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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The newer P2K locomotives use a different gearing
than the original P2K locos. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The original P2K truck gearing was the same design
as Athearn. I have several P2K GP9 Phase II units from the first
production run.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I recently purchased some new run P2K GP7 units
with sound; I am changing the shells (they were Algoma Central) and planned to
run a sound equipped and non-sound equipped units as a consist. The newer
run P2K units were much slower than the original P2K, which ran like
Athearns. Upon removing the gear box cover I noted P2K has gone to a
helical gear, of which there are five; the older units had 2 gears per truck,
one on each axle.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Since I wanted to run an old and new unit as a
consist, a friend helped me to speed match them using Decoder Pro. I ran
some basic time tests over a given distance to determine which unit was the
slowest of all of them. It was one of the new P2K units; all new units
were slower than my older units.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Since you can make a fast unit run slower, but you
can't make a slow unit run faster, we then used the slowest unit as our base and
speed matched all the other units to it.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I do think the newer units top speed is closer to
prototype top speed.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Jim Brewer</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Glenwood MD</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>