I received my new Trainmaster in the mail the other day. I am quite impressed with the quality. I ordered mine in PRR paint, road number 8706. It is fully DCC with sound, and is very impressive. I took it to the model railroad club last night and hooked about 20-25 feet of loaded coal hoppers to her and let her fly. No problems, even up a 2% grade, no slippage. I tried to use my BLI NW2 and SW-7 together last week, and couldn’t pull the grade with the same load. Way to go Atlas!! Anybody considering one of these, go for it!!! They are well worth the money.[:D]
There’s no question about it, Atlas does an exceptional job. I can’t recall a negative post about these guys
except when they close down their forum.
Ditto! Of all my locomotives, it is definately the best, and has the best inertia effect by far.
I also have an Atlas Master series GP7 and it’s a bull and a peach! It’s the Nicest Loco I have to date. I can’t wait to get my Alco RS-3 from Atlas when they are released in August! It’s fully paid for on reserve. It’s my first reserve, I hope I’m not disappointed.
Trevor[:)]
Want the Trainmaster to be even better? If you are running under DCC, add some starting and stopping momentum. And turn the volume down. I programmed a fair bit of momentum into ours and the effect when starting up a train is AWESOME.
As for the RS-3’s, I don’t think you will be disappointed. They’ve done them before and the earlier ones are great runners. I don’t see why the new ones would be any different. I just wi***hey’d do some in Reading as-delivered so I wouldn’t have to try to track down proper phase undecorated units and paint them myself.
–Randy
I know that Atlas rolling stock is top-notch, but I have been a little leery of Atlas locomotives ever since I purchased 3 of their U33C models several years ago, and have had nothing but trouble with them. I’ve replaced the wheels with NWSL, replaced the electrical pickup wipers, and done just about everything except replace the motors, and they just won’t run well enough to use.
I ran a CPR H24-66 at my LHS, and all I can say is SWEET!!! It ran like a dream, the headlights were bright, the detailing was a beauty, and the sound was magnificent! (Then again, it does’nt take much to please me)
Matthew
My pair of Atlas Gold SD-24s run better than any of my 8 BLIs. After about 6 hours running time I can say that they are very smooth running with great sound and have very good detail. I have ran them individually and in consist with excellent results. I am now looking to see what’s next.
I highly recommend them to all. LOOK OUT, BLI! [:D]
REX [^]
Actually I think I may order some of these engines sometime in the future. IN addition to my BLI steam =)
I’ve got the Trainmaster w/o sound. Pretty smooth running, nice detail. The grills in the rear are quite impressive. The included painted crew is a great touch.
But she’s a slippery rascle. Can’t get it to move more than 27 cars. I thought this was due to some plating on the drivers, but after 2 1/2 hours of run time, I doubt it.
Did you epoxy the cars to the track? [:D]
My pair are great, not N&W, but Virginian is close, some sort of detour excuse. [:D]
Wish Altas would come out with some steamers in HO. Perhaps, they could give BLI some run for their money…
Tom