Has anyone purchased oine of these ?> What are your thought on their performance and sound?
I have two of the FEF Genesis series and here are some thoughts. I reviewed the model with some pictures on a different forum. The web site below has pictures and updates.
http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=HOScale;action=display;num=1196881325;start=1
Genesis FEF series review
The new engines arrived yesterday and I wanted to point out some good points and a few not so good things about the new model. Several reports about the poor running qualities have been written, but I contribute that problem to the MRC decoder and will not dwell on it. My engine will get a Zimo and that makes almost anything run like a Trix.
This particular review is about the Undecorated FEF-3, but many of the details will be the same for the other models.
The model has many good features. and comes as a coal fired model as the prototype FEF-3 did when purchased in 1944. The package includes all of the detail to convert it to an oil fired version with smoke lifters, mars light and various other detail like the tool box on the right side of the tender that was added in the 1950 era. It also includes the rivet row that was added to the upper side of the tender along the oil tank. It is an angle iron piece that ran the length of the oil compartment and provided some support, but all of the oil fired tenders had this feature. Overland and Key installed this detail, but most other imported did not.
I am pleased that the mars light is operable by Function #3 and the headlight is white, instead of the yellow or orange we have seen on many models lately. The SMT for the headlight and mars light
CZ, I saw your post “over there”, and frankly I was appalled by the shoddy design and workmanship of the side rods and their pins. Terrible, like something out of the 30’s. I wasn’t put off by the look of the rods so much as I was with their “finishing nail jammed into the driver” mountings. What’s up with that!?
Most of us believe they used the long crank pins to allow the model to go around 18" radius curves, but it needs new crank pins and rods. I emailed Athearn and they replied back that no parts are availalble at this time, but check back after the first of the year. My idea is to purchase a set of side rods and glue them back to back as one rod to fill some of the gap.
The pins could be replaced with shorter pins also and that would help the look of the rods.
Check the web page again as I have inserted more pictures.
Cheers
Would you agree, though, that the one pin is just like a nail, nothing else? It should have had a fake hex-nut head at the very least. At first I thought you were going to caption that photo as, “This side-rod pin had backed out in shipping and I can’t find the hex head nut.”
[sigh]
Absolutely, I agree with your assessment of the pin. They are like nails and are way too long. The rods are like Bachmann stamped with no regard to the thickness. This is way different than the Challenger and Big Boy rods on the Genesis models. If you look at the size of the hole in the rods also, they look like they could almost slip over the pin.
Your first comment of something like out of thirties is very good. They rods look like the American Flyer models that I got for my first Christmas.
Cheers
Updates and web link is added to review.
http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=HOScale;action=display;num=1196881325;start=1