Model Railroading > Athearn Genesis C50-9 caboose; UPDATE

I recently purchased two more of the Athearn Genesis SP cabooses, a C50-4 and a C50-9. It's a great time to purchase the cabooses on E-bay, and I got a excellent deal on both. Working with the C50-9 I noticed that the truck with the generator hits the back of the retainer bracket, which limits it's swing which could cause derailments. I'm surprised I had not heard about that before. I used a sharp xacto knife to carve some material from the truck side frame and the back of the retainer bracket, and now the truck clears the bracket. Anyone else find that problem?

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/14 12:09 by funnelfan.

Ted,
Any chance of a photo of the part or area you had to adjust?

Rick

I was wondering about radius too, although I'd think the Genesis bay window caboose would be designed to operate on curves down to at least 22-inches minimum radius, if not possibly even down to 18 inches. Since no one else has ever posted similar experiences, I might wonder the example above was assembled in a way that cause interference? I have Eight of these bay windows but my layout is still under construction and haven't had a chance to test them out. My minimum radius is 32-inches which I'm hoping will allow me to operate all of the rolling stock I own with no issues.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

One of my two Athearn undec C50-7s came with two generator-equipped trucks. Needless to say truck swing on the end without the side sill notch is near zero. It was a nice bonus to get an extra from a modeling perspective, but a nuisance as I need to find a matching non-generator truck to have a usable model (no, I haven't contacted Athearn about this).

Doug Stark

No issues with the two I have.

Chris

I'm a bit perplexed as I can't believe I'm the only one with this problem. I can't see how this caboose would have been assembled any other way. The truck swing is so limited, you would have had a 60" minimum radius to be able to use the caboose. Now that I've carved the end of the truck side frame and the back of the retainer bracket, it should be able to handle 18". BTW, here is a helpful hint. I've found that the Woodland Scenics "Tidy Track" paint pen "Weathered Tie" color is perfect for painting the wheel hubs. Both of these cabooses were painted with that pen. When first applied, it looks a little on the reddish side, but drys flat with nice grimy brown color that matches what I see on the prototype.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/14 12:09 by funnelfan.

---

So the same paint you use for the wheel faces would probably look just fine for drawbars and knuckles as well?

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So the same paint you use for the wheel faces
> would probably look just fine for drawbars and
> knuckles as well?

To avoid getting liquid paint into the moving parts of the coupler, I use dry brush methods on couplers. Both these cabooses are a work in progress and still require some detail painting and weathering.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Yes, load the brush off the wick of the paint stick and you can dry brush. Additionally you can drop a bit of fine oil down the pivot so even if a bit of paint in the moving parts it will not gum up the works.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

Looking at some of the Athearn Genesis cabeese I have, the three pieces of brake control equipment shown in the photo are simply moved over to the right a bit more. The smaller two objects appear to be cast into the shell, the air brake reservoir is built of seperate parts. No obvious sign of how they could be put in the wrong orientation (curious what the preferred names for them are, btw).

It's almost like the later run had the mold changed, or perhaps it's modular and was put together wrong. But I haven't tried disassembling the caboose, yet.