Hey all: I have watched with interest about some of the descriptions given concerning the accuracy of C44 locos. Many of you state that you are dissatisfied with the Kato and believe that the Athearn is much better detailed. Is there some other Athearns that I haven't seen yet? When comparing my Katos and Athearns there is a very large discrepancy in the favor of the Kato. 1. The windows on the Athearn are not even close to accurate. The front side window is way to small and the space between it and the A pilar is much too thick. The front window areas are too small and leave too much space between them and the roof. The Katos don't have this problem. 2. The Kato access doors are concave and convex as are the prototypes. Athearn's are flat. 3. The Athearn front has the wrong slope on the sides of the cab which equals to being off by about 6 inches on the real thing. I will admit that Kato didn't get the paint details as correct as Athearn did and it did forget the proper vent door on the side of the cab that Athearn did not. Also the extra decals that Athearn remembered to put on listing danger areas etc.was nice. I won't forget to add that the Kato ATSF/BNSF have the wrong ditch lights. Other than that the Kato's details are much more accurate overall. The scale is more precise and the angles and heights are more reflective of the real thing. Why do I appear to be the only one that sees it this way? Help me out here?
In most modeling circles, the Kato model is given the advantage in the cab area, since as you mentioned, it is a bit more accurate in cab dimensions than the Athearn model. Some guys I know have installed the Kato cab on the Athearn body. However, the Athearn shell gets high marks in most other areas, like the tooling, and the ease of working with them; undec shells are readily available at a reasonable price, and painted units can be easily and safely stripped, which is something that cannot be said of the Kato shell. Grills, access doors, NBW castings, and x-panels are well done, and Athearn has also done different versions of the C44-9W shell to cover different production variations. Overall, though, both shells have their strong points and weak points, and a modeler should start with the one that best suits their needs. The Kato shell is based on a CNW unit, since it has the cab vent and antenna setup that CNW requested, and also lacks a grill for the air conditioning unit, since CNW units didn't have this feature when built. The Athearn shells cover most intermediate-to-late production. As I said, both are nice, and can make good starting points for models; choose the one that best suits you needs, and modify it as needed. FWIW, when I get around to modeling SP C44-9W's for my SP fleet, and NS C40-9's (run-through power), I plan to use the Athearn shell, since IMHO it looks good, readily available, and a bit closer to what SP and NS had. [ 13 June 2001: Message edited by: Mankind ]
Certainly can appreciate your comments. I too like the availability and ease that the Athearn offers, but like you said---it does have some errors. Perhaps if we consider price we would consider the Athearn to be much closer to accurate for the money it costs. I have both companies versions--2 Kato and 3 Athearn and to me the only glaring weeknesses on the Kato are the trucks, the paint, and the AC vent. I just can't get past the Athearns completely incorrect cab, the non-convex X panel doors, and those terrible windows. But for $35 maybe that aint half bad!! I like my Athearns, but would love to see the whole Dash 9 series in the Genesis line!!! With the same drive assembly of the SD70/75s and some detail adjustments they would be better than the Kato IMHO. HINT!
I doubt Athearn would get a hint if it was put in front of their noses... I've always complained that a late GE widecab thinwall kit was needed... Sure the Kato drive is excellent but other than that i don't know. I was looking at their new SD40s and wondered what tooling changes they actually did? Back to the Dash 9 for any kitbashing i'm gonna say the athearn model is better but hey if you just want to run em its your call... Whatever Paul said i'm behind
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by tunnel88: I've always complained that a late GE widecab thinwall kit was needed... Sure the Kato drive is excellent but other than that i don't know. I was looking at their new SD40s and wondered what tooling changes they actually did? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I agree with you that it would be nice to have a Cannon quality, GE widecab kit on the market; while they're at it, a Dash-8/9 spartan cab would be nice, too. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be as many people modeling GE as there are EMD, so parts makers don't seem to be in a hurry to make more GE parts. Hopefully, Hi-Tech details will add more GE parts to their line; I really like their U-boat and Dash-7 cabs. As for the Kato SD40, only a few changes were made. The sideframes, with high-mount brake cylinders, are all-new, and the pilots were modified with mounting holes for MU hoses.
