I took some larger images of the UP and Rio Grande Challenger units for those that are curious or interested.
A couple of thought after having these for a few days now...
- They are extremely well done in regards to detailing throughout. Even the inside of the cab is detailed and painted. Dare I say Athearn has set a new benchmark on n-scale steam.
- Sound is decent. The sound isn't as good as what you'll get out of a SoundTraxx Tsunami decoder (Tsunami is 16bit sound which is something new). I know this is very subjective and everyone has a different opinion so I'll leave it at that.
- The loco runs well. Crawls nice and runs fairly quiet. I haven't pulled any long strings of cars yet so I'll have to report back on that. It does however have traction tires on two sets of driving wheels and the unit has a lot of weight to it - considerably more than the Lifelike 2-8-8-2.
- Atlas Code 55 flex track will be a problem for this loco. The tender and trailing trucks on the loco don't have lowprofile wheels on them - they ARE within NMRA standards for depth, however most manufacturers seem to be using a lower profile wheel these days. So the Athearn Challenger tender and trailing truck chatter across Atlas Code 55 flex rail. I have an email into Northwest Short Line to let them know and see what they recommend. I also emailed Athearn to let them know about this and also recommend that in future runs of this loco and others they consider using lower profile wheel sets.
Lastly I noticed something reading the manual that may be very important regarding future runs of this unit. There are n-scale part numbers listed for *other* units they haven't run yet that include:
UP
- #3943 coal with smoke deflectors
- #3977 two-tone grey w/oil tender
- #3964 all-black w/coal tender
- #3975 two-tone grey w/oil tender
- #3958 all-black w/coal tender
- #3983 two-tone grey w/oil tender
- undecorated UP late
Rio
- undecorated
- #3804
Clinchfield
- #672 with single stack
Obviously there is no guarantee that they will run these in the future, but it looks like they currently plan to as they are listed in the printed color manual that comes with the current units.
Here are photos:
(note that number board has since been adjusted and is now straight)
