Status of Atlas GP7 Gold Series?

[Kentuckian]

I have seen some of the new release silver series (DC, no sound) Atlas GP7’s for sale on eBay recently. Any word about the DCC sound equipped version?

[cbroughton67]

I have seen some of the new release silver series (DC, no sound) Atlas GP7’s for sale on eBay recently. Any word about the DCC sound equipped version?

I'm waiting for those, too. According to the Walthers website, they say expected January 25th.


https://www.walthers.com/gp-7-ph1-dcc-nyc-5609


Chris

[Kentuckian]

Thanks for the info.

[randgust]

Wow, they are showing up on Ebay but the same roadname I ordered from Atlas two years ago - crickets.

My order is still in their system, I found it, just contacted Atlas.    You'd 'think' that direct orders to Atlas would take precedence.

Update:   Did get a fast response from Atlas; basically 'orders are shipped in the order they are received', so yes they have them but no mine isn't shipped yet.   I assumed those Ebay offers are dealers, they just ordered before I did.

Anxiously awaiting mine to see two major issues - did they keep the GREAT universals that finally make them silent (unlike the hex nuts) and how badly did they compromise pulling power by putting the speaker in the fuel tank.....along with all the other frame cutouts.    If I'm going to do another run of the CF7 kits I suspect I'll have to modify the fuel tank casting, so I'm on hold until I get one in my mitts.

[skytop35]

I looked inside one of the new silver series GP7's and it is similair to the new SD7/9's mechanisms which sound fantastic. The speaker is mounted to the circuit board and has an enclosure.

[mu26aeh]

Need a report if old shells fit on the new chassis.  Perhaps my Gettysburg locomotives will get new guts

[randgust]

Yay!  Mine arrived tonight.   I have more than a passing interest in all this, this will determine if I keep making CF7 kits.   I'm really not into making new masters at this point.

So, here's what I can report, no time for photos tonight, but I'll do those up shortly.

Now mind you, I've now got five of these Atlas GP7's (4 converted to CF7's) this is the sixth, so it's really easy to compare generations here.

1)  Beautiful model, I got NYC, it's a phase 1 but surprise, no torpedo tube.  I thought it would be.  Doesn't matter.   Beautiful paint and lettering.
   
2)   Pulled the body shell off.   Wow, they didn't mess with the fuel tank at all.  There are now metal 'lips' at each end instead of the tiny nubs that can be used to pry the body shell off.  The chassis is completely different, no split frame now which makes the wipers impossible.   I got a DC, and there still appears to be a speaker in there right under the radiator fans.   Hmmm.  That's where they put it.  It's not big but its not small either.

3)  I tried an old body shell on it, and it snapped right on.  In studying the body shell castings, the only ??? change is the cab is now held on with melted-over studs instead of clipped on, but everything else in there looks pretty much the same.   Getting the cab off will require work.

4)  Performance.   Boy is it quiet.  That's always been the curse of the old Atlas classics, and up until they went away from the hex nut universals, every other one.   This one is as dead silent as you'll ever see.   Very, exceptionally smooth.  They didn't solder the pickup wires onto the top lugs, surprise, they are still there!  The wires are deep in the trucks.  But the casting looks the same to me.   I'm not freaking out about the wires, at least not yet.

5)  My issue.  No change on the fuel tank, but my nose casting won't fit unless that new front  metal 'lip' is cut off the frame.  It's not that thick, and I think I can just cut if off with flush cutters without having to resort to grinding the frame or disassembling.  The front round frame nubs will have to be ground off, I suspect.   So first glance, this will work without changing my kit, so I'm happy.

6)  Now for the bad news.   It's funny, it doesn't feel lighter, but boy, it is.   For comparison, an old Classic that I own as my primary yard and local GP comes in at 77 grams - pulls 16.   Two 'slow speed' 2010 chassis with the DCC cutouts weigh in at 66 grams, and also have what I call 'slippery wheel syndrome' with pulling power of 9 grams.   This one weighs in only 61 grams but pulled in a 7.5, so it has slightly better adhesion from the slick wheel days.   But yeah, my classics will lift a train up the hill and this just sits there and spins.   That's the result of all the frame loss from the electronics as at least it's not the wheels now.   So it pulls less than half of the same unit from the 'Classic' era.

I keep looking at that speaker and wonder what it would do with a hunk of lead in there instead....  but it's certainly not a necessity.   If you're really into sound this should be a winner, if you've got a 2.5% grade and a solid 10-car train, not so much.

I will definitely rebuild this one into a lab rat test of a CF7.  I'm thinking Allegheny 303 for this one.   Overall, I'm good, I'll give it a solid A but a C- on relative pull.   Remember it's a 'compared to what?' and I have a 1987 Kato GP38 that snaps in at 28 grams of pull, 4X this unit, same basic locomotive size.

