walthers SW-1

[jettrainfan]

A friend of mine loaned me 5 engines for long term lease (a year or more)... over kill? Yea, but I can't complain. All of them ran pretty good but 1 ran really smooth, and it didn't look too detailed so I guessed AHM. Take a look and what do you know, its walthers. I made a deal with him to pay $45 at the end of the lease for that engine and a SW1000 dummy. I was wondering where I can get handrails for this feller and what kind of decoder can be put in this engine?

For the curious, both of the engines I'm gonna buy are BN.

[jward]

if it ran smooth it wasn't an AHM that's for sure. they were some of the worst ones out there. and their sw1 was grossly oversized as well.

[timhar47]

There is a post on an Atlas forum - apparently these are Walthers-ROCO units. If its an older unit, it may not take to DCC real easy.

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64986

Tim

[Len]

I have one of these acquired years ago. I replaced the tubing drive with universals out of the 'junk box', and added a TCS M1 decoder to it. I suspect you'll have to get some stiff wire and make your own handrails if they're missing. The bodies on these were reasonably close to scale, so the old AHM handrails (if you can find them) probably will not work.

Len

[jward]

not sure how the walthers sw1 is, but on the AHM diesels, the hoods and walkways were seperate pieces, with the handrails cast as one piece with the walkways. they are also way oversize. maybe the handrails from an athearn sw7 would fit?

[jettrainfan]

thanks everyone, according to the original owner, its a Walthers trainline or proto... not Rocco. Gonna take it to Jeff, the DCC guy at the club and see what he says, gonna test the current pulling power later today.

[jbrock27]

Would not hesitate buying a Proto SW model, they're excellent running locos.  Very very slow.  Also very fragile detail parts, keep in mind.

[jbrock27]

This thread is almost 5 years old.  I don't think the OP is still looking for a solution to their problem.  If so...

The purpose of my post was to comment on how good a loco these are.

[Bucksco]

Bachmann Forum, Bachmann Forum.....