Rail power shell question.......

[trainsteve2435]

Hello everyone, im thinking of purchaseing a couple of the Rail power C44 -9 shells and have a couple of questions, first, who manufactureres a chassis that will fit these shells? Second, how are the quality of detail of these shells? Thanks!

 

[Squidbait]

Steve,

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Athearn units use the Railpower shell, since their new EMDs (SD40, SD38, etc) are all the RP shells.

 

[CCT70]

Railpower makes a chassis for the shell, but you can also get finished C44-9's from Athearn, rather than painting and building your own if you wanted to go that route. If you do though, the Railpower shells fetch a few bucks usually on E-bay.

 

[Russ Bellinis]

Railpower was bought by Athearn before Athearn was bought out by Horizon. The molds were cleaned up by Athearn, and are now used in new Athearn R-T-R locomotives. Railpower has not existed for a number of years now. If you find old Railpower Products shells left over in a hobby shop, they will fit Athearn chassis because they were made by Railpower to fit Athearn and replace the old Athearn wide shells or to offer a model that Athearn didn't make. The only frames they made were for units that Athearn didn't make a protoypical frame for.

 

[jbaakko]

Rail Power, Athearn AND A-line/PPW. Aline/Proto Power west you can get a motor with it too.

 

[green_elite_cab]

yeah, i'm really looking into proto power west, mostly to power my GP40FH-2. They have C32-8 stuff there though, that looks cool. you could make a C39-8 to if you add in an extra pair of doors in the middle section. I'm almost thinking about trying that. i need my oddball Conrail locomotives...

is uppose you need to do special wiring to make them run on DCC though.

 

[jbaakko]

Same as with Athearn, just isolate the motor, ect...

I have plenty of PPW, RPP & Athearn shells & chassi... The current "one" is a RPP Chassis in a Kaslo shell with an A-line motor & Athearn trucks.