i have a problem and i am serious

[stuart_canada]

after spending many years thinking my dream locos were the blue box special, shake, rattle and it was good to go. when i wasa kid i could not afford them and only guys i knew who had them were much older than i was ( now hitting 40 next year) i put up with my bachmann pancake motors and the tyco powered units ( boy am i glad the tyco died). when i got back into the hobby after almost 15 years i started getting my blue box units and i was amazed at the details and the smooth running. i put my older bachmanns, model power, life like all on a rip track looking pretty but they never moved. Thenafter my divorce a friend got me 2 Kato sd70macs ( i trade one for a Sd 45 CPR unit) and i never ran them much because they were too big for the layout so i was never impressed with the details and stuff. they just looked nice. now i went out and got a con cor kato mp15 and the kato NW 2 switchers and i now hate my athearn blue box specials they are noisey, they do not run as nice, lack the details and so on.
all i want now is the Kato models, P2k or the ready to run athearn, no more blue box models for me.
i will take an atlas with the kato drive system.
do you think i have a problem is there a support group?
I am the owner of over 30 blue box specials now 2 spectrum units and 3 pure katos, 4 atlas, concors with kato drives.
stuart
renfrew ontario

[LynnB]

Too funney
Naw I don't think there is a group , its just a lesson each of us go through. You may feel better trying to unload the unwanted locos on ebay.

[Trucklover]

Stuart, i am with you, i am selling off all my Athearn Blue Box Locos i can, only keeping one powered unit in the Blue Box units i have, the other 3 im keeping that are Athearn Blue Box's are Dummy Units.

Im going for only KATO, BLUELINE, Athearn RTR/Genius and other Ready To Run locos just like you are too. Im done with Athearn Blue Box locos, they are good starter locos, but i dont have the interest to super detail them and make them DCC anymore.....

The details you can get now a days are to me worth every penny, and that for me means no more Athearn Blue Box Locos lol

[eightyeightfan1]

Hi Sturart.
Welcome to the "I bought an Athearn Blue Box Loco, Before Athearn Started Ready To Run Support Group".
Everyone of us have done it before. Bought BB's. Then came Kato, with their highly detailed, smooth running locos.
Everyone followed suit. Athearn, Walthers, Life-Like, Atlas. Now we don't even look at the BB's, though there still some on my roster.

Just a personel opinion....I bought a Kato C44-9W. I thought it was great! Ran smooth, excellent detail(even if they were a pain in the butt to put on.) Then I bought a couple of Athearn SD70M's. Love the SD's better now.

[stuart_canada]

i am thinking of getting rid of my athearn fleet completely.
i have some custom kit bashed Cn gp40-2l units and one athearn sd40-2w those i will keep but the rest might end up on the auction block
just hard to take all that noise of the athearn drive. no wonder train crew wear ear protection and want whisper cabs.

[Tom]

I wonder then if I am in the minority now, because I *prefer* to super detail, paint, decal and re-power an Athearn Blue Box rather than open a box and set it on the tracks? I got an Athearn WP GP35 for Christmas, and the fact that I have to do NOTHING to it but weather it and add a large snow plow, M.U. hoses, cut levers and train line air hoses and angle cocks is driving me nuts. So, I'm thinking of stripping it and repainting it (even though it is already Perlman Green) and repainting it a really faded and weathered Perlman green, and modifying the number boards to WP style with the single large Pyle headlight and multiple orange stripes on teh nose versus the current W/P on the nose. I don't know what it is, I just like futzing around with Athearn Blue Box models. Once you add NWSL Nickle Silver wheels and Mashima, Sagami or Kato motors to them, they run as good as an Atlas or Kato (Just about every Proto engine I have initially ran like CRAP) anyway. Add a custom paint job, and details, and I like them much better. Am I the only one, or do *I* need a support group??

[shaygetz]

I gotta cure fer that...

...jes' stare at a Tyco GG1 'til yer malady is over an' done with.



You'll be appreciatin' them Athearn BBs in no time.

[Russ Bellinis]

I don't have Kato. I model the Santa Fe and Kato has never ever come out with anything with an accurate yellow for the Santa Fe blue & yellow frieght scheme. In addition I've never seen two Kato models with the same shade of yellow. I'm talking about gp30 and a gp35 for instance, not 2 models from the same production run. I've bought P2k Alco Pa, Emd E9. In the process of moving the models from one train show to the next, most of the plastic detail have broken off, so I'm going to have to replace all of the plastic details with brass details because. Of the need to handle models more when operating in a modular club. As a result, I always buy Athearn Blue Box when the model has the correct width hood, and is available in the model I want. I buy p2k as a last resort, if the model I want is not offered as an Athearn blue box, but I plan from the start to strip off all plastic details and redo them with brass and repaint before I will show up with one at a train show. If I buy an Athearn r-t-r, the plastic hand rails are stripped off first thing. There is no such thing as a plastic handrail that is not worthless. They are either vastly oversize, or they are so weak that they bend and don't return to the correct shape the first time you take the model out of the box.