[wmcbride]

Yay!  Mine arrived tonight.   I have more than a passing interest in all this, this will determine if I keep making CF7 kits.   I'm really not into making new masters at this point.

So, here's what I can report, no time for photos tonight, but I'll do those up shortly.

Now mind you, I've now got five of these Atlas GP7's (4 converted to CF7's) this is the sixth, so it's really easy to compare generations here.

1)  Beautiful model, I got NYC, it's a phase 1 but surprise, no torpedo tube.  I thought it would be.  Doesn't matter.   Beautiful paint and lettering.
   
2)   Pulled the body shell off.   Wow, they didn't mess with the fuel tank at all.  There are now metal 'lips' at each end instead of the tiny nubs that can be used to pry the body shell off.  The chassis is completely different, no split frame now which makes the wipers impossible.   I got a DC, and there still appears to be a speaker in there right under the radiator fans.   Hmmm.  That's where they put it.  It's not big but its not small either.

3)  I tried an old body shell on it, and it snapped right on.  In studying the body shell castings, the only ??? change is the cab is now held on with melted-over studs instead of clipped on, but everything else in there looks pretty much the same.   Getting the cab off will require work.

4)  Performance.   Boy is it quiet.  That's always been the curse of the old Atlas classics, and up until they went away from the hex nut universals, every other one.   This one is as dead silent as you'll ever see.   Very, exceptionally smooth.  They didn't solder the pickup wires onto the top lugs, surprise, they are still there!  The wires are deep in the trucks.  But the casting looks the same to me.   I'm not freaking out about the wires, at least not yet.

5)  My issue.  No change on the fuel tank, but my nose casting won't fit unless that new front  metal 'lip' is cut off the frame.  It's not that thick, and I think I can just cut if off with flush cutters without having to resort to grinding the frame or disassembling.  The front round frame nubs will have to be ground off, I suspect.   So first glance, this will work without changing my kit, so I'm happy.

6)  Now for the bad news.   It's funny, it doesn't feel lighter, but boy, it is.   For comparison, an old Classic that I own as my primary yard and local GP comes in at 77 grams - pulls 16.   Two 'slow speed' 2010 chassis with the DCC cutouts weigh in at 66 grams, and also have what I call 'slippery wheel syndrome' with pulling power of 9 grams.   This one weighs in only 61 grams but pulled in a 7.5, so it has slightly better adhesion from the slick wheel days.   But yeah, my classics will lift a train up the hill and this just sits there and spins.   That's the result of all the frame loss from the electronics as at least it's not the wheels now.   So it pulls less than half of the same unit from the 'Classic' era.

I keep looking at that speaker and wonder what it would do with a hunk of lead in there instead....  but it's certainly not a necessity.   If you're really into sound this should be a winner, if you've got a 2.5% grade and a solid 10-car train, not so much.

I will definitely rebuild this one into a lab rat test of a CF7.  I'm thinking Allegheny 303 for this one.   Overall, I'm good, I'll give it a solid A but a C- on relative pull.   Remember it's a 'compared to what?' and I have a 1987 Kato GP38 that snaps in at 28 grams of pull, 4X this unit, same basic locomotive size.

Of all the non-Santa Fe CF7's, I have always liked the Allegheny units (and 303) the best. No reason why -- I juts do!

So, I look forward to your build.

[Rivet Miscounter]

So it pulls less than half of the same unit from the 'Classic' era.

Wow, that is pretty shocking.   I knew that they would take a hit with DCC, and then a little more with Sound.  But I never imagined it would be that bad.

[brill27mcb]

If it's going to be a lab rat, why not put lead or tungsten in the speaker area and test the weight/pulling power?

Rich K.

[peteski]

If it's going to be a lab rat, why not put lead or tungsten in the speaker area and test the weight/pulling power?

Rich K.

By the same token, also fill the hollow area for the decoder.

[randgust]

I'm photographing this as I mess with it, and for kit purposes, the object of the game on the chassis is to not do any more than absolutely necessary to fit my parts.  So what I can do vs. what others can do is an issue.  Yeah, if this were a 'front line' unit, I'd add weight.  But it will probably be a display and demo unit.

The 2010 chassis required no modification at all to fit my kit.   The Classic took a little grinding off of the top headlight clip for the LED mount.

This one?  Discovered last night that even removing the cast 'lip' off the nose that they added still leaves me 6" too long to fit the CF7 nose casting on, and there's no way can make that nose casting thinner or longer.  The entire shell is already stretched a bit right behind the cab to fit.   So, yeah.   The new chassis nose is more pointy than the old one by about 6 scale inches.

