today albeit with Digitrax decoders in both A-units and a Soundtraxx decoder in the B-unit. They were shown in WPF this past weekend. Here's a link:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/228442.aspx
All of my locos are equipped with at least motor and light decoders and many with sound. Most have been detailed with window glazing, handrails, better headlights and MU hoses. I have FP-45s, F-7s, ALCO PAs a few GP-40s and GP-40-2s in service. Many were repainted. An example:
The A-unit Pennsylvania F7 #9822 at left has been lying around for years. It is an Athearn BB kit that I detailed with a Walther's dress-up kit. I made the train phone antenna from stanchions from an Athearn handrail set for a GP40-2 and a couple of pieces of .015 music wire. The B-unit was repainted to match, is not powered and has a Soundtraxx decoder installed.
There are more pictures, exampes and "How To's" on my website. Link is in my signature.
Athearn BB locos are a mainstay. Rugged, inexpensive and reliable. Too bad they never made an affordable steam loco. But the diesels will always have a place on the BRVRR.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
I love the old Athearn BB engines. I just have four SP ac4400's all ballasted to the max. I run all four lashed up to pull my 110 car coal train: 25 cars with loads to prevent string lining and a 2.3% grade. These engines always run flawlessly.
Does anyone know if the new genesis GE engines are heavier than the old blue box units?
The Athearn BB loco served it's purpose and for it's time it was a good thing. Since there are better quality and more true to the prototype loco's out on the market in the past 15 years, I have moved on and eliminated most of my blue box Athearns. I only have 3 left now, and none in service at this writing (2 Athearn bb GP40-2's and one dummy SD40T-2). Only one of the 3 is in running condition, the other powered unit has been in pieces for years split up between serveral boxes - it ran like a coffee grinder out-of-the box.
The bb Athearn was economical, and many could be made to run well with some elbow grease or some work and if you were lucky, it ran pretty well out of the box - QAQC was always spotty with Athearn even in the blue box loco years. If I do get my old blue box Athearns roadworthy again, it will probably be to run at modular club days because I won't be traumatized if something bad happens to them. Other folks in the club do the same thing, use their older, cheaper simple engines for the club.
Athearn blue box are great for kids and beginners, those who need engines for not much money as they are still available at train shows etc. and great for folks who still like to paint, detail etc., especially if you have the skill. And even if you don't have much skill like me, they are good to practice on since you won't be devistated if something goes awry when cuttting/detailing/painting etc.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Athearn BB were a good value for their day and they comprised most of my diesel fleet with Rivarossi providing the steamers. I'm not terribly sentimental about them and am getting ready to sell them to one of the LHSes that buy used equipment. They are asking $15 for ones in good condition which means they probably offer $5 for them. When I returned to the hobby around 2000, the plan was to build a new DCC layout and upgrade all my old locos with decoders. I saw an ad in Trainworld offering BB F7s for the blowout price of $30. I bought about six of them not caring what the road name was figuring I was going to custom paint them. Then I ordered my first sound equipped diesel and saw how much better the detailing was on the new stuff and realized I'd made a big mistake. Not a single one of my BB diesels has been upgraded and I have no plans to do so. They served me well on the old layout but it's time to move on.