i am looking at some of there new products "fire trucks, trucks and the bath tub coal convayer" and it looks as good as the kato cars. does the F59PHI Diesel and the Bombardier Bi-Level Commuter Cars match up to the quality of the HO scale counterparts? are there products worth the money?
The trucks are sweet! I just got a Wig-Pak from George, and inside were 3 new 28' pup/tractor sets. I'll attempt to get some shots soon, but Dave N has a few installed on a piggyback train. Maybe Dave will see this and post a shot or 2?
I agree, they are tops in vehicle manufacturing in my book. The detail is great. The firetrucks they have are some of the, if not the best n scale vehicles available in my view. I have two serving in the Centralia Fire Dept. right now. I also just recently got 5 tractor trailer sets and the CF ones have to be seen to be believed!
The F59PHI and Bombardier cars look great, but the locomotive isn't a great runner. If you can get it cheap it's OK though. Athearn faces a big test with their SD70-series release coming up. Hopefully they'll be good runners and lookers or it may be a long year for Athearn/Horizon.
Doug,The SD70s drive is a split frame like you would find in quality N scale locomotives..I suspect Athearn may have learn a lesion from the F59PHI on what not to do..Time will tell.
I hope so, as I've got some SD70Ms on order. I'm betting on Athearn getting it right. Alot of us have been waiting a long time for this model!!
The Athearn N stuff is far too modern for me. I do wish that they had done in N the USRA lights that they did in HO. The MPs need work. THe GF has one of the FP-59s. She likes AMTRAK and they came in AMTRAK, she thought it looked 'cute', so she bought one. The GF buys trains mostly on looks, she likes AMTRAK and nineteenth century stuff. The FP-59 has two speeds: Very fast and warp six. The slow speed is non-existent. As this is a passenger locomotive, slow speed is only important in station and yard areas, but the track speed of this one is a bit too fast for my tastes, if I were to run anything modern. The GF does not seem to mind this. If she is happy, then I am. I do not know about theother Athearn stuff as it is too modern for me and the GF did not buy any.
I must be lucky, my 2 F-59PHI's run like a dream and both are in service hauling commuter trains. I managed to get a 3car set of MetroLink plus an extra coach and a 3 car set of Caltrains and an extra coach - I have never seen the Caltrains livery advertised by Athern so it might have been a one off (I got it at Chans Trains in San Fran) The bombardier car run really well (in push/pull mode as well) but Athern didn't put any pilot details on the cab car so it needs to be fixed. As to the rest of Athern stuff, I have some coal porters and I am currently looking at re-working them to move the bolsters back and use micro-trains couplers and the Auto-max's run and look nice as well
