Athearn Genesis AC4400 - Review and Weathering

The long awaited HO Scale AC4400's have reached my eager hands. I stayed up all night weathering them, documenting my process along the way.

These models are NICE. Packed full of detail, and smooth running.

The both have LED front and rear headlights, front ditchlights, front and rear walkway lights, number boards, and ground lights under the cab.

I do need to note though, the CSX model only has a ground light under the conductor's side. I haven't been able to confirm yet if this is a CSX road specific detail. All the pictures of #17 are of the unit during the daytime.

The UP/SP engine does have ground lights on both sides. I have read on the internet from other owners that some of their units also only had a ground light on the conductor's side.

If you have more information, please confirm in the comments below!

For weathering, I made the CSX a "toaster", a GE locomotive that has caught fire sometime in the past, and now has burn marks around the exhaust stack. The real 17 is not a toaster (at least from the photos I found online), but my modeler's license gave me permission to weather the engine what ever way I saw fit.

For the SP patched engine, I gave it a standard weather job. Some Pan Pastel chalks, drybrushed and airbrushed acrylic paint, and a coat of Dullcote.

For DCC, I installed a Loksound 5 DCC sound decoder. With this, I downloaded an appropriate soundfile from ESU's website using a Lokprogrammer. Then I paired the decoder with an ESU dual cube speaker.