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Motorizing an Athearn RDC

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  • Member since
    January 2004
  • From: Canada, eh?
  • 13,375 posts
Posted by doctorwayne on Sunday, July 31, 2022 2:02 PM

North West Short Line offers a number of power drive-units in their catalogue, including ones for re-powering a variety of manufacturers' locos.  My catalogue is an older one, but it shows at least one power truck made specifically for an Athearn RDC.

Wayne

  • Member since
    February 2008
  • 8,877 posts
Posted by maxman on Sunday, July 31, 2022 12:58 PM

Remove the guts, turn them into dummies, and couple them to a Proto 1000 powered unit?

Don’t know about Bowser. Probably easier to call them and ask tomorrow.

However, there was an outfit called Ernst that made a re-gear set specifically for the Athearn RDC.  Look in the Walthers on-line catalog for item 259-3. Out of stock but you’ll probably find one if you search.

Tried one of them once and didn’t have much luck.  Probably not patient enough.

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • 2,572 posts
Motorizing an Athearn RDC
Posted by John-NYBW on Sunday, July 31, 2022 12:19 PM

A few years ago I bought a pair of Athearn RDC units at a train show. The baggage/express unit was powered and the coach was dummy. A few months ago I opened up the powered unit to see what it would take to convert them to DCC and discovered it has a rubber band drive. I tried running it in DC mode and it had a herky-jerky movement to it. I'm thinking the best option would be to replace the motor and trucks but I've never done such a conversion and I'm wondering what might be a good replacement for what is in the powered unit.

I clicked on the Bowser ad at the top of this page because it showed such a motor and trucks but all it did was take me to their home page and I can't find the item that was in the ad. 

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