Athearn (N) January 2024 Announcements

[bbussey]

I'm sure some people will be excited about the double shelf couplers. It is a good development, if a bit too late for my era.

McHenry-style double shelf couplers?  Pass.

[JMaurer1]

Lucky for me everything is way too 'new' for me (even if the molds are so very old). $32 for a gondola that had the molds that are now old enough to vote and buy liquor...

[Rivet Miscounter]

McHenry-style double shelf couplers?  Pass.

Better than nothing?

I mean, it's only taken 45 years to get the first one.   

I'm convinced the quest for a perfect even a reasonably improved coupler in N will just never happen.   I'm not sure why that is.   McHenry's are the poster child for this...how do you design a coupler from the ground up and make it LARGER than your primary competition.   I mean, I'm no design engineer, but I have to think that if I'm footing the bill I would have a short list of things that had to happen.  And one of those is it would need to be at least 10% smaller than the Magne-Matics.

And I look at the photos of the $250 SD40-2 that I'm about to buy four of, and the coupler literally makes me want to throw up. 

(EDIT: after seeing some of the show report pics, I'm backing off of the vomit response.  Weirdly the amateur show pics make them look better than S-T's website pics.   I still don't think they're world beaters, but I will concede they're not as bad as my hyperbole suggested.    )

[peteski]

I'm convinced the quest for a perfect even a reasonably improved coupler in N will just never happen.   I'm not sure why that is.   McHenry's are the poster child for this...how do you design a coupler from the ground up and make it LARGER than your primary competition.   I mean, I'm no design engineer, but I have to think that if I'm footing the bill I would have a short list of things that had to happen.  And one of those is it would need to be at least 10% smaller than the Magne-Matics.

And I look at the photos of the $250 SD40-2 that I'm about to buy four of, and the coupler literally makes me want to throw up.

While similar size to MTL couplers, this was an interesting development (at least appearance wise), but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  And yes, it slinks just as MTL ones.

[turbowhiz]

Better than nothing?

I mean, it's only taken 45 years to get the first one.   

I'm convinced the quest for a perfect even a reasonably improved coupler in N will just never happen.   I'm not sure why that is.   McHenry's are the poster child for this...how do you design a coupler from the ground up and make it LARGER than your primary competition.   I mean, I'm no design engineer, but I have to think that if I'm footing the bill I would have a short list of things that had to happen.  And one of those is it would need to be at least 10% smaller than the Magne-Matics.

And I look at the photos of the $250 SD40-2 that I'm about to buy four of, and the coupler literally makes me want to throw up. 

(EDIT: after seeing some of the show report pics, I'm backing off of the vomit response.  Weirdly the amateur show pics make them look better than S-T's website pics.   I still don't think they're world beaters, but I will concede they're not as bad as my hyperbole suggested.    )

Oh so little faith... Believe! Truly scale couplers that are demonstrably better then traditional MTL are on their way. It IS possible to improve things after more then 50 years.

McHenry's absolutely were not a new "ground up" design. They're literally plastic Kadee's with plastic centering springs instead of the classic bronze flat spring that showed up once the original patents expired. And then in the N scale case slightly scaled down to effectively the practical limit of that design style. There was no real innovation there at all.
 
Couplers are hard!

[Jbub]

Oh so little faith... Believe! Truly scale couplers that are demonstrably better then traditional MTL are on their way. It IS possible to improve things after more then 50 years.

McHenry's absolutely were not a new "ground up" design. They're literally plastic Kadee's with plastic centering springs instead of the classic bronze flat spring that showed up once the original patents expired. And then in the N scale case slightly scaled down to effectively the practical limit of that design style. There was no real innovation there at all.
 
Couplers are hard!

I believe you, but you should give us a little teaser if you can. A current picture or short video like you did with the prototype over a year ago. I'm anxiously awaiting these and I believe others are as well.

[thomasjmdavis]

Lucky for me everything is way too 'new' for me (even if the molds are so very old). $32 for a gondola that had the molds that are now old enough to vote and buy liquor...

I think they are older than that. Spookshow has the first issue as 1979 under MDC/Roundhouse.  Not that long after the prototype hit the rails. Of course, they may have recut the tooling somewhere along the line, but I would not be too surprised if the molds are not just old enough to vote, but old enough to run for Senate or even President.

At some point, I picked up 3 of the gondola bodies in a "junk box" purchase on ebay. Unfortunately, just bodies, no underframes. If I had enough parts, I would be tempted to try to back-date them with dreadnought ends and some added rivets.

[Sokramiketes]

While similar size to MTL couplers, this was an interesting development (at least appearance wise), but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.  And yes, it slinks just as MTL ones.

The one thing Goemon nailed is the clean tooling and proper proportions.  It's MTL quality, but with knuckle detail.  Size wise it wasn't meant to be N scale, but rather HO narrow guage.  So that's part of the design difference there.