This review is on Athearn's HO dual motor DD40. The Athearn DD40 is almost based on a real engine, but the real DD40s were cancelled. It looks close to a DD35A, so the Athearn shell can be modified pretty easily to look like a DD35. Because Athearn started making these in the 60s, they have the wide hood problem, making them look too big and heavy. The castings look good, and they're all nice and smooth. Most of the detail is molded on, but Athearn's plastic is easy to work with so most of the detail can be filed or sanded off for seperate parts. The railings are all metal, with separate wire and stancions, but they're not too detailed, and the separate stancions can slide in the wrong position easily. The pilots are completely open to make room for the truck mounted couplers, but they can be filled if you have wide enough turns. The paint is nice and smooth with pretty good color separation. The printed lettering also looks looks good, with small labels clearly saying "fire extinguisher" or "danger 600 volts." The rear motor is visible through the door in the middle of the engine, but the flywheel is far enough forward to not be real noticable. The trucks are pretty well detailed, but Athearn never changed them to plastic like on most of their other engines. The metal sideframes do add about 4 or 5 ounces of weight, so there is an advantage to having them that way. My DD40 ran smoothly at all speeds, but was pretty loud because of the dual motors. Changing the motors to Sagamis, Katos or Mashimas should make the engine much quieter. The DD40 reached a maximum of 94 scale MPH at 12 volts, and drew an average of 0.5 amps. The minimum speed I could keep ir running at was about 9.5 scale MPH, but different motors should help lower that. The maximum stall current was 2.2 amps, so you'll want a heavy duty decoder for this one. With the two pounds of weight plus the two motors and sixteen wheel drive, I'm pretty sure this engine could easily pull 90-100 cars. The engine has a working headlight, but it's behind the cab so it doesn't really light up the headlight lenses. At least Athearn didn't put it in the cab like they usually did. There's lots of empty space in the shell, so it should be fairly easy to add sound, but you won't want to do that without new motors. The noise of the dual Athearn motors would drown out the sound system, but I guess the sound of the stock motors could be used as the sound system. Athearn's DD40 is a good engine for anyone who wants everything BIG, with big power, big size, and big everything, all at a low price.
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QUOTE: My only gripe with this model is that I don't think SP ever owned one -- wasn't UP the only road that purchased the DD models as experimental units?
QUOTE: Originally posted by Darth Santa Fe Thanks for the replies and comments everyone.[:D] I forgot to mention in the review; although it may look a little silly, the DD40 can easily make it through 18" radius curves without even struggling.[:D] It may even make it down to 17" curves, but I can't really test that, because all I've got is 18".