Atlas HO AEM7 Pulling Power Performance Update

Has anyone had trouble with pulling more that 3 or 4 Amfleet cars with an AEM7? I've seen comments on various threads before saying that the locomotive was too light and compared to some of the crappy locos I've had in the past, I'd have to somewhat dis-agree however; this lightness in weight appears to be part of the apparent problem of the AEM7 not being able to pull more than 3 to 4 Amfleet cars.

I haven't had this problem that others claim to have. Part of the reason why is that (and I assume most of us here have Walthers Amfleet cars) I use conducta lube on the axles of my passenger cars.

Yesterday evening (1/24/05) I successfully ran a 6 car consist of Amfleet I's behind 1 (That's right!) 1 AEM7; number 914. Although slightly more power would be acquired to get the train up to speed and acceleration was not as fast (Which adds to prototypical operation in my book; the longer the consist the lower the acceleration rate) The train, once it got enough momentum, moved at a decent clip and my MRC DCC Throttle was set at about just under 70. I did not notice any slipping in the AEM7s performance.

Now my layout does not have grades so take that into consideration, but obviously try and keep your grades down to a max of 2%. Any steeper and you're gonna have pulling problems up grade. Going up grades you may or may not have a little slipping but I think at a max of 2%, the train should be able to manage its way up the grade.

Initial reviews of the AEM7s pulling power said that it pulled about 12 freight cars or more without much trouble. This should translate into just a little more than 8 Amfleet cars found in a "Regional" consist with 1 AEM7.

I hope you will take my suggestion and experience into consideration. When using conducta lube on your axles you'll also notcie that the cars will roll allot more freely.

Just thought I'd share this with you all. Please let me know if this worked out for you or not.

The way I improve the performance on Walthers cars with inside-bearing trucks is to replace the wheelsets with 36" sets from Proto 2000. This requires that you ream out the bearing slots on the trucks with a 3/32" drill bit, which lets the wheelsets snap into place so you don't need the metal retaining wiper. They're also able to roll much more freely even without lubrication, though I'm sure a drop of oil or lube would help.

An added benefit is that after you clip off the needle points from the axles, the wheels look much more prototypical than the original ones (the Walthers wheel contour is wrong). I use a 1/32" drill bit to make a shallow indentation at the center of each axle hub, then paint the wheel faces a dirty brown color. The result looks exactly like the prototype wheels!

Regarding the AEM-7 itself, the problem with a lot of newer locomotive models is that their wheels are very smooth to begin with and also have a chemical blackening coat applied. I noticed that condition when test running one of my AEM-7s a couple years ago. This combination means their treads are very slippery when compared to the much rougher sintered-iron wheels used for years by Athearn. The chemical coating wears off eventually and the wheels may also develop a better grip with age, but you might want to clip power leads to the chassis and let the wheels spin while you lightly hold a piece of 600-grit sandpaper or a track cleaning block against the treads to give them a bit more grip.

Very good advice Alex, I'll have to look into those options!

What are the prices like for the 36" proto sets?

The prices can range from $4/dz to $8/dz. MB Kliens in Baltimore has the $4, but it will cost you to ship.

I happen to own an Atlas AEM-7, and my friend Mike Roque and I were looking at it about a year ago and we noticed the same problem. It just doesn't seem to be able to pull more then three or four coaches. True, the friction created by those cars is more then a normal car, but we found another problem.

Only THREE of the FOUR axles are geared. That is right. Atlas had one truck with two axles powered and one truck WITH ONLY ONE axle powered. I don't know if Atlas made them all this way, or whether mine was just unique, but Mike and I couldn't think of a logical reason for it. Especially since it involved tooling up for two different trucks, instead of using the same one for both. When I contracted Atlas about this, they never replied and I never followed up.

So, take it for what is worth. Model Railroader said in their review that the locomotive pulled a lot of cars. I think it is a combination of the coating and the 3/4 potential in powered axles that are the cause of the apparent weakness.

Follow up on the missing gear. I have a BLI GG-1 that seemed to operate poorly. Eventually noticed one of the axles was unpowered! Opened the truck and found a missing spur gear! Emailed BLI with a digital photo of the missing gear and they quickly got me the missing gear as well as several other replacement gears for some that tended to fail in early models (like mine is).

