Well, folks; I bought three of the Athearn 2-8-2s as soon as they came out. After hours of work, I've got one that runs well although without a headlight. Number two won't be running until Athearn starts supplying parts. Number three is scattered across the workbench for the second time. Has it occurred to any of you doing this same task that we might have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by just repowering an old Mantua Mike and putting a Cary boiler on it? This Athearn job feels a lot like starting from behind scratch. Don't think I've EVER put so much work into something called "ready to run". Am I just feeling disgusted, or are others dealing with this frustration as well? Has anyone gotten one that really runs and tracks well straight out of the box? Sourpuss (formerly Chuckles)
No you are not alone Chuckles! I have the same problem with all the "ready-to-runs" I have tried so far, except one. The only engines I have that are worth a flip are the pre-Tyco Mantuas and Varneys. The only ready 2 run that did and does, is a Revel diesel F-1, but I have very little interest in diesels, so I use it to pull my track cleaner cars. The main problems I have right now, are two. Finding replacement drivers without the rubber tire, and having to add weight to the cheap quality plastic ones to get some traction. I wont go on, like you say it is discouraging talking about the new too expensive "toys". Gr-r-r-r
hi guys I have only 1 of the 2-8-2 gen. and it had 1 set of drivers out of nmra spec's. after a turn in a pin vise she ran like a champ. I wounder if my was a fluke?? she's been running great for about 25 hours now. BJPLOW01
I don't think Athearn markets their steam as RTR, more like "almost RTR". With most quality manufacturers these days, there is a little assembly required. But, if you take it out of the box and put it on the track, it will run. Granted it may not look very good, but it will run. Our club owns 4, eventually we will have 6. All have cutsom decals and have been weathered. They run extremely well (and sound great with a Soundtraxx DSD in them) and only have a slight wieght problem, which can be remedied. I just don't see the amount of work you have put into these. Could you explain in further detail? It took me 15-20 minutes to put the stanchions and handrails on the boiler, and 2 or so to put the rest of the details on (I did have to get some of these from Athearn, but I had them within a week of contacting them). Most of the work I put into them was installing the Soundtraxx decoder and then decalling and weathering.
Hi There. My work hasn't been handrail and decals. It has been getting the weight moved forward to get weight on the lead driver, freeing up the wiring to stop pushing the tender off the track, getting the drive axle bearings to float free, etc. The only cosmetic work I've done yet is to make a mandrel to turn the upper stack to a taper that matches the stack base. I'm sacrificing the headlights to add lead in the smokebox. I'm despringing the lead and trailing trucks and adding a bit of tungsten to the trucks to help them track well. I've added weight to the tender. Trying to get Kadees on the pilot to work well. So far only the first engine has made as many as ten laps without a derailment. My Bachmann Spectum 4-8-2s run as long as I want, forward and reverse. So I can't blame my track for the running problems. To my mind, the Athearn 2-8-2 is an attractive loco, but the engineering design was not fully tested and refined into a good product before being pushed into production. And I don't expect it to be as durable as a Bowser or Mantua nor to pull like one. Not surprised about that. Generally, with a few exceptions, Athearn locos are good runners with adequate tractive power. The most frequent complaint is noise. I just wish these engines had measured up to that standard. Chuckles
Hi there. It seems that a number of people have had trouble with the tender staying on track. What radius curves are you using? Mine runs fine on 36" curves. Have you tried to remove the black wrapper on the wires? I have heard this helps, along with adding a bit of weight to the tender. As for the boiler weight , and driver springs, I havent done anything to them. I figgure if it doesent pull the train, I'll add a helper. .....Mike
Good points Mike, and yours are taken too LN. I am starting to add weight to the mikes, over the lead driver. This seems to improve pickup as well. The tender is light, but with the DCC and the speaker installed, it tracks much better. It also doesn't have pickup, which could have improved the loco's performance. A suggestion on the pilot, use a Bachmann EZ-mate or similar plastic coupler, cut the springs off, and pin it to the pilot. We have done this with ours, and it works fine. We also run on 48"+ radius curves, so there aren't any problems. Prototypically, the USRA light Mike was a light puller, and was frequently double-headed in our modeling area. We run max 25 car trains, and they can pull approximately 13 weighted cars by themselves across our layout, counting grades. So if we go near the 20 range, the train gets 2 Mikes. It looks cool too. Athearn could have done some things better (weight, tender pickup), but the overall level of detail and ability of this loco is well above the average, and worth the investment.
