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Athearn dummy units Locos and rolling stock
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New member 10 posts kgalli New member 10 posts
kgalli

I bought a couple of dummy Athearn diesel locos on ebay that I'm going to re-power. These are new units, not someone's repaints.  However I have never seen dummy (unpowered) locos listed on Athearn's website so how or where do these dummy units get on the market?                                                                              
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Nelsonb111563 Moderator 2,268 posts
Nelsonb111563

Old Blue Box kits?

These are probably older Blue Box kits. The frames are the same as the powered units but without any of the drive line installed.  The trucks were just fitted with plastic wheels and no gears installed.  Athearn doesn't list them anymore since they dissolved the Blue Box line a few years ago. Why do you want to repower them? Finding a powered model may be just as easy and much less costly.

Nelson Beaudry,  Principle/CEO

Kennebec, Penobscot and Northern RR Co.
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ratled Frequent poster 926 posts
ratled

Old blue box kits

The down side is you have to watch which trucks you get with it.  There is an A & B truck and with the dummies you can get a pair of A, or a pair of B or one of each.  It becomes an issue when you go to power them.  They have no gears and often plastic wheels

Steve

http://klamathline.blogspot.com/

 
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rickwade Prolific poster (deceased) 6,447 posts
rickwade

Another use for dummies - if

Another use for dummies - if they have power pickup on the wheels you can use the as a sound (no locomotion) unit. I have a F7b dummy in which I installed a sound only decoder for Alco plus a big speaker. I set the address on the sound decoder the same as my RS3 non-sound locos and presto! - I have sound!

Rick

img_4768.jpg 

The Richlawn Railroad Website - Featuring the L&N in HO  / MRH Blog  / MRM #123

Mt. 22: 37- 40
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kgalli New member 10 posts
kgalli

Athearn dummy uits

I'm collecting MoPac engines and i have been able to pick up two powered units on ebay at fair prices, an Atlas Trainman GP38-2 and an Athearn Genisis GP38-2 with DCC and sound. I happened to buy an unpowered Athearn MoPac GP50 for $20 at a recent train show. It had power trucks with metal wheels and all the gears. I went on ebay and bought a powered Athearn GP50 pretty inexpensively and swapped out the motor and worm gears to my MoPac GP50.

K Gallistel

Arkansas Pacific RR & MoPac
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YoHo Prolific poster 3,120 posts
YoHo

In addition to Blue Box, Most

In addition to Blue Box, Most of Athearn's display units at say WGH are dummies. I got an SD60 dummy decorated for Conrail at Arnie's down in OC that was an Athearn display unit.
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gonzo Regular poster 204 posts
gonzo

power pickup

Something to watch for is whether or not the frame is milled for power pickup where the trucks pivot. I usually hard wire my truck pickups anyway. As Steve mentioned make sure to get the correct trucks and orient them properly.

 

By the way they are now referred to as "motivationally challenged", not "dummies"

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Larry of Z'ville Frequent poster 984 posts
Larry of Z'ville

PA & PB are the only ones with A & B trucks

Another issue has to do with inside frame and outside frame. The inside frame dummy trucks can be hard wired. These are the trucks with the plastic side frames. These are generally interchangable on B-B units - not switchers. These B-B trucks also come in older outside frame versions. These have metal side frames. The powered trucks in this outside frame version has a metal bearing the the wheel axel rides in. On the dummy trucks the bearing is plastic. It is difficult to power a dummy truck. The same is true for C-C trucks, but they are not as interchangable. Something to think about is that a three unit consist with two dummies has the same amp draw as a single unit. Depending on the situation, this could be important. Larry

So many trains, so little time,

Larry

check out my MRH blog: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/42408

 or my web site at http://www.llxlocomotives.com
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Al Brough Active Member 71 posts
Al Brough

I have found all the parts I

I have found all the parts I need for replacements and repowering at  http://www.advantagehobby.com/

As has said about engines with pick-ups, make a sound unit. Fantastic idea.

~
Al Brough
Sydney, Australia
Fast Tracks, Digitrax & JMRI
Free-mo ZA
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