Motive Po...oh...never mind.

 I bought a couple of the brand-new Atlas Classic Silver Series SD9 locos, undecorated, in the hopes that I could put my Life Like Burlington SD7/9 shells on them. I got the silver series because I really didn't want sound, but this newest release comes with speakers already installed just in case you change your mind.

The good news is I was able to mill the inside of the Life Like shells to fit the chassis. The bad news is the chassis are back in their boxes ready to go back to Atlas.

So what was wrong with them, you might ask? Did they run poorly? No, not at all, they were smooth and quiet and the performance was superb. I was a bit surprised to see the trucks are wired rather than having the normal brass contact strips, but it seems to work well.

The problem is in the decoder boards.

For some reason Atlas has decided that the new SD7/9 should use the E24 connector. This is a brand new proprietary connector from ESU, meaning that only ESU is using it, and as far as I can determine it is only being used on one, and only one, of their decoders, the LokSound 58925.

I have no particular problems with ESU LokSound decoders, other than having to have special equipment to program them with their sound "projects" because they do not come pre-loaded (most dealers can do this for you), but I specifically bought the silver series because I didn't want sound. Unfortunately, with this locomotive, your choices are either DCC with sound using this particular ESU decoder or DC.

Swapping the entire interconnection board isn't an option either, partially because of the aforementioned hard-wired trucks and partially because the board is held to the chassis with screws. This means you either have to remove the light board altogether and replace it with a mash-up of a wired decoder and lights, or you go with the LokSound decoder. 

Either way there is no benefits from using the new chassis when there are still plenty of the older ones out there that will serve the purpose. I was able to mill the LifeLike shells enough to fit, but not well, on older Atlas/Kato SD7's, but it is my understanding that the China made chassis are a bit narrower, which is why I wanted to go that route. 

I'm sure that someone out there is buying the Gold chassis to fit older shells, so perhaps I can find some China made non-sound DCC ready chassis to use instead. But I digress.

To say I am disappointed with the new Atlas SD7/9 is a gross understatement. I don't know who the genius was at Atlas that thought it was a good idea to limit the decoder selection like this, but that decision puts them on par with the Bachmann GP7s and their crappy crippled Lenz decoders at twice the price.

If this is their new design paradigm, I certainly won't be buying any more new locomotives from Atlas.

Cotton Brute: The Saga Continues

 While in Altoona the Brute once again started acting up. The problem was traced to the weight just behind the motor, it was shifting forward just enough to short out against the motor contacts. This is no doubt what let the magic smoke out of the ESU sound decoder, but the Digitrax decoder was robust enough that when the source of the short was removed it came back to life.

The offending weight has been Kapton taped and the motor leads have been filed/bent to prevent further contact. When the ESU decoder comes back from being repaired it will be reinstalled, and I don't expect to have any more issues out of it.

The next request was to have the wheel flanges turned down to allow the loco to run on Atlas code 55 track. The idea is to enable it to run on Free-moN modules. To that end a set of wheels was removed from one of the four donor locomotives that the PVRR shops has on hand, and the flanges were turned down by chucking them in a hand drill and applying a file to them until they were reduced to .022". The Atlas code 55 track needs .035" clearance, so this will work just fine.

As an added bonus the loco should be able to run on hand-laid code 40 track as well. That is important because the planned Path Valley rebuild will include dual gauge code 40 turnouts and track. But I digress.

While turning the wheels down I had particular issues with the horrible looking plastic wheels. They would just spin off the axles when they were chucked up in the drill wheel lathe. By fortuitous circumstance, one of the insulated metal wheels also came off when being turned down, and I noticed that the axles were the same size. The axles looked bigger on the metal wheelsets because there is a sleeve over them. I slid the insulated metal wheel on the idler axle in place of the plastic wheel and it fit as if it were made to go there.

Back to the salvage track I went for another set of wheels. The four insulated metal wheels were turned down and fitted to the idler axles. I temporarily installed all of the wheelsets in one of the donor locomotives and ran it across the PVRR system to check for shorts or other issues, and absolutely no problems were found. So, now I have a full set of six metal wheels per truck, with flanges adequate for Atlas code 55 track, tested and ready to install on the Cotton Brute.

The Brute is scheduled to come into the PVRR maintenance shop on the 3rd of November, and then she will be the star of the show on the North Raleigh Model Railroad Club layouts at the annual November Neuse River Valley Model Railroad Show in the Jim Graham Building, North Carolina Fairgrounds, Raleigh NC, on the 4th and 5th of November.

If you are in the area, please do stop by and see us.