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So, It's pretty much a known thing, The Athearn Challenger is kinda a Lemon. It sucks because it is such a nice looking locomotive.On to why I dug up this thread. I sent mine back to Athearns to be "fixed." It came back with a different motor, which improved the speed problem, Mine does about 60 SMHP now, I would prefer prototype top speed, but I'll take this over 30 SMPH, which is what mine did originally. Even after the "Repairs" that Athearn did, it still pulled like hot garbage.So, It went on my work bench.....Off and on for over the last year or more.......A few days ago, at the Train show, at Washington State History Museum, I did some test running on our club layout (MRNS). First test run was on the NTRAK Mountain line. First test resulted in a drastic improvement. Originally it struggled to pull 25 cars. Now, With my improvements, 40 cars from multiple manufactures. Needless to say, I'm pretty impressed with the improvement. Now, Yesterday, I had some time on the Inner Main. So why not? lets see what it will REALLY do. I started with 40 mixed freight cars, with 30, 40' box cars, Mostly MT, and 7 gondolas, (mostly MT) 3 flat cars, and a caboose. It pulled with no issues. I ran it like this for probably 30 minutes, then I decided to go after it. I started adding 5 more box cars every other lap. So, where is the top? Well that depends on what you call top. With no slippage at all, 50 cars is all it's got. I had 60 on it, But it would slip a lot in the corners. 55 was doable, but it did have some slight slip in the corners.This is a drastic improvement, but it wasn't with out a LOT of work. so what did I do?New traction tires, that are taller and slightly wider. This is creating a problem right now as the traction tire groove is not wide enough, so the traction tires are bowed up a little near the outside edge of the wheels, which makes it have a little bit of a bump when it runs. But it's not a big deal. I'm planning on chucking the wheels into a dremel or lathe and making the grooves slightly wider, one of these days.But wait, Their is more.I added weight in the boiler, and on top of both of the drive trucks.Tweaked the lateral gear alignments, and made shims to try to help with gear walk.re-quartered all the drivers.Tweaked CV settingsDe-lubed, and re-lubed everythingCut one turn out of the spring on the pilot truckRemoved the spring and screw/pin on the rear truck.Tweaked, and tuned valve gearGauged all the wheelsAdjusted, and tweaked electrical pickupsRewired everything in the locomotiveReplaced all the wire in the locomotive.Still to do:Find places to add more weightDremel or lathe out the traction tire groove widerre-engineer and rebuild the rear truck mountOh, I forgot about that, So, the rear truck.....It is mounted, by a pivot at the front of the truck, attached to the rear of the power truck, then a screw/pin to the bottom of the firebox, with a spring for tension. So, here is the problem, The pivot on the front of the truck is too low, which lifts the front of the truck off the rails. When you push down on the rear truck, to put the front axle on the rail head. It lifts the front of the power truck off the rails by like 1/4". In addition, it only allows for lateral swing, No vertical movement at all. I am working on fixing this right now. I'm hoping this might squeak out a few more cars, some how.Stay Tuned for more, I will try to make updates as I make changes, and post the results.It has been a ton of investigation and work to get to this point, IMHO way too much work for a brand new locomotive. But, It is a beautiful looking locomotive, and it does run well, But you'd think Manufacture would put a little more testing and proving on designs, especially when the prototype was known for pulling 100 loaded boxcars, at 100 MPH across the plains.
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Topic: Athearn Challenger slow operations (Read 386 times)
