Manufacturer
Athearn Trains
1600 Forbes Way, Suite 120
Long Beach, CA 90810
www.athearn.com
Era: 1976 to present
Road names: Northstar Commuter, Metrolink, New Mexico DOT (RailRunner), North County Transit District (Coaster), Trinity Rail Express, Utah Front Runner
N scale modelers have more options to model modern commuter service with the latest set of releases from Athearn Trains. Athearn is re-releasing its N scale Bombardier bi-level coaches and cab cars in new road names to match its F59PHI commuter locomotive.
Athearn sells single coaches and a set of three differently numbered coaches. Cab cars, used in push-pull service, are available separately. This means a modeler can assemble a five-car train without having to renumber any cars.
The Athearn cars matched photos and drawings of the prototype printed in the 1997 Car & Locomotive Cyclopedia (Simmons-Boardman). Athearn’s paint schemes likewise match those visible in prototype photos found on the website RailPictures.net.
The paint jobs on our three sample cars were smooth and even, but with a slightly fuzzy edge between the blue and the lighter colors, particularly the yellow on the top of the right ends of the sides.
I test-ran the three-car set, pulled by Athearn’s F59PHI locomotive, on our N scale Salt Lake Route layout. The scale 85-foot cars looked great leaning into the Kato 12″ radius superelevated curves.
The gauge on the wheels was a little tight. The wheels are mounted on metal stub-axles that press-fit into either end of a plastic tube, so a slight finger-twist was all that was needed to adjust the wheel gauge to NMRA specifications.
Railroaders modeling modern-day commuter service will want a collection of these cars.
