So I just got this little jobber yesterday. It’s used but works pretty good. Ran fairly smooth but it did chatter a little so I’m thinking I should have bought some gear lube right away when I was at the model train store. Its Life-Like pack with a pair of F40PH’s, one powered and the other not, and a nicely done caboose. Except for the previous owners “paint chop” the paint is nice and smooth and evenly coated. The previous owner liked the color gold, shotily painting the horn(and top of hood) along with the radiator/dynamic brake fans (also painting the hood) which kind of ruinged the see-through detail of the plastic fans. Oh yea, and the front weight was also painted gold. I’m not sure what they were doing but it ruined the look of the unit. The paint used actually has a nice shiny silver look to it.
I haven’t found any dates, but judging by the truck-mounted couplers and the fact everything is set on a plastic frame using metal weights, I think its kind of old. The gearing block on the trucks is also more noticable from the sides than that on my 2 year old Atlas GP9. But over all I’m still very happy I bought it. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it.
Re-motor? Repaint the botched unit? DCC w/sound? New trucks? Body-mount coupler conversion? Convert to newer split-metal frame? At least I can run some passenger units now when I get a layout built.
