Beware Of No Parts For Your Ready To Roll Athearn Cars

[rdivizio]

Get this, If you have seen the Athearn Genesis cars, then you know that the
roller bearing caps on the wheels really turn. THEY ALSO GET LOST IF YOUR NOT CAREFUL. Anyhow, I lost one and basically had to purchase a whole new set of Genesis trucks just to get a cap off a wheel to complete a project.
I'M STILL SHORT ONE NOW IF I WANT TO USE THAT WHEELSET NOW.
So I figured I would drop Athearn a line to see if they could send me some.
Sure, no problem they said.
But here's the thing, I also needed some stirups for their Ready to Roll line, specifically the FMC 50' cars. THEY ALSO BREAK VERY EASY.
It's nice just to have these parts around.
ATHEARN PARTS says, I can send you some roller bearing caps, but we do not have parts available for the READY TO ROLL LINE.
I'm thinking, Geez, they have roller bearing caps, but not stirrups for a boxcar.
What in the world is going on over there?
BEWARE OF NO PARTS FOR YOUR READY TO ROLL ATHEARN CARS
SO BE CAREFULL WHAT YOU LOSE OR BREAK.

 

[brakie]

My suggestion would be to buy a pack of A-Line steps for boxcars.Its always good to have those on hand anyway for those nasty oops. :thumb:

 

[RioGrande]

Good advice from Larry,

As far as RTR cars go, most of them have been available in kits. Surely they have parts from the kits? If not, then a visit to your local train show should yield you either parts or maybe you could pick up a few kits cheap to supply yourself with some spare parts. But frankly many of those things can be obtained by 3rd party as after market parts and are much improved, like the A-line steps which should improve the look of your Athearn cars.

 

[rdivizio]

The Athearn kits that had the real nice detail were Pullman standard cars I think. I had a Boston and Maine and a Blue Rock Island one. They are pictured at my site in the gallery.
Clearly the stirrups do not match the RTR FMC car stirrups like the MAINE CENTRAL car in my gallery, and those A-line ones don't either.
I'd have to replace all 4, and use the A-line's but then prototypically the FMC
car's stirrups would be wrong. Scale wise.
Basically, they should be available, period.

 

[brakie]

Yeah,I agree they should be available but for some reason they're not.
Supposedly Athearn is working on a better operating roller bearing truck or at least that's what I been told.