Athearn "straight" SD40 question.

[osrr]

The new runs of Athearns straight 40s are lookin pretty nice but, i have questions.

I've read with the -2 that the bolster spacing is incorrect and that they sit high. I've also read that the height was fixed eventually.

Do the straight 40s share any of these problems?

[WatchYourStep]

Negative, good sir. As a man who is dissatisfied with Athearns SD45s and SD40-2 offerings, I give their new straight 40 a pass with flying colors. Bolster is correct upon visual inspection (not a science, but going off of feel) and they really dont have any other glaring issues. I find some of their truck sideframes better than others, but as far as detail and capturing the feel of the locomotive, they did well. Im still high on Kato SD40s, but the new Athearns will probably be where my purchases go to from now on.

[osrr]

Good, good.

May have to grab a couple of them.

[simulatortrain]

I agree they are very nice. Only thing is I wish they'd actually tool up some correct triple clasp sideframes, and 5 of the 6 units I'm doing need the larger later phase stepwells, which will probably be fun to fix...

[deez]

Haha I was just at the RPM meet on Sunday asking the Athearn guys about any plans for Flexicoil C2C sideframes. Nope. No HTC triples either. They had the SD40's and 38's there. They do look very nice. They did say that they have plans to retool the SD45 also. Plus do the '71 built phase of the 45's with the support ribs on the blower and forward faring dynamics just like they did with the SD40's. Now that was great news to me lol.

[simulatortrain]

That is great news. I don't need a ton of SD45s but it will be nice to have that option.

[deez]

Hey Adam are you needing to change the Kato SD40 high steps to the later low steps? What I did on my SD39's is use Kato SD45's for the sills with low steps. I think I remember just cutting back the blower duct on the conductors side. Athearn did all of their models with low step and late pilots. Which is incorrect for just about all (if not all) SD40's with hand brakes in the nose. Hi-hoods would be the exception.

[simulatortrain]

No, I have all Athearn units. I was pretty sure looking at them they were the high steps. If I'm wrong, that makes my life easier as 5 of the 6 I have need the low steps. The remaining unit, one from WM's first SD40 order, has the high stepwells but the step spacing of the low ones, with the bottom step mounted on an extension.  Their 35 series locos appear to have come this way as well.

edit: looking at them again, I'm not sure why I decided they were high steps.

[Randy Earle]

I didn't pay attention to the steps. Once the unit was painted, who could tell?  

[deez]

I've looked at enough prototype photos of 40 series units that is easy for me to tell high from low steps. They also have a certain pilot that goes with each type. Not even black paint could hide a specific style of step when you are a stickler about these details lol. Most people really don't know the smaller phase changes on even 40 series EMD's and so do not know to look for them.
I don't think I've ever come across an early 40/45 series unit which has the hand brake in the nose not have high steps and the SD35 production carry over early style pilot plate. Now allot of these high step units were delivered new with a step extention that makes them look like a low step. I think as orderes just poured into EMD for new 40 series units they had to whip up a quick solution to the lower step option until a whole new pilot was introduced. And even before 40 series production GP & SD35's could be ordered with the low steps where that same pilot plate was built longer at the bottom to accommodate for the lower step mounting. What I have seen is the early high steps and pilot plate moving on into production units that now had the hand brake moved from the nose to the rear of the 40/45 units. You can even sometimes see the slot on the nose neatly plated over on these hand brake transitional units too.

P.S. When it comes to Spartan cab EMD's, I could be a walking diesel spotters guide. But also note that my word is not gospel, especially when you can certainly bet that there are always exceptions to rule with EMD's.

[simulatortrain]

Do you know offhand some other examples of the step extensions? I've looked for others and not found them.

[annarborfan]

My knees could tell which ones were higher after 12 hours of switching.

[deez]

Adam, idk if I've seen other examples of factory built step extensions besides what you commonly see. I'm sure there are some non EMD custom shop built examples out there but the mostly I do see the factory style extensions. If you look at Southern Pacifics first order of 8800 series SD45's you'll see the factory style I'm talking about. This style was use on allot of different railroads 40/45 series orders and seems to be the most common type.

[URR566]

The Bessemer & Lake Erie lowered the step wells on their engines. They made the bottom step even with the pilot footboard then added an extra step into the step well as well as extend the footboards to wrap around the pilot beams. Their original SD7's, SD9's and SD18's were done in house, as well as their SD38's, but their SD38AC and 870-879 series SD38-2's were built this way by EMD (yes, I know the thread is talking about SD40's but the SD38 and 38AC share the same common frame as the 40 and 45).


Heres one of their SD38's with their in house step mods:


www.rr-fallenflags.org/ble/ble863ads.jpg


Heres an SD38AC with the factory lowered step wells. This photo was taken well after the railroad removed the footboards from it:


www.rr-fallenflags.org/ble/ble868nb.jpg

[simulatortrain]

Thanks for the info/pics!