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ecd15 posted:

Atlas would have to scrap their current RS3 molds and start over to produce a scale RS3.  Too bad they didn't get the Weaver RS3 molds.

While I don't have an Atlas RS3 I do have both the MTH and the Weaver versions...IMO not a lot of difference between them as far as shape/size of the shell:

RS3 compare 3

RS3 compare 1RS3 compare 2

Here's some measurements:

Width:

MTH - 1.68"

Weaver - 1.58"

difference - .10", less than 6 scale inches

Height from walkway to top of hull:

MTH - 1-7/8"

Weaver - 1-13/16"

difference - .0625", 3 scale inches

Length of body from end to end of shell:

MTH - 11-7/8"

Weaver - 12"

difference - .125", 6 scale inches

Almost enough so you can't see it standing 2 feet away.

The nose contours everybody says Weaver got right and everybody else got wrong, I don't see a dimes worth of difference between the Weaver and MTH contours.

Here's a drawing out of Mainline Modeler, but it doesn't have the dimensions I posted to compare to the real deal:

carbody filters216

and something I found that shows the difference between the 3 phases:

RS 3 Phases

Unless you're a proto 48 modeler, I feel just about any (I can only go on the ones I have) RS3 would suffice, although 6" difference is pushing even my acceptance level

I don't know if a true scale RS3 would have the room for any of the can motors being currently used.  The Weaver, being the smaller of the 2, has little room left with the Pittman motor inside.

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Originally posted by Bob Delbridge:

The nose contours everybody says Weaver got right and everybody else got wrong, I don't see a dimes worth of
difference between the Weaver and MTH contours.

Well I do! Look at the nose of the MTH unit. IT's  FLAT!The Weaver Model Nose is more contoured to the real deal!

here is a comparison of the WBB [Former K-line] to Weaver models:

Weaver_vs_Wbb04

as you can see, the Weaver/Wbb-k-line has that curved "brow" in the front... more so than the MTH unit.

the Mth Railking unit below:

Weaver_vs_Wbb05

 Unfortunately, the front nose curve issue is something that cannot be corrected with the MTH unit.

 

 

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Last edited by prrhorseshoecurve

You understand MTH, Lionel, Menards etc are not "O" scale mfgs/importers, only Atlas and Weaver started their O guage lines as scale "O" with necessary modifications  for producing a 3 rail product also.  When Atlas introduced the Trainman line it was with the purpose of making a more affordable, rugged entry level product, the RS series introduced in 2005 was their first motive power model in this line and it was obvious that the builder made changes in the model to probably meet the price point Atlas was looking for. In a 2006 Model Railroad News report on the new model it mentions the 3/4 " longer frame [ to allow truck swing on the RS4 for 3 rail] but does not note the extra high long and short hoods [vert mount mtrs]. just saying1

'

My own suggestion would be for Atlas to put out a nice 40 to 50 foot steam-era mill gondola (Oh, where, Oh, where did the old Roco molds go? :-p ). Also, as colorful as the New York Central's Jade Green freight car scheme was, could Atlas please paint more of its steam-era freight cars in one or the other of the NYC's older schemes? For those like me building up a late Depression--early post-World War II freight car roster, the Jade Green scheme is too anachronistic.

 

I'm also hoping for an undec 2-rail RS-1 with DCC.

The Atlas Trainman line is the old Roco line.    At least every one I have seen has an identical superstructure to the old ROCO, this includes the gondola, sliding door box, and plug door box.     Atlas changed the underframes to diecast and changed the trucks to their own design.   

On a separate note, Jerry Kimbel was quoted as stating at the recent "March Meet" in chicago that Atlas would "never do a single motor drive".    I got this second hand, so it may be a rumor.      Every 2 motor loco I have does not run as well as the single motor ones, jerky starts and stops and low speed running.     These are all important to scale operators and operating layouts, so I was disappointed to hear this statement.

CNJ #1601 posted:
SundayShunter posted:

No need to be an ATSF Foamer - as any fan of Short Lines knows, plenty of CF7s went to Regionals & Short Lines, and some are still active. It's a Freelancer's dream loco!!

