Some early Atwater Models F3s running

Cool!

You can file off the number boards and put on the larger ones.  All Nation sells the larger ones.

I am planning to, will take some JB weld to as the previous owner opened them up for back lighting.  So a bit more work.  Now the debate, CGW units or CNW?   I have one CNW b unit that came already painted for the Northwestern, but its missing its grills and such, so it could be repainted.  Mike

CGW!

Very nice!

Ok, the CNW B unit I have will stay CNW as its also an Atwater unit.  So I moved the single truck drive chassis into that B unit and paired it with the unpainted A unit that will also get CNW yellow, giving me an AB pair.   The unpainted B is taken apart, cleaned and dried to paint into CGW colors tomorrow.  Once the trio of A units arrive in the next week or so.  The CB&Q unit will depend how nice its paint looks, might get repainted.  The units with PRR antennas will also get evaluated to see if they keep the antennas or if one will loose them.  I also have big numberboards coming for my undec A unit here now.    On another note, for those that go to shows outside my area.   I am searching for a super clean Marnold "MarnOpower" dual throttle set up for O gauge.  Those were model 5250 and 5254, had twin lever throttles, amp and volt meters and were 4 and 5 amp output.   I know they are out there with most modelers moving to modern units or DCC.  If you have one thats really nice condition wise.  Shoot me a PM please.   They have the classic/vintage look I am wanting.   Thanks.   I have a pic saved from a PDF of a catalog I can PM if you need to see what one looks like. 

Thanks for sharing!  Some huge motors in these locos!!  One question though... what's the large round brass disc(?) between the motor and the gear tower in your fourth photo?

Early flywheel to help with cogging at very slow speeds.  Mostly uneeded as these things are a doorstop weight wise with a diecast body, internal lead weights above each truck in the B unit and rear truck in the A unit.  The motors are 7 pole I believe without going and counting one in the B unit taken apart for painting tomorrow.  They do suck some amps, close to 2 amps on each unit that is powered under a load.  There was a fluid clutch offered back in the day in both O and HO scale, never seen one in person but seen the ads for it in old magazines and catalogs.  But this is just a basic Flywheel.  That chassis goes in the A unit. 

The drives in these engines just go on and on as long as you keep them lubricated.  The issue I've had is that they only pick up on one side of each truck.  They draw a lot of current too, so if they lose power momentarily on a switch or a crossing then the interrupt in the high current causes a spark and pitting on the wheels.  If that happens often then pretty soon the wheels are so pitted that they don't make contact and the engine will barely run.  You can clean the wheels pretty easily, but since we run ours a lot at the club layout, where we have issues with dirty track,  I found that adding all wheel pick up and can motors with flywheels solve the pitting wheel problem.  We used to have to clean the wheels after every 2 hour operating session and now it's once a year or longer between cleaning.

usually if the amps are to high from a weak perm magnet, they will be much worse at doing this.  I add a single neo magnet on each end of the main motor magnet, seems to help this issue, as does all wheel pickup, which I will install here one of these days.  Even HO engines with ailing open frame motors can pit up the wheels from the Amp draw.  Nothing wrong with putting can motors in them, but that gets expensive when one has several of them as O scale motors are not inexpensive.  I find having the booster weights  in them, one in the rear of the A unit and a pair in the B unit helps with the sparking and the weight lets the wheels polish up again naturally as they run along the rails, just like a real locomotives wheels polish themselves and the rails. 

Those are awesome!  👍

I think that BIG motor (mine is marked "CLW") is the same as the one I installed in an Atlas F9 from the '70s....

Mark in Oregon

all 3 of my powered units predate the All Nation ownership.  All the body parts are marked Atwater Models, which if I read correctly, were sold thru GMC/General Models Corperation.  When that company went defunct, All Nation bought it all up and the tooling markings got changed to their name.  Either way, two are straight cut gearing, one with early enclosed lower axle gear boxes, one with the flywheel/speedo cable drive.  My dual power F3B is the typical later helical gear drive.  I wont buy them if they have the plastic chain drives in them.   

I just now got around to watching your video; smooth and quiet. That looks like a pretty tight radius, yet they handle it nicely.

Mark in Oregon

Yes, 48" diameter track from AHM.  Its the bare minimum for the F units.  The tower drive is what lets them do this.  The chassis where the motor is directly inline with the axle gear boxes slows a bit on these curves.  I am trying to restart a modular group here in central Indiana.  Then those of us cursed with lack of space for a bigger layout would have a place for our trains to run on bigger curves.