New Engine Arrivals

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

I had wanted to pick up the latest run of Atlas SD35 engines when they announced them about 2 years ago, and in Penn Central. They recently arrived in stock and I picked up two of them; one DCC Ready and the other engine DCC w/sound.

Atlas produced one model with the Red "P" on the engine. Like fellow modeler Sir John of Georgia who is a Penn Central model railroader, I wanted to give some background on the engine and the specific road numbers. This is Atlas model PC #6031. This model is DCC Ready

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
An EMD SD35 is a 6-axle road switcher diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between June 1964 and January 1966. Power was provided by an EMD 567D3A 16-cylinder engine which generated 2,500 brake horsepower (1,900 kW). A 3,000-US-gallon (11,000 L; 2,500 imp gal) fuel tank was used on this unit. This locomotive model shared a common frame with the EMD SD28, giving it an overall length of 60 feet 8 1⁄2 inches (18.504 m). 360 examples of this locomotive model were built for American railroads.

This locomotive will take two different types of decoders: an 8 pin NMRA DCC decoder or the new 21 pin DCC decoder. 

Here's the first issue with both engines. I took them out of the box, well packed. Warranty card, and other information about Atlas and the product. However, they did not have an exploded diagram for all the parts on the engine. Usually it shows how all of the parts come apart, complete with numbers to replace them if they break, Both engines did not have it, so I wrote to the online dealer to see if they can check their inventory for one, scan a copy and email it. We shall see.

I needed to get to the area for the decoders, and on most of the Atlas engines, I was able to remove the area where the fans are located on the top of the engine. It came off slowly and was taped in place. Not a fan (pun not intended) of how they attached it. Next was to decide about a decoder. I went the way of adding an NCE 8 pin decoder (N14IP) as space is a premium. I added tape to the bottom of it since it was touching the 21 pins that are there for the other decoder. It was shorting the engine. Took it to the program track set the address to 6031, then added Kadee couplers. There are a pair of sun shades that need to be added. Not sure why they don't add them since they pack the engine very securely. It's not like you don't have to add them as if you don't, there are two holes that you can see. I needed to take a pin vise to widen the holes so they would fit, then a dab of glue. What a pain in the arse! 

Once I looked up the specifics of the engine itself, I went to the Fallen Flags website. While I found the engine, I could not locate it with the Red "P". Oh well, maybe no one had taken a photo of it. Next stop was the RR Picture Archives and they didn't have any images to compare it to. 

Now I needed to find out. The Penn Central Railroad Historical Society (PCRRHS.org) is a great resource as well. One of the members of the PCRRHS is local to me, and I've operated on his Penn Central layout. I reached out to him about this engine. Turns out Atlas had not reached out to him (he does talk to them on PC specific projects at times), but not this one. They had run one years ago with the Red "P". Guess they didn't check their notes from early on. Oh well, something else for the PC modelers to tell Atlas....

The other model is PC #6014 DCC w/sound. The engine has an ESU Loksound decoder, which I am sure was made to Atlas specs. Sounded fine to me, as you will see later on. 

Out of the box, I took this one to the programming track, programmed it, added Kadee couplers to this one, and took it to the layout with the other engine. 

Now to put them in consist and see how they run together. One issue with engines that have two different types of decoders in them are to get them to run at the same speed without one fighting the other, even though both have the same motors. I must have gone back to the programming track a good 10 times after running them together in consist on the layout. My friend NJ John, who knows a lot about programming decoders (He's done many hard wire installations on my engines) gave me some specifics on what to do. I did know them at one time, forgot two of the steps, so I asked for a refresher, which he gave me on the phone and this time, I wrote it down! Thanks John!

Here's a short video of how they run together....

Final comments - The engines look nice and run fairly well together. More than likely I'll need to swap out the NCE decoder and add a LokSound DCC non sound decoder to get them to run better. They will need a break-in period so the next time I go to the train room, I'll let them run the layout solo. I do think they should have added the sun shades. Also, both horns were loose, and one came out of the hole. Some glue to hold them back in place since they are not pressure fitted. 

These two engines will stay in consist and will soon be featured in a number of blog posts, including a future Penn Central Car Movement (P.C.C.M.)  post.

Thanks for reading!