Model Railroading > Any Athearn collectors/historians on TO?

In the process of learnign about a certain car that Athearn has offered since the early 2000s.  Wondering if there is anyone on TO that is a collector and/or historian?  If you are reading this, please PM me for more information on what I   am needign assitace on. 

Thank you in advance,

RR

Here's an idea, why don't you just say what you want instead of making a mystery out of it. Probably find out a lot faster.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/24 21:23 by TomG.

Yes. post a photo.

Victor Baird

I do have a book of all Athearn engines and cars produced. I don’t have time now to go and look for the book, as I don’t know what I would be looking for.
Dennis

Posted from iPhone

TomG Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's an idea, why don't you just say what you
> want instead of making a mystery out of it.
> Probably find out a lot faster.

Good idea.  Queries here on TO in the past have yeilded nothing.  I have seen the book and is ends before the era I need info on.

The cars I am researcing at the Thrall high side gondolas.   Only the AT&SF, D&RGW, and UP cars.  I have a table of sets I know of.  I do need one UP HO car in the as built form (no horizontal ribs running the full lenghth of the car), buy borrow, or??  The UP cars are so seldom seen on E-Bay, it is no longer funny!!  HO and N scale each have questions.  

Any help appreciated.

RR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/24 08:21 by koloradokid.

koloradokid Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Good idea.  Queries here on TO in the past have
> yeilded nothing.  I have seen the book and is
> ends before the era I need info on.
>
> The cars I am researcing at the Thrall high side
> gondolas.   Only the AT&SF, D&RGW, and UP
> cars.  I have a table of sets I know of.  I do
> need one UP HO car in the as built form (no
> horizontal ribs running the full lenghth of the
> car), buy borrow, or??  The UP cars are so seldom
> seen on E-Bay, it is no longer funny!!  HO and N
> scale each have questions.  
>
> Any help appreciated.
>
> RR

The CarrTacks website had a lot of info on the D&RGW unit trains.  Unfortunately his website no longer exists. 

I was interested in modeling D&RGW unit coal trains and managed to purchase most of the releveant Athearn RTR Thrall hi-side gondolas.  The Kaiser UP/D&RGW joint coal train used the Thrall gondolas with the horizontal ribs added and Athearn has ran them a number of times in UP with new road numbers each time, including the 5 numbers purchased by D&RGW.  Unfortunately they have gone up quite a bit in price over the past 15 years.  IIRC they started out around $89 MSRP for a 5 car set and eventually went north of $125 MSRP, and after that they started selling in 3 car sets to break the cost up a bit.  I have managed to buy 5 five-car UP sets and 1 five-car D&GW set and 2 additional 3-car UP sets.

Just recently, now that I have an operational layout, I've gotten out all of my Athearn RTR UP/D&RGW Thralls and replaced the plastic couplers and done the 3-pt truck tune-up and fielded a 36 car unit train with UP/D&RGW Diesels. A few years ago Athearn offered the UP SD45's in road numbers part of the UP/D&RGW pool for the Kaiser coal train.  I'm getting a new phone set up over Thanks Giving with a better camera so I'll try to take some photos.  Right now my ScaleTrains D&RGW SD45 #5327 is back to ScaleTrains for warranty repair.

Athearn has offered the high side Thrall gondolas in a few other schemes relevant to Rio Grande, such as the yellow end NORX gons, DRGW blue end gons (1981-1984 only), red end PSCX.  I tried running the blue end gons at a modular meet but they kept randomly coming uncoupled.  This issue is the plastic couplers on some have a plastic finger to act as a closure spring and it gets fatigue and fales to hold the knuckle closed, so if there is slack in the couplers, some will release.  Those, of course, must be replaced by Kadees, which I have done on the UP/D&RGW Thralls so far.  Later production versions still have plastic couplers but at least replaced the plastic finger with an actual spring - those seem to not come uncoupled.  The are prone to breakage however, so those would be next to get replaced.

Cheers,
Jim Fitch

That would be a Roundhouse car not Athearn.

ATSFSuperCap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That would be a Roundhouse car not Athearn.

If you are referring to the Thrall hi-side condola, originally they were sold by MDC/Roundhouse as kits.  According to the Athearn Wiki: "Athearn was purchased in 2004 by Horizon Hobby ... At the same time, Horizon purchased Model DieCasting and their line of Roundhouse brand trains." 

Athean did some upgrading of the Thrall Hi-side gondola fixing the misalligned bottom ribs and adding finer grabs, and even tooling the horizondal ribs for the UP and Rio Grande versions sold in the RTR line.

ATSFSuperCap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That would be a Roundhouse car not Athearn.  Athearn bought Rondhouse, then updated the cars to the Genesis Line.  It is possible now that there are more Athearn models than MDC ever made!  MDC only made the as delivered version.  Athearn also produced the rebuilt version of which only UP and D&RFGW had in real life.  Long story there and you can read all about it in my book, if I ever get it finished.

RR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/24 08:51 by koloradokid.

Replying to Jim's posts:I have the Carr Tracks booklets.  The biggest issue is they date from the turn of the century.  The Coal Liners train was gone in 83!  In fact, the Rio Grande cars were all gone by 97.  UP cars didn't last much longer.  While the mines carried on much longer, it was the steel plant that disappeared.  C'est la vie!   My article started out only dealing with the Coal Liner trains to Kaiser Steel, and due to the crappy way things are going at the Prospector, I am expanding it to include the York Canyon trains too.  In some ways, as interesting as the Coal Liners.  Both needed lots of power, the cars were early models, the cars had a lot of issues, and both were photographed copiously in certain areas, and hardly at all in others.  I have rounded up a lot of photos of both, with access to even more. I am still looking for a UP Coal Liner original version by Athearn.  Buy, beg, borrow, or ??.  Just want to take some photos in the same format as what I will be taking on all the rest I have obtained.  I have about 8 assorted N Scale cars, and I think even more HO cars.  I was doing a lot of research on the Athearn web site before they screwed the pooch with their  update on the web site.  Now I have some holes in my tables that just aren't getting filled in.  I watch E-Bay religiously but some come up a lot and others not at all.   As you noted, the UP cars don't show up often at all.  And lately the original version almost never!

RR

I took some pictures of my Athearn RTR Thrall gondolas if it helps.  These are the type that represent those used on the Kaiser coal trains.  My Rio Grande SD45 was sent back to ScaleTrains for repairs so only the UP units are shown.

The train in the 3rd photo has 36 Thrall gons, which is about the limit that will fit into sidings with two SD45's and the Athearn Genesis UP caboose with the green K.

Cheers,
Jim Fitch

 

---

---

---

A couple more of the Kaiser coal train minus the Rio Grande SD45.

---

---

What was wrong with your new SD45 Jim?

When I was first running it, it made a high pitch sound and after that the lights would not come on.  I tried a reset of the Loksound 5 decoder which didn't change anything.  I reached out to Scaletrains and sent it in for repairs.  I had to GP30's which also would not respond so they went back to ScaleTrains as well.  Hopefully I'll have them back in the next couple weeks.  I don't know what the turnaround time.