Athearn FP 45/F 45 Review.

[Nato]

  I can't find the recient post about these locomotives, even in searching back posts, so here as promissed in a reply to that Topic is my review fo my four locomotives which I recieved yesterday.         First off I must agree that they look alittle high that body to the frame, this more noticeable on the Passenger locomotive with it's silver lower body area and metal colored frame. Detailing is wonderful the handrails on ends and attached to body at steps are the thinest finest I have seen on any model. Unfortunately the ones attached to the carbody on the ends lean out slightly so that if you had a scale crew figure ckiming up the steps he,she would have to squeeze thru a narrow space netween the platform side rail and the other rail. Pickey pickey I know. The freight painted locomitives look great, the thin yellow stripes are nicely applyed and run straight even where they inset slightly where the rear side roof grills are. The builders plate data is there on body lower sill also the small "F" for front end in black.   I disagree about the paint on te passenger locomotives, it doesn't look to Testors gloss-like to me. A nice touch the screened vents have been carefully black painted to give them some depth. T exaust fans on the shell however lack the depth found on some other models,no fan blades visible inside. My photo data shows the horns are painted red, not silver,but these horns are again a fine scle size. Passenger units have the gasketing around windshield and side windos done in black a nice touch, there are windshield wipers molded to windshield,however being unpainted they hardly show up. There is no black"F'" on the fronts of the passenger loco ,pickey pickey again. Builder plate is there. A nice touch on both passenger and freight locomotives the hand rails next to the doors have been painted,silver on passenger, yellow on freight,I thought they were seperately applyed on freight lock effect fooled me. The aluminium sliding cabe side windows have been painted on, they looked oversize and clunky till I looked at prototype photos, they are correct size.                                                                                                     Do we need cab interriors on N diesels when it is hard to see through the windows even the large windshield on this model? I think not,interrior is a nice green color wish there were crew figures. The Great Northern paint scheme is also nicely done, the wide white stripes on the top of the nose are really not crooked but actually slanded down slightly to allow the stripes to form a "V" at the front.                Now for the bigger question. How do they run and pull? They are very quiet,no gear whine speed is nice and smooth thru all ranges,but they seeme to run slightly faster than Atlas or Kato, I don't have any of Athearn's new wide cab locos so I don't know if speed is the same. On the layout I was able to pull 40 freightcars, now mostly fitted with Fox Valley wheels with one locomotive, I didnot run them on my branchline which has a grade,this test may come next just to see what one or two in a pair would pull,six axel locos are not run on this line ,although curves would handle them. SF locos have nose mounted headlights, GN light above windshield as per prototype. I might have given these locomotives a 9.9 rating execpt for one huge flaw. There is no INSTRUCTION SHEET in the boxes, most of us are use to them along with the usual exploded diagram and possible parts numbers.Wa-a-a-! Come on Athearn, this is a premimum model,we should have this. There is a nice brief history of the prototype locos on the back,(bottom) of the cardboard box insert. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah. 

[Nato]

  Now I find the Walkercraft FP45 thread at the bottom of the threads, I swear it wasn't there before or I would hve not started this new Posting. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Nato]

 Sorry !"Walkercolt" Walkercolt. I must be having a brain phart late tonight so I will now Log Off. Nuff posted. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Walkercolt]

That's OK Nate. After more test running, I may have to correct that the F-45/FP-45's may run slower than Atlas engines with "scale speed" motors. They are MUCH slower than Kato SD-40-2's. While the FP-45's make make it around a 9 3/4" radius, I think (from running on some branchline trackage) they'll be MUCH happier with a 13"+++ radius. They "growl" alot on 15" radius curves, and don't care for Peco medium turnouts. I'll admit, I'm comparing Athearn's paint to Atlas BW-40's and Kato PA's for thickness. I forgot about the green cab interior...it does add "something". Am I happy that they offer the "no sound no DCC" for $80 less? Yup. Although I sincerly doubt if all of them were sound/DCC equipted, there would be very much price difference, certainly not $80 street price. I still haven't had a chance to "test" the strength of the McHenry coupler VS: MT. Don't have enough layout set-up in the store to do two units and 100 cars, but I will try and report back.

[tom mann]

FYI: The latest yearly magazine "Locomotive" from Kalmbach has a nice article on ATSF's units.

[Mark5]

There is no INSTRUCTION SHEET in the boxes, most of us are use to them along with the usual exploded diagram and possible parts numbers.Wa-a-a-! Come on Athearn, this is a premimum model,we should have this.

While athearn seems to offer parts for HO models up front, they seem to have this idea that N scalers don't care about parts. As long as they are reluctant to back up their locos with parts I will be less inclined to buy any Athearn locos.

