Athearn FP 45/F 45 Review.

[Walkercolt]

No, the Athearn's run nothing like a Kato or Atlas. They really remind quite a bit of the ex-E-R/ now B-mann "Sharks", but much heavier and not quite as smooth. Wonder if Kader makes the mechanism? Some of the Athearn's make more noise than others out-of-the-box. I've test run the 29 FP/F's we got in at the shop. DCC may be required to run them with Kato SD-40-2's. My Kato SD-45's weren't too happy behind an F-45 and FP-45, and I wasn't too happy at the difference in the handrails of the Athearn's and the Kato's. Be careful what you wish for....

[atsf_arizona]

Here's a video of my Santa Fe FP45s.  I'm very happy with them - well detailed, heavy, run well together:

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Here's four photos.  Bottom line:  looks great, runs great.  Next up will be weathering, painting the
trucks to get shadows and depth, paint the frame weathered dirty silver. 









Good thread, all.

[Puddington]

No, the Athearn's run nothing like a Kato or Atlas. They really remind quite a bit of the ex-E-R/ now B-mann "Sharks", but much heavier and not quite as smooth. Wonder if Kader makes the mechanism? Some of the Athearn's make more noise than others out-of-the-box. I've test run the 29 FP/F's we got in at the shop. DCC may be required to run them with Kato SD-40-2's. My Kato SD-45's weren't too happy behind an F-45 and FP-45, and I wasn't too happy at the difference in the handrails of the Athearn's and the Kato's. Be careful what you wish for....

Interesting - My SD 45 and F 45 got along quite well in DC. The difference in speed was less than 10% and I ran them with a 15 car consist for two hours without an issue. I'd rather have the SD in fornt but it really didn't make a difference. Guess this may be indicative of production differences in either unit if you have seen differing results.

[Bob Horn]

I have put DCC into 2 Athearn units, one a FP-45, the other a F-45. Both of them ran very well and quiet on 00 and much better with the decoder installed. They are not what Athearn has brought out in the past! Bob.

[Hyperion]

I have put DCC into 2 Athearn units, one a FP-45, the other a F-45. Both of them ran very well and quiet on 00 and much better with the decoder installed. They are not what Athearn has brought out in the past! Bob.

What decoder did you use Bob?  I'll paint my Undecs up at some point and would like to go ahead and do the decoder install then.

[mavrick0]

Digitrax DN163K1B's are the drop in decoders for these engines.  Only thing you need to do is change the direction of travel since the decoder goes in backwards compared to normal.

[CBQ Fan]

Mine actually runs very well with my Kato SD45 in GN.  They look very good together.  The GN purchased these units with the intent that they would be on point of all transcon freight trains so you would want to run them in the lead.

[asarge]

I can't disagree with Walkercolt more. The F45 runs extremely well, on a par with the other two. The later runs of the SD70's ran quite well also. I saw 1 F45 pull 30 cars up about a  7 foot 2% grade last night w/no slippage whatsoever. 2 of the cars were autoracks w/CMW loads which are quite heavy. Athearn is improving quite a bit.

[Walkercolt]

Andy, the Athearn's run very well indeed, but they have a different "speed curve" than Kato or Atlas in my testing. I can't get a late run Kato SD-40-2 to stay behind the Athearns at normal speeds. My Kato SD-45's push the Athearns quite a bit. Your mileage may vary. Now strangely, when I switch over to the Digitrax on 00 the SD-45's run with the F-45's better. ??? I can only run about 50-60 cars on the store layout, so testing with an FP-45, two F-45's and two SD-45's isn't a very good test. I have three and have reserved two more F-45's in "Yellow Bonnet" paint, so I like them fine. I'm sorry if I mislead anyone.