Hey, scoobster...

Maybe that was it...they put in an axle without a gear? In other words, they put in the wrong part...?

I have run 16-21 car trains with my AEM-7s on occasion since the layout I run on has some elevation, my SEPTA AEM has been thrown into aid the two Amtrak units but they usually have little or no trouble moving a full Crescent/Silver Service consist plus 5 MHCs and 5 express boxcars, never tried them with the full 5 MHCs, 2 Baggage, Crew Dorm, two viewliner, diner, lounge, 4/5 coach, 5 express boxcar, 12 roadrailer, since I recall the AEM-7s can be used to operate roadrailers because of something to do with there braking systems, thus the EP60 were used instead.
Cheers,
Nick

The 2 AEM-7s I have (NJT and amtrak Phase 3) have pulled quite a few cars and I have not noticed a problem. The NJT AEM-7 pulled 6 Comet 2 Cars and the Amtrak pulled 8 Heritage cars from Walthers, This consisted of 1 crew/baggage car, 1 diner, 2 lounge cars, 2 sleepers and 2 coaches all from Walthers Herritage (Phase 3 Amtraks)

Again I haven't noticed a problem in performance. Does anyone else have a different story?

The Heritage cars roll extremely well thanks to their cast-metal trucks, which is why you were able to pull more of them. Also, pretty much any other Walthers model will roll better than the Amfleets or Comets because of their inside-bearing trucks. I'm not surprised at all that you two have had better success pulling longer trains of Heritage cars, Viewliners, MHCs, etc. The Walthers Amfleets simply don't roll well, and while the technique I described above does greatly improve their performance and appearance, I can pretty much declare that an inside-bearing truck will never roll as freely as a good outside-bearing truck.

This, I believe, was more of Kyle's problem than the locomotive itself, though as I mentioned the AEM-7 wheel treads are fairly slick to begin with. Maybe you guys have also run your engines for much longer than Kyle has, which like I said can cause wear on the wheels that improves their traction. All in all, I think the Atlas model is good enough to pull the typical trains that AEM-7s handle.

I'll tell you what might be a problem, though - a good friend of mine is modeling the early-'90s Auto Train in all its glory, and by the time he's finished, he'll have about 20 Heritage and Amfleet II cars plus 15-20 auto carriers on the end. Apart from necessitating a large layout to even fit the train on, we're a little bit concerned about the ability of two Walthers F40PHs plus an Atlas GP40 to handle the entire train. Guess we'll worry about that when the time comes, though...

I'm pretty happy with the Atlas engines so much so that I have the two M&E alcos the 18 and 19 from that company along with the two AEM-7s. I think I like them better over all compared to the Athearn Snte Fe F Units that I own. The F untis are the exact ones you would find on the Super Cheif.

The engineer figures that Atlas includes on the locos is a plus and they tend to have a better paint job/replication then any other company. Just as Atlas is excellent with the engines I go to Wathers from my passeger cars and the old Athearn blue box kits for my freight cars. Whatever is left of those by collectors willign to sell them and hobby shops.

I own an Amtrak AEM-7 in HO. The problem is the Walthers cars as previously stated, not the Atlas engine.

I got rid of my Walthers cars as at the time I had no idea how to make them run better, and at $15-20/each, it was not worth the effort to sink money into them. Wish I had known the alternatives then.

As for the AEM-7, our club occassionally has "pull-offs" where we see how many correctly weighted and trucked freight cars an engine can pull. The AEM-7 easily handled an 80 car coal train on the flat modular layout.

I'm not surprised.

Just to be clear: The reason why I started this topic is because I've seen comments hear and there through forums, hobby shops etc. about people being a bit dissatisfied with the AEM7s pulling power.

I personally have pulled up to about 7 LD Amtrak cars (without even gresing up the wheels at first) with little problems. If you combine the fact that my track conditions are less than desireable, I would say the HO AEM7 has a great deal of potential. Most long LD trains are headed up by twoAEM7s anyway or an HHP (soon to be released by Bachmann).

For modeling purposes, the AEM7 should not have trouble pulling up to 8 Amlfeets when the cars are maintained correctly and modified somewhat. The easiest way I would think is my suggestion in that all is needed is the application of some conducta lube.

Alex has provided so good options as well that I intend to try myself at some point down the road.