At this point, I'm not concerned about tractive effort. Just trying to keep it rolling down the track in a dependable fashion. I'll say I don't have big curves. Ten foot radius and #16 switches are things I daydream about but the reality is 32" curves and #8 Shinohara code 83 switches. My weight work is just trying to keep those lead drivers on the rails. My trackwork isn't perfect, but it handles everything else I want to run. Proto diesels, Mantua steam, Bachmann Mountains, and a few pieces of brass steam. Part of the problem may be that I don't have controlled climate on my pike. Gets hot, muggy, dry, cold, etc. Minor irregularities are going to show up, but every thing else runs in spite of it. Yes, I mentioned that I have added tender weight to deal with the pigtails. First one got the shrink wrap cut entirely off. Replaced with split soda straw painted grimy black. Looks like a stoker to feed TWO BigBoys. Number two is sidelined because I tried to use a suggestion I saw on rmr to spiral slice the wrapper to loosen it. Number three just has loose wires at this point. Guess it'll get a soda straw as well. Maybe I'm just venting because I paid too dearly to give them a rust job and park them in the scrap line. I WANT to make them run. When I was a kid I had a storybook about a little engine named tootles that had to be taught to stay on the track and not go play in the buttercups. That's what these locos seem to want to do all the time. Stray off the straight and narrow path. I'm glad to hear some folks are having better success with them. That gives me some hope that someday I can get some good running out of them. But in the meantime I feel like I got burnt. Chuckles
You know that story too??!!! Old favorite in the Little Golden Book Series! [ 02 March 2001: Message edited by: Benny ]
Chuckles, another thing you might do. Wrap a small piece of modeling clay in suran wrap. and gently press it into the boiler over the front drivers then gently press the boiler down onto the frame. When removed, that shape can be covered with plaster with a malt straw as a sprue (for a mold). When the plaster has set for a couple of days, or until hard and dry. Yse a fine thin coping saw to split the casting mold. Remove the clay and wet just the edges of both parts of your mold. While wet, apply a thing layer of new plaster along the surfaces, and press together wrapping with rubber bands to hold in place. When dry, remove the rubber bands and apply an old "C" clamp gently just to hold the two halves together (just in case). Heat the plaster very slowly untill it gets 375 to 400 degrees F. Pour molten lead into the sprue until the sprue is full, and let cool. Remove the plaster. The lead weight will fit in the area better than you would expect. With a little practise and common sense, you will find other things to make this way too.
I'm surprised that you're having such troubles. I bought one just after Christmas, and it ran like a champ out of the box. It's so quiet I can hardly hear it running. Yes, the tender had problems derailing when backing up. I was able to solve it by flexing the cable a few times and making sure it was fed into the tender without any "flex" in the cable. It too had problems with tractive effort. The biggest culprit was the stiff spring on the trailing truck. Took the springs off the trucks front & back and added a little weight over the axles. I also popped the front of the boiler off and added some lead in there. Couldn't add much in, but every little bit helps. Right now I can pull four NMRA weighted cars around 18" curves on a +4% grade. I still have one spot on the track (a joint) that needs to be fine tuned where the leading truck can pop off the track every once in a while. So far "Thomas" is running good! Mark
When I run into stiff wire, I wrap three or four turns around a pencil and solder both ends to the original wire. The added length is tucked back into the tender, and the 'flex-i-coil' allows easy tracking of the tender. Paint any bare wire with about four coats of fingernail lacquer, then paint black, for insulation. Its smaller than shrink wrap. Use the smallest stranded wire you can get to make the coil.