As evidenced by this one.  # 1500 is rostered by the Grafton & Upton Railroad (a local short line here in MA).  I grabbed these two quick shots with my iPhone today in the N. Grafton yard.  Unique-looking locomotive to say the least!

image

 

In this shot you captured one of the key spotting features -- the round extension on the pilot exposes it's F-unit roots. The others are four in-line stacks, the F-unit fuel/water tanks and the stubby short hood. At first glance, looks like a low-nose Geep, but to the CF7 or ATSF fan, it's like spotting an old friend. When I did an image search on CF7's, over a hundred photos popped up. They're everywhere. Atlas could produce a couple of pairs every year for more than 20 years and still not hit all of them..

Last edited by AGHRMatt
prrjim posted:

The Atlas Trainman line is the old Roco line.    At least every one I have seen has an identical superstructure to the old ROCO, this includes the gondola, sliding door box, and plug door box.     Atlas changed the underframes to diecast and changed the trucks to their own design.   

On a separate note, Jerry Kimbel was quoted as stating at the recent "March Meet" in chicago that Atlas would "never do a single motor drive".    I got this second hand, so it may be a rumor.      Every 2 motor loco I have does not run as well as the single motor ones, jerky starts and stops and low speed running.     These are all important to scale operators and operating layouts, so I was disappointed to hear this statement.

That probably makes sense.  Engineering work is expensive and requires research and/or practical experience. Atlas no longer designs and manufactures trains, they simply import them from the orient. 

Nearly all of their products were originally engineered and produced by someone else.  They simply hand them offshore to build and paint and they come back RTR.

Last edited by Rule292
AGHRMatt posted:
CNJ #1601 posted:
SundayShunter posted:

No need to be an ATSF Foamer - as any fan of Short Lines knows, plenty of CF7s went to Regionals & Short Lines, and some are still active. It's a Freelancer's dream loco!!

As evidenced by this one.  # 1500 is rostered by the Grafton & Upton Railroad (a local short line here in MA).  I grabbed these two quick shots with my iPhone today in the N. Grafton yard.  Unique-looking locomotive to say the least!

image

 

In this shot you captured one of the key spotting features -- the round extension on the pilot exposes it's F-unit roots. The others are four in-line stacks, the F-unit fuel/water tanks and the stubby short hood. At first glance, looks like a low-nose Geep, but to the CF7 or ATSF fan, it's like spotting an old friend. When I did an image search on CF7's, over a hundred photos popped up. They're everywhere. Atlas could produce a couple of pairs every year for more than 20 years and still not hit all of them..

Matt, thanks very much for sharing you knowledge about these these unique locomotives.  Much appreciated!

prrjim posted:

I think I heard that Atlas did design the Roco built cars.    The story I heard was that Ted Stepek from the Wash DC area did a  lot of the original drawings for them.

The tooling on those is crisp and accurate even by 2016 standards, I had a few of the undec Bev-Bel shells and they were gorgeous.   Too bad they were designed in the 1970's with molded on details. 

In my very humble opinion the Atlas 40' Trainman boxcar has some of the most accurately done car ends and roof of any O scale car.  It's survived the test of time and worthy of the late Thaddeus Stepek name. 

Too bad it can't be cloned to a 2016 model without the oversize molded on details and the huge round lugs for mounting the ladders, running boards and brake gear.  In that aspect the current direction of Atlas of never improving on glaring outdated design  flaws  is kind of sad. 

Nevertheless, the car is the star of the Trainman lineup. 

Last edited by Rule292

For a little more background info on the 1970's era Atlas/Roco line see my recent Atlas 1970's post on the 3RS forum. Ted Stepek and John Armstrong brought me into O scale from HO back in 1971 and I consider Ted to be my PRR modelling mentor along with a very dear friend, Ray Jury .  On Friday nights at Ted's we often would see pre-production Atlas products running on Ted's O scale 2 rail railroad.  Once he rain an endurance test of the Atlas Plymouth diesel.  He mounted a mechanical counter on the body of the Plymouth and ran it non stop for a week or so around his layout until the drive train gave out due to bearing surface wear.  Knowing the length of his continuous mainline and the lap count he was able to repot back to Atlas owner Steve Shaffen (SP??) and Roco how many miles the locomotive ran and what elements in the mechanism failed.  Early in the development of the Atlas/Roco O scale product line Steve and Ted flew to Austria to meet with Roco management and designers.

