ATHEARN

Athearn Gen. 2-8-2 Mikado.

Athearn's first entry into the steam market is impressive. The 2-8-2 rivals the Bachmann Spectrum steam series! The appearance and detail is excellent, and the running gear is precision Korean format consistent with their brass offerings. The electrical pickup is accomplished by using split axles and frame. Therefore no wipers are required, a big plus in my opinion. Although the molded detail is excellent, the user is required to add a significant portion of the fine detail elements like hand rails. The front light uses a yellow LED which is not attractive.

I have two concerns with this loco:

(A) The wiring or the umbilical between the loco and tender is covered with black shrink tubing. The stiffness of this combination virtually renders the loco inoperative. The user can remove this shrink tube with a razor knife and then paint the wires. Caution,there have been user reports about the fragile termination soldering of these wires causing breaking or shorting.

(B) Traction. The 2-8-2 will pull only about ten average freight cars over a 4% grade. This may improve as the loco rims get worn.

Notes: The 2-8-2 uses a 9 pin header connector for DCC conversion. The following decoders will mate directly with this header plug:

TCS: T1, T2
Soundtraxx: DSD150, DSD100
NCE Corp: D15SR
Lenz: LE 1014 JST, 1025 JST
Digitrax: DH123D, 163D

The above locos and more similar models to come represent a good opportunity for the Steam moddlers to have high performance and good detail at a reasonable cost.

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