I always tune up my Athearn blue box locomotives using Jim Fuhrman's recomendations on this link, and they run as smoothly and quietly as any Kato in the club.
By the way, I also rewire all of my Athearn blue box and r-t-r locomotives with Jim's 5 wire system in the link in the center of the page.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://trainweb.org/jfuhrtrain/tuneup.htm">http://trainweb.org/jfuhrtrain/tuneup.htm</a><!-- m -->

[Lester Perry]

I just put a decoder in one of my blue boxs. I am going to put one in all of them. I have repainted them all but not detail parts. That will come later, but not to same level of Proto and Kato. here is a pic of some of them maybe you can see why I will keep them


I have 5 of these. The decoder made a huge difference in operations and noise.
Les

[doctorwayne]

To each his own, but, fortunately for me, I've yet to see anything that's advertised as "ready-to-run" which truly is. The main drawback, in my opinion, is having to pay a premium to buy an otherwise unavailable model, then still have to upgrade it in some way - I do enjoy the work, but not the added expense for something I consider not truly ready to run. Consider: an Athearn blue box diesel is ready to run, too - just put it on the tracks and you can run it. Most, of course, won't settle for that, and, in that context, I'm sure that you can see why I won't settle for so-called r-t-r either.

Wayne

[Tom]

I don't have Kato. I model the Santa Fe and Kato has never ever come out with anything with an accurate yellow for the Santa Fe blue & yellow frieght scheme. In addition I've never seen two Kato models with the same shade of yellow. I'm talking about gp30 and a gp35 for instance, not 2 models from the same production run. I've bought P2k Alco Pa, Emd E9. In the process of moving the models from one train show to the next, most of the plastic detail have broken off, so I'm going to have to replace all of the plastic details with brass details because. Of the need to handle models more when operating in a modular club. As a result, I always buy Athearn Blue Box when the model has the correct width hood, and is available in the model I want. I buy p2k as a last resort, if the model I want is not offered as an Athearn blue box, but I plan from the start to strip off all plastic details and redo them with brass and repaint before I will show up with one at a train show. If I buy an Athearn r-t-r, the plastic hand rails are stripped off first thing. There is no such thing as a plastic handrail that is not worthless. They are either vastly oversize, or they are so weak that they bend and don't return to the correct shape the first time you take the model out of the box.

I always tune up my Athearn blue box locomotives using Jim Fuhrman's recomendations on this link, and they run as smoothly and quietly as any Kato in the club.
By the way, I also rewire all of my Athearn blue box and r-t-r locomotives with Jim's 5 wire system in the link in the center of the page.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://trainweb.org/jfuhrtrain/tuneup.htm">http://trainweb.org/jfuhrtrain/tuneup.htm</a><!-- m -->

I love the detailed scale plastic handrails for their appearance, I hate their fragility. For several of my Proto 2000 geeps, I ended up replacing the handrails with metal handrails from Athearn (they fit like a glove on the GP7's and GP9's). I have a WP bicentennial GP40 here that I am detailing for my brother and he was having a heck of a time even getting it in the box the other night due to the plastic handrails. They are a real pain. Good idea in theory, but if you take your engines to other layouts to run like we do, they are worthless.

Thankfully, Athearn still has their metal handrails available and they are nearly bulletproof.

[Sarge]

I wonder then if I am in the minority now, because I *prefer* to super detail, paint, decal and re-power an Athearn Blue Box rather than open a box and set it on the tracks? I got an Athearn WP GP35 for Christmas, and the fact that I have to do NOTHING to it but weather it and add a large snow plow, M.U. hoses, cut levers and train line air hoses and angle cocks is driving me nuts. So, I'm thinking of stripping it and repainting it (even though it is already Perlman Green) and repainting it a really faded and weathered Perlman green, and modifying the number boards to WP style with the single large Pyle headlight and multiple orange stripes on teh nose versus the current W/P on the nose. I don't know what it is, I just like futzing around with Athearn Blue Box models. Once you add NWSL Nickle Silver wheels and Mashima, Sagami or Kato motors to them, they run as good as an Atlas or Kato (Just about every Proto engine I have initially ran like CRAP) anyway. Add a custom paint job, and details, and I like them much better. Am I the only one, or do *I* need a support group??

I'm with you Tom

Anybody who doesn't want their blue boxs can send them to me and I will take care of them for ya

[stuart_canada]

do not get me wrong i like my blue box units, they run great i just do not like the noise they make for the most part, i guess you are a more prototype modeller you like to add the details and such but for the price i want something that sounds and runs much smoother. i am thinking i would rather buy a used kato or p2k model then buy a new in the blue box athearn just because of the sound.
i am not going to get rid of the blue box fleet , but unless it is a great deal in my eyes i will not be adding to that side of the fleet. i have too many custom CNR units done with the safety cab, aka wide cab, or what ever you want to call it.
but glad to see people enjoy the models no matter what they are