Out of interest, how accurate a model is the old Atlas/Roco WDT Plymouth?

I'd always understood it was pretty good dimensionally, not "enlarged" to fill out the loading gauge like a lot of HO & N Plymouths were. But lately I've seen it described as based on a narrow-gauge prototype, or just dismissed altogether as a "toy". The blind center wheels aren't great, obviously, but then are quite well hidden by the outside frames, which as far as I can make out from websites like rrpicturearchives, aren't totally unprototypical, but weren't as common as inside frames & exposed wheels.

Comments welcome!!

SundayShunter posted:

Out of interest, how accurate a model is the old Atlas/Roco WDT Plymouth?

I'd always understood it was pretty good dimensionally, not "enlarged" to fill out the loading gauge like a lot of HO & N Plymouths were. But lately I've seen it described as based on a narrow-gauge prototype, or just dismissed altogether as a "toy". The blind center wheels aren't great, obviously, but then are quite well hidden by the outside frames, which as far as I can make out from websites like rrpicturearchives, aren't totally unprototypical, but weren't as common as inside frames & exposed wheels.

Comments welcome!!

The old Atlas O Plymouth is fairly representative of a generic Plymouth locomotive.  These switchers were available in various tonnage, gauges and sizes to suit the customer needs.

There is certainly nothing wrong with it's scale proportions.

Rusty

I recall Ted Stepek saying the Atlas Plymouth was significantly oversize.  Being an extreme SPF rivet counter, Ted wouldn't want one on his railroad other than for testing.    However Ted's close friend (and collaborator on Atlas layout books) John Armstrong  used a pair of coupled Atlas Plymouths on his Canandaigua Southern  to move cuts of very heavy  Atlas ore cars (weighted with taconite pellets!) between the main line and  a hidden interchange track.  A thrifty Scot to the core, John probably found the Atlas Plymouths to be the most cost effective motive power solution available at the time.

Last edited by Keystoned Ed

$20 Bucks!! I've read how cheap the Atlas range was here in the UK in the early 1970s, not sure what the £-$ exchange rate was back then, but probably better than it is now!! 

The two I have aren't silky smooth runners, although the growl is quite convincing, & they are nearly as old as me, after all. I like 'em anyway.

Class 14 A 009

 

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Keystoned Ed posted:

I recall Ted Stepek saying the Atlas Plymouth was significantly oversize.  Being an extreme SPF rivet counter, Ted wouldn't want one on his railroad other than for testing. ...

I always thought the WDT was scaled around 1:43 instead of 1:48. I have a couple and they don't look quite big enough to be representative of a 3-foot gauge (like MTH did with the Galloping Goose).

1890-1915 era wooden passenger cars. But I realize that they would only sell very few. I've build choOCH GN cars and they nice , but they take a lot of time and effort to built. They are great looking when finished.  Also there is a lack of motive power for that era . The Sunset Limited or the Yellow Kid would look great !!  I've also built labelle kits and they are nice, but same problem, a lot of time to produce a nice model.  

I have rebuilt two Atlas Plymouth WDT's in years past. The loco is too long. Even with the front porch removed, the rear one makes the loco several feet too long. If you can overlook this, the compressor bulges are on both sides where only one is prototypical and 99% of standard gauge units had inside frames. Atlas used a narrow gauge unit to copy! This is easy to fix however, since the frame sides simply pop out giving a much more prototypical look. Nevertheless, this loco is fairly easy to bash and do some correcting on unless you are a rivet counter. Simply removing the frame sides and hand rails does wonders. I don't think I have ever seen a photo of one of these units, except mine, with the frame sides removed.Looks far more prototypical that way.

Hi from New Zealand Folks,

Stumbled across this thread while searching for info on Weaver O U25B, one of which I recently acquired off eBay.

