Do the older Stewart/Kato F-unit drives "mix" well with the newer Stewarts and the Genesis F-unit drives? I am thinking about getting a few Highliners shells to fill out my F3B roster. I will need to get chassis for them, and wanted to make sure that the newer chasis would run well with the older ones. Any input is appreciated!
Mike
In my experience the answer is yes, they do play well together. I have an A-B set of ACL F2s...one runs on a 'proper' Genesis drive, the other on a US-made Stewart F unit drive. These in turn run great with the old Kato/Stewart drives.
You'll need to trim Stewart coupler mounts a bit on both the front and back to get the drives to slip into the Highliner shell, and use either Genesis window inserts or Stewart window inserts to secure the shell to the drive. Works great.
CZ NC
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Powell" Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2004 12:17 PM Subject: Genesis vs Stewart vs Stewart/Kato F drives
I have several of the Stewart/Kato and Genesis drives. As they come the Stewart/Kato starts at a lower voltage but it doesn't have constant directional lingting like the Genesis. If you put a couple diodes in the S/K I bet it would run very close to the same as the Genesis. The Genesis drives are quieter than the Stewart/Kato and they all run very smoothly.
J. Bright
The service man at the LHS told me they had a couple of Genesis F units that had a bind in the trucks. They were not able to find the problem and sent them back to Athearn. Have you heard of any problems like that. I have been considering trying to buy some Rock Island F units, both freight and passenger, if most reports on the units are good. Thanks Marty Hall
All the Genny F units I've seen run very nicely. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one.
My wife purchased a Genisis F unit in B&O for me last christmas. I just installed a decoder in it a couple weeks ago and it runs great. Smooth and quite.
Don't forget to use resistors for the headlights if you are adding a decoder, the bulbs are 1.5 volt.
A tangent thought. If you are running DCC this is a moot point since the locomotives response curve can be changed to match the others regardless.
I know one fellow who has three desired responses (switcher, freight, passenger) from the locomotives. He has one "baseline" locomotive for each. Every new locomotive that comes in gets its decoder speed and momentum adjustments changed until they match the "baseline". Therefore when one is operating his layout if when one is given a passenger train they can know exactly how it will respond to the throttle. It also makes lash-ups easy. Every freight engine will (unprototypically) match every other regardless of make or model.
A super serious person could use this same thing to make locomotives respond according to the prototypical make, model, prime mover, gearing, etc. Way to much like "work" for me.....
I have eleven units and they all run just fine. Also a number of members in the club I belong to have them and I have never heard anything but positive comments about them. I don't think there is a product out there though that isn't subject to an occasional problem.
J. Bright
If I remember correctly, When installing a Highliners B shell on a Stewart chassis, you also have to cut the backing for the portholes apart and glue them to the inside of the shell. The Highliners portholes are about a millimeter or so farther apart than the Stewart ones. Chooch
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