Model Railroading > Intermountain Engines

I am curious what power chassis Intermountain uses.
Do they build their own engines?
Anyone have an Intermountain and how well do they run?
Thank you and I would appreciate your comments.

Hal

I have two and they run very well. After constant problems with my tower 55 gevos I wish I would have waited. I do not know about the chasis cuz I havnt taken them apart yet. But the sound is very good and smooth operation

Intermountain builds their own chassis. They have done so since their first F unit which I think was the first loco they released around 1999.

Rick

Do intermountain ES44ACs run well with (equally with) Athearns on straight DC? I was thinking of getting a KCS ES44AC to go with my Athearn SD70ACe, but wasn't sure they'd match speeds well. Anyone try that?

Thanks...

--Tom

My Intermountain FP7 runs very well. I consider it one of my finest running locomotives.

Wish their Cab Forwards were trouble free !



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/11 17:47 by engine3420.

Sasquatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do intermountain ES44ACs run well with (equally
> with) Athearns on straight DC? I was thinking of
> getting a KCS ES44AC to go with my Athearn
> SD70ACe, but wasn't sure they'd match speeds well.
> Anyone try that?
>
> Thanks...
>
> --Tom


One thing you would surely have to do is remove the decoder from the Intermountain ES44AC. If you had any extra Athearn RTR or Genesis DCC Ready circuit boards laying around, you could easily use one of these. Just wire it up like your SD70ACe. The LEDs on the ES44AC may not illuminate properly, however.

While I own both SD70ACe's and ES44AC's, I have not personally tried this since I run DCC, but I expect that after this little modification they would run MUCH better together.

There was a thread about this topic on the Atlas forum and the modeler just hardwired the unit directly to the motor bypassing the decoder altogether. Once completed, the unit worked fine with others such as Athearn, Kato and such. If you go over to the Atlas forum, you don't have to be a member, just scroll down a few pages on the HO forum and you will find the topic and he gives a description of how he did it.

James

Thanks James, and jmprice, for your suggestions; I will check that option out and maybe give it a try.

--Tom

chessiegp39 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There was a thread about this topic on the Atlas
> forum and the modeler just hardwired the unit
> directly to the motor bypassing the decoder
> altogether. Once completed, the unit worked fine
> with others such as Athearn, Kato and such. If you
> go over to the Atlas forum, you don't have to be a
> member, just scroll down a few pages on the HO
> forum and you will find the topic and he gives a
> description of how he did it.
>
> James

That modeler is over here too, LOL. I'm David...that's me. Contractor for Museum of Science & Industry's Great Train Story and owner of the Acela Amtrak NEC Portable Layout. Here's the thread.

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64640

David Harrison

Thanks for the direct link David; once again you are a great help.

--Tom