Atlas GP20? Vaporidium?

[Sdynamo]

Interesting pickup technique.
I’ve been doing exactly that on LifeLike switchers for years.

Did you make your own brass pickup strips to do this?  Any chance you have a write on how you did this?

[Jim Starbuck]

Did you make your own brass pickup strips to do this?  Any chance you have a write on how you did this?

I remove the stock pickups from the plastic sill. Flatten the short leg then hold the long leg in a pair of flat needle nose pliers and very gently drill about a #63 hole using a drill press. Drilling thin sheet must be done gently so the bit doesn’t grab and wad the strip up. This could probably be done with a pin vise as well. Hold the strip up to the assembled chassis so it engages the truck tab then mark the frame. This should be the same location as if it were still attached to the sill. Disassemble the frame halves and again with a drill press drill through at the mark. Tap the hole for a 00-90 screw and attach the pick up strip. Be sure the screw doesn’t protrude past the inside of the frame half and cause a short.

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Jim

[Pizzaparty]

I still somewhat mourn the loss of later models of life like engines. Nice locomotives, reasonable detail and very easy on the wallet.

[Tad_T]

The Life-Like GP18 fuel tank will fit onto the new Atlas GP20 chassis, but the speaker enclosure sits a little proud below the metal of the chassis. This prevents the fuel tank from fully seating. It appears that with a little trimming and filing that it may be possible to get the fuel tank to seat a little better. I haven’t tried an Atlas fuel tank yet.

[C855B]

I still somewhat mourn the loss of later models of life like engines. Nice locomotives, reasonable detail and very easy on the wallet.

And surprisingly good runners.

[jwaldo]

My LL GP20s will creep along at one tie per minute. They're smoother and quieter than many of the Atlas and Kato locos in my fleet. And their hood width is much more accurate than other contemporary Geeps in N. An Atlas GP9 looks downright fat in a consist with GP20s.

[peteski]

The Life-Like GP18 fuel tank will fit onto the new Atlas GP20 chassis, but the speaker enclosure sits a little proud below the metal of the chassis. This prevents the fuel tank from fully seating. It appears that with a little trimming and filing that it may be possible to get the fuel tank to seat a little better. I haven’t tried an Atlas fuel tank yet.

The new Atlas tank might have the bottom milled out slightly to accept the speaker enclosure sitting below the chassis.  I noticed that on some other new Atlas locos using the same speaker enclosure design.

[Tad_T]

I was thinking about how Atlas has had so many problems with the Gold versions of this engine.

So does anyone think that whatever these problems are would be manifested when a ESU decoder was put into a Silver version?

Tad

[Iain]

Randy, reply #3 in this thread had the photo of the speaker (enclosure) in the fuel tank.  Looks like the same method used in other Atlas  models where the (very tiny) enclosure is part of the motor cradle and the speaker is firing up into the chassis.

what does this look like from the side?  I have an interest in cutting down the fuel tank to model NS GP18s.

[Curtis Kyger]

Will we ever see the sound equipped Atlas GP20s?

[CRL]

Will we ever see the sound equipped Atlas GP20s?

Sure. Just do what you did as a kid….. go Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[randgust]

It's not on Spookshow (Mark???)

Does anyone have a shot of this with the shell off to see how they did it?  Assuming decoder in radiator area, empty space for speaker under fuel tank or two different fuel tanks?   

Wired trucks?  Pickup strips?

[reinhardtjh]

If you're talking about the Gold version with a sound decoder, then there isn't one (yet?).  All that's been delivered is the Silver DCC ready loco.  My guess is that it will have a light board in it like the last few have had and an ESU (or Digitrax) decoder will plug into the underside in an E24 socket.  But nobody but Atlas knows for sure.

[Curtis Kyger]

The on-line Atlas Production Schedule matrix no longer shows GP20's -- not Silver or Gold... no GP20's listed at all.

[spookshow]

I always order the sound versions of new locos, so I don't have mine yet.

-Mark