Anyone got the new P2K F units in GN. Reports on how well they run in both DC and DCC and sound quality would be appreciated
I don’t know if a review after only a few hours of use is appropriate, but that is all I’ve got.
My units arrived September 21st just in time for a big operating session on the 22nd. I was in a panic because I only had the morning of the 21st to get them ready. As I opened the first box I was surprised that all the road specific detail was already on the unit. I did not have to apply hand rails, grab irons, or even the coupler lift bar. It was truely ready to run. I’ll go as far as saying the detail is the finest I’ve seen - even better than the Highliners. The lift rings on the roof hatches are so fine I thought at first they were tiny bumps molded on, but no they are true rings. I saw the radio antenna and knew it was doomed.
The paint job has the silver trucks which is prototypical, but not common. I would rather have had black.
I began my normal routine for Walthers equipment of putting on Kadee couplers. I was so afraid of the details, instead of inverting the unit on a foam pad I had my wife hold the unit upside down while I was working on it. Having the details already on the model (especially the uncoupling lift bar) made removing the rear coupler difficult. Then I noticed these were not the normal Proto-2000 couplers these were Kadees! Upon closer investigation they were not really Kadees but so close I could not tell the difference without a 10x jewlers loup. Bottom line was that I did NOT NEED TO REPLACE THE COUPLERS - Yeah, cheer, great rejoicing.
Basically one can take them out of the box, program the DCC decoder (turn down the sound volume and setting to appropriate channel number) and run. True RTR.
The sound was of course too loud out of the box, but the prime mover sound was the best I’ve ever heard in a QSI. In addition they used two different recordings for the prime movers and put one in the A unit and the other i
Gandy,
A friend of mine also bought the GN units and experienced the same low speed that you are. I emailed Walthers and their response was that the units aredesigned for track voltage of about 16 volts, which is normal full voltage for an HO scale DC power pack. It is not, however, normal voltage for any DCC system.
I do not know of any cure for this problem. It’s designed into the system.
You might contact Northwest Short Line and see if they plan to come out with any regear sets. A higher gear ratio would let the units run at a prototypical top speed even on the N scale DCC setting, which is what I use on my layout.
I don’t run my trains that fast, anyway. My layout has curves and grades, is not that small, and is not really designed for fast running.
Steve Barkley
That is a thought, but these trucks have some extra detail the prior units didn’t have like speedometer cables. I’ll put it on my “things to explore” list. Maybe the internal structure is the same so that just the gears can be swapped.
The sideframes for the trucks should also be interchangeable: put the new sidefames on the old trucks under the new locos, and the old sidefames on the new trucks under the old locos. [swg]
Wayne