An older AHM locomotive

Evening all,

I've been lurking around here but not saying much lately, I haven't been putting much time into any of my railroad projects. That is about to change I'm happy to say. Recently a neighbor told me there was a pre-estate sale going on at his wife's family home nearby. He told me there were some train items so I had to go. There was a nice collection of HO, nearly all of it a bit older. I did find a Nice Marklin box set and took that immediately. After looking through the rest I added a few items including an AHM locomotive. I'm trying to determine what it is and when it would have been produced. It is marked as an Alco GE 1000 HP Locomotive. Nothing more. It has the older hook&horn couplers so it is at least early 80's and probably older. it is in decent shape though there is some corrosion on the bottom. I haven't run it yet. What's curious to me is that it is marked as made in Yugoslavia. I had not realized these things had been made there in the past but that may help date it. Anyone familiar with this era of AHM products? Thanks.

Rick H.

 

I'm having trouble making out the trucks. Is that an S-2 with Blunt trucks? If so, what a score! Otherwise, if it has the usual AAR switcher trucks, it's an S-4.

Yes, a lot of AHM was built in Eastern Europe. Most of it, even.

 

Made by Mehanotehnika. I don't know what year the Alco S unit was introduced but most likely sometime in the seventies.

Doug

 

I had one years ago, which I was able to re-motor and it ran rather nicely. I think I paid $4.88 for it. Replaced the plastic hand rails with wire, and enclosed the pilot ends.

Here's a crappy picture I took of it many years back...



And yes, I believe it had Blunt trucks...

Mark in Oregon

 

I have an AHM SW1 and the dang motor magnets are so strong, the minimum speed is high because the armature is stuck until the voltage gets high enough to pull it around.

Doug

 

Bill I've done some work to it but much left to do. I'll put some photos on it in the next day or so. It's been a very fun project.

Rick

 

All the model companies were re-licensing things from each other back in those days -- 60's 70's. As someone pointed out, they think it was made by mehano. A lot of 60's Atlas items are Rivarossi, but a lot of those are made in yugoslavia. I would bet this model may even have started as Rivarossi line, manufactured in Yugoslavia, then later resold as AHM.

 

Many of the vertical motor/kingpin drive designs were probably Rivarossi in origin.

Doug

 

They weren't "re-licensing from each other. Mehano was selling to everyone. If it says Yugoslavia it's a Mehano. No matter if it said Rivarossi, AHM or Atlas on the box. I also have the Mehano SW-1.
The magnets are not particularly strong. In fact, that start voltage is an indication of weak magnets in my estimation.

However it is a flat can motor (at least in the sw-1 and the GP18). Not quite as good as late model Athearn Golden Flat cans, but not bad at all. Not sure on the Alco pictured. Those trucks are quite different from what I'm used to with my Mehanos from the 80s.

 

Weaker stator magnets result in a lower starting voltage because the rotor doesn't have to overcome the stronger magnetic field to begin turning. Mehano N scale motors are a good example of this. They have great slow speed performance because of the relatively weak magnet. The trade off is lower torque and more current required in the armature to operate which can easily result in overheating.

The bottom of the trucks in the Alco in the OP look exactly like the ones in my SW1.

Doug

 

Weaker magnets also result in less fine motor control.

Those trucks must then be an older design from the 70s.

Not my picture at all, but this is what the bottoms of the trucks on my GP18 and SW1 look like.

 

Yo ho,
I'm not arguing who made it, just pointing out that a lot of those models have an odd pedigree due to how they were sold over here.

In the case of this switcher, the molds may have been made in italy by Rivarossi, or the drawings were produced there and sent to mehano for protoypes to get made.

Licensing as in reselling under a different brand name. I have an Atlas mainline train station sitting here near me. Atlas never made it, they licensed it so they could brand it as their own thus expanding their own line and perhaps getting a good deal on goods. Here is one as an ebay sale as Pola model b651 from western germany.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pola-H0-65...666759?hash=item4d679a9907:g:8AEAAOSwk1haDC-g

I popped open my own model from Atlas and sure enough under the baseplate it says made in western germany.

Likewise Mehano wouldn't have access to an American market as a slovenian company in a communist country, so they would make it and license their product to sell under other brand names. or, it may have been contracted by a company as USA loco designs would not sell in their own country.

I doubt the loco sold here, or possibly anywhere as a mehano, as it was more likely coming here in a Rivarossi, or AHM labelled box.

As a side note I recall having a N scale f9 decades ago. It was supposedly Atlas, but was made in Yugoslavia. I don't know if this was another Rivarossi to usa market product. Something else to consider is that we may not have allowed trade directly with Yugoslavia at that time, so intermediaries would get used such as Rivarossi in Italy.

Another thing, is that these models like my F9 stopped having other brands molded into them and only thad the country of manufacture. SO it would be interesting to know who designed the molds was it in yugoslavia, or was it another company?

 

First, I am red-faced stating my SW1 trucks look like the ones on the Alco in this thread. They actually are just like the ones in YoHo's post. I was thinking of the ones on my Rivarossi E8 which are similar to the Alco's but with six wheels.

Also, the Atlas N scale F9 was made by RoCo in Austria. The E8 was made by Rivarossi. Atlas did have some of their early locos made by Mehanotehnika but they were all hood units, a little industrial switcher, or a little steam switcher, no cab units.

Doug

 

Doug, since I don't have the F9 here in front of me, I may have confused it with another older N unit, but I am sure I had something by Atlas with a yugoslavia on it. Maybe it was that old MDT 6 wheel switcher they had back in the 70's.

You wonder who the people are that built the prototype models for all these things we used to buy are. It would be a cool documentary to track them down.

 

I have the Atlas first generation N scale locos covered on my site, link below. You will see the Mehano-made Atlas locos there. I usually know who made other locos from the very early days too but I'm sure there are some maybe more obscure ones.

I don't remember Mehano making any EMD F unit then, however. They did make an Alco FA1 or FA2 for MRC. The Bachmann F unit was made in Hong Kong or China. The Minitrix F7 was made in Germany. The AHM F unit was made by Lima in Italy.

Of course, there's always Mark Peterson's (Spookshow) site too which has all N scale locos on it.

Doug