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This review was taken from the May, 2001 issue of Model Railroader Magazine and is reproduced with permission of Kalmbach Publishing Company, Waukesha, WI.

ATLAS B23-7 SETS NEW STANDARD FOR DETAIL IN N SCALE

Review by Jim Kelly, Managing Editor

Seems like every time Atlas comes out with a new N scale locomotive it raises the bar a little higher, and the firm has certainly done so again with this fine rendition of a General Electric B23-7 diesel.

The B23-7 comes in flavors mixing three different kinds of trucks (AAR, FB-2, and EMD GP “Blomberg”), low or high hoods, two rear headlight styles (flat and protruding), two styles of anti-climbers (fat and thin), two varieties of battery box (knuckle or button), and cabs with two or four windows per side. Undecorated models come five different ways and the painted models have features to match each road name.

Atlas chose a good prototype for this model, one that hasn’t been offered in N before yet enjoyed considerable popularity with big-time railroads. General Electric introduced the engine in 1977 as a versatile intermediate-sized engine competitive with EMD’s GP38-2. The B23-7’s 12 cylinders produced 2,250 hp, the GP38-2’s 2,000.

When production ended in 1984, 411 B23-7s had been sold to U.S. railroads and 125 to Mexico. The list of buyers reads like a who’s who, as you can quickly see by looking at the road names Atlas is offering. Louisville & Nashville, Seaboard Coast Line, and Western Pacific also owned them. According to my friends down the hall at Trains Magazine, about half the B23-7s made are still earning their keep.

The all-new model was made in China and features the vertically split metal frame we’ve become used to in Atlas and Kato production. The heart of the locomotive is a five-pole, skewed-armature, doubled-ended open-frame motor that’s isolated from the frame except for tabs from the brush holders making contact.

Flywheels help smooth out the motion, and plastic universal joints ensure good drivetrain alignment. Brass worms transfer the motor’s motion to the typical arrangement of plastic gears incorporated in the trucks.

The frame halves are energized by springy phosphor bronze strips that contact tabs atop metal places that also provide bearing surfaces for the axle ends. (The edges of the strips are clearly visible, though; you could make them disappear by painting them flat black.)

The wheels are chemically darkened and in gauge, judging by our National Model Railroad Association standards gauge. Flange depth was also on target.

Atlas offers the engine with or without a factory-installed Digitrax Digital Command Control decoder. Locomotives without decoders can always be converted by replacing the lightboard with the Digitrax DN146A decoder. The job takes about five minutes. The circuit board also carries a pair of those yellowish LEDs for headlights.

The body-mounted Accumate couplers are compatible with Micro-Trains and similar couplers. You can uncouple using M-T’s magnetic ramps. The couplers are at the proper height.

I could find no drawings of the prototype, but according to Atlas the company based the engine on drawings from GE.

Heaven is in the details, starting with all those tiny stickers along the hood doors, on the ends, and below the cab, which are clearly readable under a magnifying glass.

And then we have the painted handrails with white and yellow ends where appropriate, numbers on the number boards (which eliminates one of the most onerous tasks in N scale!), cab sunshades, red-painted fuel filler caps, and snowplows.

The painting and lettering are for the most part very well done. I was quite favorably impressed by the rich yellow on my Santa Fe unit, as often this is pallid on N scale models. The white lettering numbers on the Southern Pacific model weren’t as opaque as I’d like, however.

As the performance figures show, this is an engine that runs as good as it looks, although it did strike me as a little noisy. It should pull about 16 free-rolling cars on straight, level track.

I ran the decoder-equipped Santa Fe engine on my modules at home with my SystemOne and the performance was remarkable, the best I’ve seen for an engine straight out of the box.

Our art director Tom Danneman, an avid N scaler, said “this is the best N scale locomotive to date,” and I’d have to say that if it isn’t it’s certainly among ‘em. 

N scale GE B23-7 diesel

Price:  $114.98

Manufacturer:

Atlas Model Railroad Co.

603 Sweetland Ave.

Hillside, NJ 07205

www.atlasrr.com

Description:

Plastic and metal ready-to-run locomotive

Features:

Directional headlight

Drawbar pull: 64 ounces

Engine weight: 2.5 ounces

Minimum radius: 9.75”

Performance:

Minimum, midrange, and maximum speeds on filtered DC, straight track:

 

Scale mph       Load       Volts            Amperes

          1.0         Free            2.0                  .09

        12.9         Free            3.0                  .10

        68.8         Free            6.0                  .14

      115.0         Free            9.0                  .20

      176.0         Free          12.0                  .20

           -            Slipping     12.0                  .22

           -            Stalled       12.0                  .90

 

Road names:

Santa Fe (blue-and-yellow warbonnet)

Burlington Northern Santa Fe (green and orange)

Conrail

CSX

Norfolk Southern

Southern

Southern Pacific

Union Pacific

Undecorated (five versions)

All road names available in two numbers plus unnumbered