Good Morning All,
I just got my Class A the other day and thought you might be interested in my opinions of the engine. First of all, the sound is great. I need to get the volume under control a bit, but all in all, sound is as good as advertised. One negative though, there seems to be no baffle box around the speaker, so the sound comes across as being in a valley. That is not really a great description.....just I think the use of a baffle box would improve the quality of the sound. Secondly.....the pilot truck derails fairly easy. The truck is held in place with a screw and has no basic "X" pivot. Also, the wire harness can impact the derailing of the tender if not pushed far enough into the tender. By the way, the wire harness only has one plug, making the attachment or detachment of the tender from the engine, quite easy. A friend who owns the BW Ltd Hudson says this is a better designed harness. Unlike the Proto 2000 2-8-8-2, the rear engine does not pivot so, the cab overhang on the curves is greater. I will be forced to open up my tunnel portals a bit more, or only use the engine on my east bound mainline. The engine is a good runner and pulls extremely well. The use of a traction tire on the rear axle of the rear engine allows the engine to pull over 40 cars up a 2% grade on my home railroad and the engine was not even struggling. The use of the traction tire does not interfer with the electrical pickup in any way. When you first turn on the headlight, the sound of the generator is heard as the headlight comes on slowly. When putting the engine in reverse, the front head dims - Rule 17. The front headlight also dims when the engine comes to a stop. As the engine starts up, the headlight comes up to normal brightness. When bringing the engine to a stop, from above a certain speed, the sound of squealing brakes is heard. All the other associated sounds can be heard as the engine sits at rest. Overall appearence - good, not great but good. The Proto 2000 engines are equipped with more separate detail parts. Some of the parts on the BW Ltd are molded on. The bell has no cord like the Proto 2-8-8-2. Also the metal used on the drivers is a gray color and gives the drivers a funny appearence. A quick paint job of the tires will remedy that. Cab has sliding windows on both sides, but will leave very little room for a crew. Over all, this is really nice engine. I feel the cost for an engine this size with sound is worth the expenditure. All the negatives I listed should be easy to deal with. As I work with the engine, I will share my experiences and solutions with problems. Now, on to the weathering......
Bob