Athearn 22900, N-Scale "Big Boy" 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive

Here is my second souvenir from my last visit to the United States that I promised to review. Athearn model of an American steam locomotive nicknamed "Big Boy". The original engine is 40 meters long and weights over 500 tons. No wonder even an N-scale model is not really small at all.

The product is hardly available in Europe. I saw it at one store only and it was priced at a whopping 500 Euro. Luckily the price in the US is around half of that. So unless you're unlucky at the border control and have to pay the taxes, it's really a good deal to bring it from across the ocean.

Athearn definitely wants to make it look like the product is something special. It's delivered in the most elegant box I've ever seen for this kind of merchandise.

There isn't really that much inside. Just the locomotive, a manual, warranty card and one extra detail.

A single booklet covers all the topics: locomotive's history, model's construction and DCC control.

To my surprise, even the usage of the extra detail is explained. It's very often the case that small additional parts are provided, but the user has no idea where and how to install them. This is not the case here, since Athearn described it very well.

Here the model is still in its protective case. Length of the transparent box? 29cm or 11.5''. It is veeeery long.

And now it's out. It didn't fit on a single piece of a Kato track, so I had to use two.

It's very difficult to take good photos of such a long model. Here's my attempt at showing as much as possible in one shot. This is a high resolution picture, so feel free to zoom in.

It's much easier to capture smaller areas and expose particular details. This series of photos should give you an idea of what we're dealing with here :)

Yes, the model is absolutely amazing when it comes to details. It's impossible to list here all the small parts that are included. I simply feel overwhelmed. Ladders, rods, handrails, valves and much, much more. I really do not know how they even built it!

Unfortunately this level of detail comes at a price. And I'm not talking about the amount of money I had to pay. It's about the model's fragility. I'm literally afraid to pick it up and I always plan this act carefully before I grab the locomotive. Feels that if I do it the wrong way, some parts may fall off...

Another aspect is the maintainability of the engine. For me the product is not repairable. If - for example - any of the tiny, thin side rods breaks, I will not be able to fix it. That's one more reason for me to be extremely careful.

OK, but enough whining. I wanted a beautiful, ultimate model and I got one. Let's try to use it anyway!

The "Big Boy" is not very rich when it comes to its DCC functions. It's really just a few sounds. Everything that is offered, is however configurable, so changing the volume of a single sound effect should not be a problem. And tuning the operation of the locomotive is something one will probably want to do. By default there's even no braking characteristic defined, and the model just stops immediately once the throttle is reduced.

Here's a demo of the DCC functions. Please note that this was recorded before my tuning was completed. That's why the sound of the engine is way too loud compared to the other audio effects.

So how does it ride? Well, there are two aspects worth mentioning here...

The model offers a lot of points of contact with the track and is pretty heavy. This means it has absolutely no issues getting the power 100% of the time. It runs smoothly with no breaks or jumps at all. It's a perfect ride...

On the other hand, the model is slow. For some reason its maximum speed is way lower than it should be. It's not a big issue for me, since my layout is not large and the locomotive looks majestic traversing the track at a lower speed. But I can't stop wondering why this is the case. Is it because of all the delicate side rods? Could they fail if it was running faster?

Without a doubt - I love this model. It's the pinnacle of my collection. Athearn has been getting some bad press recently over the Internet about its steam engines, but my piece works just fine (knock on wood). The details the product offers, and the sheer size of the model are just one of its kind. I'm really happy to have it, although I will be rather anxious to actually put it into daily use...