Lovely

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ScaleCraft
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Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:02 pm

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atlas-O-Scale- ... 2849458395

I remember these. Rivarossi, right? Horrible little POS things. Needed 6 MU's to pull anything, and the power bricks would just quit. I think I may still have some bits laying around from repairs.

I am really fond of the 9V battery clips used for MU connections. Fetching.
$135 from Georgia, plus requisite shipping...no.
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Rufus T. Firefly
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Re: Lovely

Postby Rufus T. Firefly » Wed Jul 01, 2020 1:13 pm

ScaleCraft wrote:I am really fond of the 9V battery clips used for MU connections.


Somebody improvised with what they had........beats a lot other sillier possibilities..........
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ScaleCraft
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Re: Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:03 pm

You mean like a phone jack or an RCA plug? I do remember the last bunch of these that came through. I think 8 of them, went to my buddy Joe, ten bucks for the lot and I felt bad about charging that much. I think they mostly lasted six months to a year. When we cleaned out his place, there were enough bits to make two that sort of ran.
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Re: Lovely

Postby Rufus T. Firefly » Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:02 pm

ScaleCraft wrote:You mean like a phone jack or an RCA plug?


Think a small 1/8"(?) jack is on one of my engines; works which is more than I can say for other stuff.
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Chris Webster
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Re: Lovely

Postby Chris Webster » Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:23 pm

ScaleCraft wrote:I remember these. Rivarossi, right? Horrible little POS things.
I think you're confusing them with the AHM FM C-liners.

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Re: Lovely

Postby J. S. Bach » Wed Jul 01, 2020 5:58 pm

I clicked on the link and got:
"Atlas O Scale Santa Fe F9 A Unit Diesels (Powered) (2 Rail)"
No AHM carp here, these were/are decent units; eight-wheel drive with a center-mounted motor driving both trucks. John Armstrong(?) wrote an article in one of the mainstream model rr rags on how to "tune-up/modify" the drive to greatly increase its capabilities. Oddly, some of the modifications were easily done as Atlas/Roco incorporated features that made the mods easy to do. On this auction, Trainz' pricing is not too far out of line.

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ScaleCraft
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Re: Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 01, 2020 6:52 pm

Sure looks like the same bottom cover we had back then on those trucks. And yes, there were C-liners, but F-units, too. Had piles of them, and that was 25-30 years ago. Looks like the same weird bolt pattern. And the plastic sideframes that fell off. Might have been center motor, but these were Roco, and 1970 was this timeframe, so 50 years:
http://modelrailroadnews.com/archives-d ... s-o-scale/

Same large fan in front, same molded on side steps, I dunno, sure looks like what we remember.
Yeah, three or four cars doing slot-trains, they're okay. Put them to work...no.
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E7
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Re: Lovely

Postby E7 » Wed Jul 01, 2020 8:52 pm

JUNK with a capital J!

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ScaleCraft
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Re: Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:06 pm

Yeah. Articles are good. Consumer Reports are better! Not long-lived. Atlas really screwed up on this line. ROCO, AHM, whoever...plastic trucks and wheels on cars with those gawdawful claw couplers (thankfully I found a home for the 18-20 of those rucks I ended up with). Rumor was the absolute dead UNreliability of the engines is what killed Atlas's involvement off for all those decades.

I avoid them like Covid-19.

I just dug out the few bits I had from them, one axle/gear, three flanged drivers. TINY axle gear (was a BIG problem), split, turns on axle by hand, one wheel is plastic bushing insulated, moves freely on axle by hand, had to keep track of gauge. Not even talking about motors and driveshafts, crumbling plastic motor blocks.

You can have these if you want them. They tell a story. The cost of shipping on those exceeds value. Was it Red Caboose took over, improved the drives, some folks I knew spent a lot of money getting those replacement drives and they still weren't any good. Opinion.

Plastic shells, plastic frames, plastic trucks and sideframes.
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ScaleCraft
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Re: Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:55 pm

took a bit to find. This is a power brick and driveshaft out of one of these kludges:
Image
I did read somewhere that these were like, 1970-1972, and no longer advertised by Atlas in 1973. So obviously there was a problem.
The 6-wheel WDT switcher, if I recall, being also made by Roco, folks would buy them (IHC for $6.98 brand new!) for axles and gears.
Flanges were bigger than what we wuld consider normal for scale.
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Re: Lovely

Postby J. S. Bach » Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:53 pm

Another oddity about the O unit, the motor was the same one used in the HO version. Atlas/Roco HO were good units and still hold their value.

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ScaleCraft
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Re: Lovely

Postby ScaleCraft » Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:01 pm

And somewhere I read...when Atlas contracted with Roco, Roco just up-sized the carbodies and trucks. Same stuff inside, and yes, motors.

You would not believe the stuff we did to try to keep these running. Being all plastic, you had to have like six of them to pull what one 8-wheel drive All Nation pulled, if I recall. Finally scrapped all but two for parts, and when those quit, they went into one big box, which we disposed of when inventorying the estate. Ask Woody, he'll recall the specifics of disposition.
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De Bruin
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Re: Lovely

Postby De Bruin » Thu Jul 02, 2020 10:01 pm

I have a box of roughly 20 to 30 of these varying between virgin to near complete "falling-apartness"
To date I've only sold off some of them or used them as hanger queens to keep a few of the ones on the club in service. Replacing the geared wheel sets with the NWSL replacement is an improvement, likewise the Armstrong bolster modification, but the truck side frames are horribly brittle (per the photo in the subject.)
I do have a hankering to experiment with the pile-in-the-box and see if I can "extrude" a running ABBA set. (likely only with major clenching, despite being tapered on both ends :wink: )

Regarding the factory schemes these came in, the only one I can stomach is the C&O version which seemed to be the least produced as well.
Last edited by De Bruin on Fri Jul 03, 2020 11:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Lovely

Postby bob turner » Thu Jul 02, 2020 11:16 pm

Since they were plastic, I did not keep any. Like the HO plastic F7 for 98 cents, these were, to my eye, well done for cheapo plastic. They served their purpose. One could always buy a more expensive power section. Ditto the FM C-Liner - really well detailed, and (ugh) plastic. I think the ones I got were $12.95, along with the 0-8-0 which was likewise extremely well detailed, and 17/64.

I like metal and wood. Hey, it is a hobby - no need for logic!

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Re: Lovely

Postby E7 » Fri Jul 03, 2020 12:00 am

The C-Liner (contrary to the F9) is a fairly accurate rendition of the real thing. It is light years better than a lot of HO brass which have a hood that is waaaaay too pointy. There was a post over on OGR in the 3 rail scale sub-forum by a guy redoing them:

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/riv ... resh-start

If you look about 5 posts down, there is a RARE photo of a prototype unit from above showing the hood, which is a smoothly rounded parabola. There are also drawings which show the same shape.

I hope to "Turnerize" one of those shells some day.


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