well after searching the loco

well after searching the loco number 1762 I found a ebay post selling one that is so similar I believe it to be the same.  Its an Athern blue box, guess I know now unless some one here tells me otherwise.

Athearn "Gold side" 2nd Gen "Blue Box" confirmed

Dear Tracer,

Confirmed, those are definitely "2nd Gen" Athearn "Blue Box" locos. Spotting features inc:

- the "Gold Side" semi-can motors

- the plastic sideframes ("1st Gen BB" had metal sideframes)

- inside-frame pickup plates and sintered bronze axle bearings (1st Gen had axle bearings outside the wheels)

Points of Note:

- the Steel handrails are notably rusty. This is cosmetic, and handrail sets are available.

- the coupler retaining clips and couplers appear missing. These parts may be available from the Athearn successor "Horizon Hobbies", but adapting to standard Kadee couplers in their own draftgear boxes is not too difficult...

- the Sintered Iron wheels are rusty/corroded, which is a threat to both operation, and possibly indicative of deeper issues. You _may_ be able to remove/clean/polish them back to health if the rust is _surface_level_ only. (Search Box at Top Right of this page,

Search term "Nelson Athearn Polish wheels Mothers mag").

However, the better solution would be to look into replacing with North West Shortline Nickel Silver 1/2 wheelsets.

- on the rust-tip, the steel pickup plates and bearing areas also appear rusty. Thus is a bigger issue, as replacement parts are rare (unless you can cannibalise a better-condition matching-model donor). These parts are also key to the original Ath design electrical pickup system, so any rust or contact-failure here can severely hamper performance. Experienced modellers will hard-wire part the original-design "contact points" in the system, but if there's significant rust, then soldering on rust won't help much... :-(

- given the evident rust, I would want to do a full tear-down of the trucks, drivelines, and motor. There could be all manner of "lurking surprises" which need (and certainly can-be) addressed to get these loco back to service...

I hope this helps...

Happy Modelling,

Aim to Improve,

Prof Klyzlr

Athearn generations

Hi Prof, I think of those as  3rd gen.   1st was rubber band drive, 2nd had the metal side frames, 3rd had the nice plastic side frames..Also since my first Athearn engine was a 1957 model the 1980 version doesn't seem "old" to me :> ) ...DaveB

I don't consider Rubber band

I don't consider Rubber band drives to be BB. Yes, I know some came in the blue box eventually, but to the Professors point, the gold cans were the second distinct style that came in a blue box from the beginning. 

As a quick point of order. I would not use the NWSL wheels. Athearn/Horizon sells nickel silver replacements themselves and I prefer them for 2 reasons:

1: They are cheaper.

2: they come WITH new axles. and I am quite positive that given the condition of those wheels, your axles are likely cracked. 

Some other things I recommend doing depending on how comfortable you are

1: disassemble the trucks and clean all the gears. Then re-lube. 

2: clean the commutator. I use mineral spirits and a bit of cloth on pencil eraser, but there are other options. 

3: Check for rust on the metal piece that goes from the trucks to the motor. This often gets rust that will make it less reliable. If you are comfortable, the best practice is to replace this metal tab with wires that are soldered to the trucks and motor. 

One last thing. The soft

One last thing. The soft plastic white tabs that hold the motors in. In your picture they are quite yellow. I'd recommend looking in to replacements. They may be fine now, but if you ever pop that motor out to do something, they'll probably crumble.

All of the suggestions are just maintence and shouldn't cost to terribly much.

Thanks for all the replies! 

Thanks for all the replies!  yeah I have found a treasure trove of info online about these locos.  The SP 4823 was my favorite as a child, so it is the first I took attention to, and it turned out pretty well for all original and still in the original lube.  (I plan to re lube as soon as a few orders get filled.)  The steel pickup plates rust was all surface rust, and although I have not removed it all yet, I am confident it will all come off with the little dremel wire wheel once I get it out. The brass bushings need to be cleaned, however I am confident they are fine as well. 

I do hope to rewire, repower and convert to DCC some time down the line, however I have quite a bit to do before as I only have a bachmann ez track loop set up on the carpet currently for my son to watch the trains on their "racetrack".  I plan to build a switching layout for us now that I know a bit more about the hobby and the prototype.  

As for couplers, I think kadee #32 seems like it may work with the ride height of the chassis.

Again, thanks again for all the help and super quick responses!

Well documented!

There are many videos about the care, maintenance, repair and improvements of the Blue Box line.  Very robust drive train that will almost never fail with the exception as mentioned the axle gears.  They are still quite readily available on many sites like eBay.  Search ATH #60024.  As for cleaning the wheels, Prof_Klyzlr mentioned my video on how to do so. (thank you Prof_Klyzlr) Here are two links to follow:

The first link is how to with a drill. The second is more in-depth and also shows how to improve the electrical system pick ups. 

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/polish-those-athearn-wheels-12195538

If you're going by the trucks

If you're going by the trucks , There's about 4 generations ,

1. rubber band drive

2. 1st outside bearing truck , tall wide gearbox , metal enclosed gearbox.

3. 2nd outside bearing truck , plastic delrin box with worm mounted on top . Metal side frames with bronze bushings

4. Inside bearing truck .

Theres a lot of sub versions too , with or without white metal flywheels , gray motor , brass flywheels , "can" motor .  F ...Super F it just goes on and on.

Athearn went thru several iterations just on the F . All of those had the iron wheelsets as standard.

Those were the versions I know about up thru the early 90's ,post 2000 I am not sure.

Its difficult to know exactly when they were manufactured because I don't think Athearn changed everything all at once , I think they made incremental changes especially in the late 80's early 90's , and a lot of modelers swapped parts around , most common was replacing the gray motor with a newer one to run Command Control or Dynatrol.

"and a lot of modelers swapped parts around"

  Yeah, Athearns were like hotrods, folks modified  them to suit their tastes. All the needed parts were in every local hobby shop and can motors, NWSL wheels, Details west and Details associates parts made it easy and relatively affordable to customize your engine. I still have a few Athearn diesels left over from my younger days and someday I might add decoders and build an HO layout to run them :> ) .....DaveB

Athearn used up their supply

Athearn used up their supply of parts until they were gone, but they never swapped old parts into newer models. So for example, the SD40-2 never had anything but the gold can and inside bearing plastic sideframes truck and everything after that the same even if say and SD45 from the same year might have still had the older parts. Mid90s is when they swapped over to the hex drive and got rid of the metal tab.