March 5, 2007

Athearn Challenger Makes A Return In N Scale

Buy Athearn Locos

The famous Union Pacific Challenger rides again from Athearn - this time with a much smaller footprint. The N scale Challenger sports all the same features as its larger counterpart with a nice factory equipped MRC sound decoder and many separately applied detail parts.

The articulated drivers run smoothly and are very nicely detailed with all the pivoting pipes you'd expect from a top-notch articulated loco. Once going the speed control is good but the starting and low speed is not comparable to other BEMF decoders offered by QSI and Soundtraxx.

Something that impressed me was the fact that this loco actually has a working hideaway coupler, a feature that I've never seen on a non-brass N scale locomotive.

Bottom line is ... if you are looking to do some heavy hauling on your N scale UP freight line I'd seriously consider adding one of these to your fleet.