Does the most recent Atlas GP9 TT release (2015) come with a Scale Speed motor? I do not see any mention of this information on the 2015 Atlas GP9 TT description page on their website. I am looking to purchase two of these locomotives to put older Nickel Plate Road GP9 TT shells (1997 release) on, to get the benefit of a DCC-ready chassis, white LEDs, and Scale Speed motors. I still run DC on my layout. All of my other Atlas NKP diesels have the Scale Speed motor. I am asking this question because I came across a forum discussion that mentioned that Atlas might have changed motor suppliers on some of their more recent GP7/9 releases, and that the motor speed was vastly different than the previous Scale Speed motors. So much so that they could not be run with previous Scale Speed releases. Thanks for any information on the subject. William Gilbert
William, Atlas may have changed suppliers for the motors. Back in April, I did a decoder install on an Illinois Central GP38-2 and was surprised to see the motor was similar to those used by Kato. I posted about this on my DCC blog. http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/2015/04/tcs-m1-in-atlas-master-line-gp38-2.html When I compared it running with a scale speed model, it was scale speed. Also, at the time I checked it out on the Atlas web site. It was from the late 2013 release and they state it as scale speed. I also noticed that Atlas does not state scale speed on the current release of GP7/9. http://www.atlasrr.com/NLoco/ngp7c.htm Could be they just forgot to state it.
It could have been that Atlas had some older slow speed motors left over and were used in new locos when they moved to there new factory. The last Atlas locos that I purchased had scale speed motors that have a different color end bell. The Atlas motors are the same size as a Kato but that's all, the Kato still uses an old school armature with straight poles that turns 18,000 rpms faster with a lot less torque.
