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 Posted - November 09 2006 : 11:27:56 PM
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Well it’s a little late for Halloween, but I unearthed something in the club show rummage bin this week:
An Athearn GP30! Sweet, ugly, success! It’s been slightly modified by the previous owner (a modeler) but it’s in great shape overall. The GP30 is one of my all-time favorite locomotives, and now I can finally nitpick the differences in my candidate for “ugly HO effort”.
One thing I never noticed on these before is the numberboards:
Shades of Tyco on an Athearn…? I’d never known Athearn to do that on anything else.
Hey, Vintage HO – do all the others have unique numberboards?
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Anyhow, I thawtchy’all might like a comparison between the three major HO GP30 offerings:
New York Central by Athearn (1962)
Burlington Northern by Kader (LionelHO / Bachmann) (1976)
Chessie System by Proto2000 (1998)
The radiator section provides the most immediate evidence of Athearn's mistake, and the biggest improvement over the years. Not only are Athearn’s fans incorrectly flush against the roof, but they are also slightly oversize, to mask Athearn's motor-necessitated over-wide hoods. Legend has it that Athearn based this on preproduction drawings that were leaked from EMD’s engineering dept – if you study and consider the GP30’s overall design ethic, this may indeed be true:
The GP30 sported a unique, distinctive fairing around the dynamic brake blister that tapered down to the radiator section; this was not done before or after on any other diesel produced by EMD. One could argue that the effect of a streamlined taper was wasted when the large exhaust fans poked through behind, so perhaps Athearn really did have it “right” at one time. However, their distinctive dynamic brake fairing tapers are also too long and the blister itself is too high. Additionally, the radiator grilles are too high and too small. [Oops!]
Kader (contractor for “Fundimensions” LionelHO and Bachmann) got the profile right, and indeed the detail was very nice for the 1970’s. The only thing left for Life-Like to improve, thanks to modern CAD/CAM abilities, was the overall detailing in the grilles and fans.
Looking first at the rear and then top-down from the front, we can see the full ramifications of Athearn's wide hoods. [:0] In their defense, this was a necessity in the era, but the design of the GP30 did not lend itself to such modification. And that wasn’t the only problem!
The roof is too smooth and the air filter grilles are all wrong – the should be on the sides with a small taper up top, not flat on the roof. The short hood is way too long, needlessly (since the motor did not reside here) fat, and has an odd crease on top. It might not have looked so wide if the marker lights weren’t jutting out and too close to the edge. There are no doors, and what would be the door windows are too small while the center windows are too big! Speaking of doors and windows, the prototype's were distinctively angled forward toward the centerline like the nose, whereas Athearn's are flat like most EMDs. Finally, the tapers in the “Bulldog hat” lack the subtle aerodynamic rounding of the edges, are too broad, and not as raked as they should be.
Again, 14 years later Kader gets the overall proportions pretty well done; given another 20 years, all Life-like has to do is add the details that weren’t possible in 1976.
This top-side shot really shows the bad nose job on the Athearn version, and the lack of roof detail. They also forgot the blower duct housing immediately behind the cab (although this might be due to the already-wide long hood).
An interesting detail note is the cabs: Athearn, by virtue of almost beating the real GP30 to market [:P], has a standard-sized cab. Kader went with a cab that was larger on the conductor’s side, to serve a 3-man crew – this was a later, popular option from EMD. Proto offered models with both cab styles as appropriate; the Chessie unit shown sports the larger “Phase Two” cab.
This concludes toinight’s lecture. [^] Ya’ll still here? No? I really need to quit wasting my time on these… [V]
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on November 10 2006 02:51:01 AM
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 Posted - November 09 2006 : 11:33:30 PM
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I like the Lionel-HO/Bachmann/Kader GP30 myself. A classic! And that BIG number 181 on the side is the perfect finishing touch to its BN paint job.
Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net
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Posted - November 10 2006 : 03:01:16 AM
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Ah yes, the "Burlington 181" set. First set to feature Lionel's tauted "NEW GP30!". It was also, technically, my "first" train set, as my dad bought it new the year I was born (1977). I remember a few times when he set it up at Chirtsmas under the tree, on a nice board with some Tyco buildings and such. My mom even bought him a Tyco Old Spice car, since tha's what he used [^].
Being way too little to know better, he kept it away from me after the tanker became a casualty. I eventually got the Tyco GI Joe set to cut my teeth on, but that (set) didn't last. I had to beg for years to be given "The Lionel set". And I still have it all today (I had to replace the handrails on the engine, and found the tanker on ebay a few years ago).
Strangely, mine had a Rio Grande hopper substituted in place of the gondola. All were the Lionel-tooled cars, thankfully. I like those so much better than the kader versions, which are actually what's in the pic above.
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on November 10 2006 03:02:24 AM
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