Tom is there any chance of uploading some images of your Plymouth switchers, I have one that I will one day upgrade the drive on and convert to be a private operator plant switcher to be representative rather than completely prototypical. I'm interested in what you have done to yours, in particular to the motor which on mine has an incredible amount of motor drive shaft movement when changing direction i.e. the shaft moves about 1/4" up and down through the bushes and winds the worm gear across the crown gear causing a 'lag' it just needs a bush to take our the slack but I haven't given any real thought to how to do that. I'd also replace the pickups with phosphorous bronze rod running on the top of the wheels.  

On the Weaver U25B, there seems to be very little coverage in the O scale space, forums or otherwise which is a shame as it's a great looking and running loco. This one, currently in a nice yellow and green Reading Lines scheme (but not far off being detailed and repainted into ConRail colours), has the 'infamous' China dual motor drive which I find can be simply made to run beautifully noting I use Digitrax DCC.

To do this I tweak the locos both mechanically where required (make sure the truck drives are free running) and through the hard school of knocks from running them at public exhibitions, I now always solder the motor and pickup connections to the dog bone CctBd (the little plastic wire retainers are just too unreliable). Where I've converted the loco from 3 Rail, the new CctBds I make use plugs with soldered connections to the pins, so they are 'plug and play' to allow easy disassembly if required. 

Reds Brent

Curtis1983 posted:

Since I started this post. I should've added a modern gondola picture.

Atlas makes these in HO I don't know why they can't do a 2 rail O version.

I also found a side picture of the Spartan cab Illinois Central SD70

We used to see the IC SD70s in Sioux City quite often. We have CN here now and see a lot of CN paint with IC letters on the bottom of the cab.

My comments have to do with the GP40-2. When the Atlas had their forum up and running the topic with the most comments as I remember was for a GP40 and -2s. Still they ignore us. Yes, I know  they say they don't want to build repeats as others but enough with the F units,

Dick

I would very much like to see Atlas re-run some of the models they have done before but not for a while - I'd love the Alco Century 424/425 in British Columbia Railway green (to go with the RS3s) and the GP-35 in Soo Line, Milwaukee Road or Chicago North-Western.  Given the trouble they've had recently getting new products to market, something easier for them to do that gets nice locos into the shops in a reasonable time would be a worthy goal.

Regards, Bevis.

One of the obvious results of BTO is minimal to none reserve stock and spare parts, its been 7+ years since Atlas and Sanda Kan parted ways and Atlas continues to struggle with diesel power production from their present MFG. The only really new model they had tooling made for has been 7 years getting in to production, according to Rob Pisani it will go into production next, so the chances of anything new [motive power]getting on the schedule in the foreseeable future are remote,it seems a lot just to get repainted reruns on any kind of a schedule.JMO

Curtis,

I'm with you. I believe we're due for a modern car or two. While I campaigned on the Atlas forum for the 73ft or 64ft Center Partition Flats and the 34k gallon LPG Tank Cars, a Trinity gondola (or Gunderson or Thrall, what ever) either 50ft, 55ft or 65-70ft (Mill) would be welcome. Atlas does a great job for the money with their Master Line freight cars and it doesn't take much to tweak them to P-48 or a excellent O5W model. The 60ft Trinity T-box would be another great car to have rather than repainting the Berwick Forge car over and over again.  I'd also like to see a re-run or new numbers for the first run Trainman 68ft Bulkhead Flats: TTX and UP. Like some other posters, I have felt that Atlas locomotive production, well, it just takes awhile. Okay, maybe, if you're 27, not so much if you are a cranky 62 y.o. grumpy old man. However, having said that, it Atlas were to produce a much better SD70 series locomotive(s) that the K-Line model, I'd bite.....and I could always use some more SP and Rio Grande GP60s. Might even get some extra Santa Fe units. Truly, it seems to me that the market is flooded with RS somethings F units (F45, FP45, and F40PH I, II, and III excepted). Another current prototype freight car would be a breathe of fresh air. Like Swafford says, "Ready to buy when you supply!"

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