Oh, and for those that grump about wires to the truck and getting the trucks off easily, they couldn't have made it much easier.  The truck wires plug into the PCB board, and the trucks drop right out without having to do much.   I'm going to have to grind the nose a bit and the last thing I want are metal chips in the truck gears.   So seeing how easy it is to get the trucks out of harms way, I'm going that way for this one.

Looking at the exploded parts diagram you can see that the DCC decoder version is intended to replace the daughter PCB board in the nose, under the basic PCB board.  It 'looks like' it sticks out farther in the nose.   If anybody gets a DCC one, I need to know EXACTLY how far out that decoder sticks out down to the millimeter, because it may not fit inside my cab.  The DC one does, and there's a little space, but not much.   It would also appear that if you want to do a chop-nose GP7, it would absolutely be in the way of that.

Late update, well they haven't changed the paint formula either, 91% alcohol strips it clean as a whistle, sorry NYC folks.

[GM50 4164]

I'm photographing this as I mess with it, and for kit purposes, the object of the game on the chassis is to not do any more than absolutely necessary to fit my parts.  So what I can do vs. what others can do is an issue.  Yeah, if this were a 'front line' unit, I'd add weight.  But it will probably be a display and demo unit.

The 2010 chassis required no modification at all to fit my kit.   The Classic took a little grinding off of the top headlight clip for the LED mount.

This one?  Discovered last night that even removing the cast 'lip' off the nose that they added still leaves me 6" too long to fit the CF7 nose casting on, and there's no way can make that nose casting thinner or longer.  The entire shell is already stretched a bit right behind the cab to fit.   So, yeah.   The new chassis nose is more pointy than the old one by about 6 scale inches.

Oh, and for those that grump about wires to the truck and getting the trucks off easily, they couldn't have made it much easier.  The truck wires plug into the PCB board, and the trucks drop right out without having to do much.   I'm going to have to grind the nose a bit and the last thing I want are metal chips in the truck gears.   So seeing how easy it is to get the trucks out of harms way, I'm going that way for this one.

Looking at the exploded parts diagram you can see that the DCC decoder version is intended to replace the daughter PCB board in the nose, under the basic PCB board.  It 'looks like' it sticks out farther in the nose.   If anybody gets a DCC one, I need to know EXACTLY how far out that decoder sticks out down to the millimeter, because it may not fit inside my cab.  The DC one does, and there's a little space, but not much.   It would also appear that if you want to do a chop-nose GP7, it would absolutely be in the way of that.

Late update, well they haven't changed the paint formula either, 91% alcohol strips it clean as a whistle, sorry NYC folks.

As of right now there is only 1 decoder that works with this model, the ESU Loksound Nano. The non-sound decoder, Lokpilot 59925 have been released overseas, I'm not sure when they will be arriving over here and from what I've read it will be the same footprint as the sound decoder. The motherboard uses a e24 connector that currently only ESU supports. I'm fairly certain other manufacturers will release a decoder that supports e24 but I've not heard of anything as of yet.

The Nano that I have plugged into my SD7 extends .370" past the motherboard it is plugged into. I hope this can help you.

[peteski]

As of right now there is only 1 decoder that works with this model, the ESU Loksound Nano. The non-sound decoder, Lokpilot 59925 have been released overseas, I'm not sure when they will be arriving over here and from what I've read it will be the same footprint as the sound decoder. The motherboard uses a e24 connector that currently only ESU supports. I'm fairly certain other manufacturers will release a decoder that supports e24 but I've not heard of anything as of yet.

Looks like it is already happening.  See https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=57202.0
However I don't  have much hope that American DCC manufacturers will jump on the E24 bandwagon, but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

[randgust]

OK, here's some photos of the DC version:

1)  Basic shell with the shell off.   Notice the speaker at rear.



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/ATL24001.jpg

2) Right side:



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/ATL24003.jpg

3)  Bottom.  No longer split frame....



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/ATL24005.jpg

Now, here's my issue.  If you look at the board, there's a couple observations I don't get.   First, two white plugs on top of the board, facing outboard.   What are those for?  Second, the parts diagram shows two different 'daughterboards' under the main board in the nose, one for DC, one for DCC.   Is this like the SD7?   And you can see, on the DC version, there's just not a whole lot of room in front of the DC board to fit my CF7 cab, if the DCC board is much longer, it won't fit at all.



Link:  http://www.randgust.com/ATL24026.jpg[/img]

Side view.  If you see those 'notches' that's where the front cab window fits, so I have what appears to be 18 scale inches or .1125 in front of the STOCK TOP(not DC daughterboard on bottom) to clear my CF7 cab windshield.   That's the dimension I need to verify if anybody has a DCC version yet.



link:  http://www.randgust.com/ATL24027.jpg