Now in stock at your favorite hobby dealers is Athearn’s latest production of highly detailed Genesis series EMD GP38-2 and GP40-2 locomotives featuring many new era- and road-specific versions never before produced and a reprise of popular schemes. New features for this release include illuminated numberboards and class lights where applicable.
Produced from 1972 into the 1980s, the GP38-2 and GP40-2 defined the gold standard of reliability and performance for everything from locals to high priority intermodal trains speeding across the nation. Many of these locomotives continue to serve today.
See captions below for additional road names offered in this release.
DC/DCC-ready silent engines are $244.99 MSRP while DC+DCC+Sound units equipped with Soundtraxx Tsunami2 Sound decoders retail for $344.99 MSRP. Available now while supplies last.
Athearn Trains · athearn.com
Offered for the first time are Southern Pacific GP40-2s from the initial 1978 delivery in their as-delivered form ready to haul expedited intermodal trains across the Southwest and in pool service to Eastern roads. Additional Genesis GP40-2s in this release include Florida East Coast (Veterans unit and late blue/white), Rio Grande (with ditch lights and Gyralites), CSX (Boxcar scheme), Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac (blue/gray), and Chessie/GM50 (gold).
1990s-era modelers now have the opportunity to add Southern Pacific GP38-2s with blanked Gyralite housings to their roster. Additional Genesis GP38-2 road names for this release include Burlington Northern (Cascade Green, ex-Frisco with nose-mounted single Gyralite), Illinois Central (Deathstar), Cleveland Electric (blue/yellow), and Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay (green/yellow with beacon and nose-mounted single Gyralite). Now available at your favorite dealer.
With just 2,000 horsepower to cool, EMD’s GP38-2s suffice with just two 48” diameter radiator cooling fans and a smaller radiator section at the rear, compared to three radiator fans on the GP40-2 over a commensurately longer radiator core. Post-1980 EMD GP38-2 production featured round “Shotgun” exhaust stacks instead of the traditional oblong exhaust stack common to all normally aspirated EMD road units since the F3. Like SP’s GP40-2s, SP GP38-2s also feature a longer “tall” walkway due to a walkway-mounted toolbox specified by the Southern Pacific and correctly captured on Athearn’s Genesis models. A plated over light bracket that once hosted a pair of Gyralite housings still stands above the dual sealed beam headlight on the rear end of this 1990s era SP GP38-2.