This is easy for me to say as they've yet to offer a loco I want. If I was in the market for a F45 I would have bought one too (and bitched about parts  ).

[Chulvis]

There is no INSTRUCTION SHEET in the boxes, most of us are use to them along with the usual exploded diagram and possible parts numbers.Wa-a-a-! Come on Athearn, this is a premimum model,we should have this.

While athearn seems to offer parts for HO models up front, they seem to have this idea that N scalers don't care about parts. As long as they are reluctant to back up their locos with parts I will be less inclined to buy any Athearn locos.

The lack of replacement parts from Athearn is a PITA. I had a customer come to pick up his undec F45's and two of them were missing the same part. I called and was told there are no parts available. My only option was to return them. Just great. The undecs are sold out so the customer only gets two instead of four and will now have to go searching for them. Really chaps my hide.

When they released the SD75i's a while back one of them arrived with a cracked jewel case cover. I called and asked them to send me a new cover as I did not want to send it to the customer like that...no replacement covers available. I had to return the entire locomotive for a new one...Just crazy...

[scootbird]

"Really chaps my hide."

Chulvis....you need a trip back the city!  Yikes!

Mike

[Chulvis]

"Really chaps my hide."

Chulvis....you need a trip back the city!  Yikes!

Mike

Just come to the shop, Scootbird. I'll call you some dirty names and we'll call it even.

[nscalesteve]

The lack of replacement parts from Athearn is a PITA. I had a customer come to pick up his undec F45's and two of them were missing the same part. I called and was told there are no parts available. My only option was to return them. Just great. The undecs are sold out so the customer only gets two instead of four and will now have to go searching for them. Really chaps my hide.

whak ! same here, did receive an undec FP45 with missing handrails - yes, both part bags included but no handrails... ! (whak, 2nd engine delivery in a row with missing parts - first Kato now Athearn - btw, did receive the missing parts from Kato with no hassle...) ...can't simple use Atlas SD50 handrails because the gap between the stanchins is different... I hate it when things like this happen...
(no, not an engine from Chuck, Chuck was already sold out when I finally did move my a$$ to place an order...  :-\ )

[scootbird]

"no, not an engine from Chuck, Chuck was already sold out when I finally did move my a$$ to place an order..."

Never give up on ol' Chuck.....he always keeps a stash somehow...somewhere...

Mike

[Walkercolt]

The Athearn wire grabs and stantions are very nice pieces of work, but I had two grabs loose in the boxes on arrival. I got them back on, and if they aren't drop-kicked in the shipping cartons I think they'll stay on. "No spare parts" sounds like an old Con-Cor line, or Model Power, or Bachmann(send it back). Do like the importer of Chinese AK-47 copies does: Takes apart 1 in 20 finished products for spare parts. Now with Chinese small arms, parts from the beginning of the production run won't interchange with parts from the end of a run(they wear-out the tooling and don't replace it), but you get my drift.

[Hyperion]

Here's an interesting tidbit for some people perhaps...

For the 2nd time (I came by last week too) I swung by my LHS to see if the 2 Undec GN-style units I ordered had arrived.  They hadn't.

So he called Horizon for me to see what was up.  Turns out, according to the Horizon rep, they Athearn only had twenty Undec GN-style made.  That's it.  And turns out only 19 got sent to Horizon, the entire allocation of which had been been pre-ordered within 2 days of the time Athearn announced the part numbers for these units.

Turns out #19 and #20 were meant for me (I placed an order as soon as the part numbers were released) and they were holding #19 hoping for my other one, but Athearn has no plans to make more Undecs despite there being a backlog of orders.  So it looks like I'll have to strip a GN-painted one.  Not particularly happy about that.

[Chulvis]

Here's an interesting tidbit for some people perhaps...

For the 2nd time (I came by last week too) I swung by my LHS to see if the 2 Undec GN-style units I ordered had arrived.  They hadn't.

So he called Horizon for me to see what was up.  Turns out, according to the Horizon rep, they Athearn only had twenty Undec GN-style made.  That's it.  And turns out only 19 got sent to Horizon, the entire allocation of which had been been pre-ordered within 2 days of the time Athearn announced the part numbers for these units.

Turns out #19 and #20 were meant for me (I placed an order as soon as the part numbers were released) and they were holding #19 hoping for my other one, but Athearn has no plans to make more Undecs despite there being a backlog of orders.  So it looks like I'll have to strip a GN-painted one.  Not particularly happy about that.

That would mean that I got 85% of the undec GN style that were made and I just can't see how that could be. Something is not right with that story.

[Hyperion]

I'm just relaying what the Horizon sales rep said on the phone.  It was on speaker, so I heard it myself.

I wasn't claiming it to be 100% truth, hence my qualification of "according to the Horizon rep", as I know those guys tend to be anything but paragons of truth.