I want to start by saying I am in no way an expert at best I will give you a basic laymans view of the two loco’s. The last time I was on a train was when I was eight years old. So take this comparison accordingly.
First off I missed the boat on the first run by BLI so this time I pre-ordered a BLI SW-7 w/sound and a LL P2K SW-8 w/sound just to make sure I ended up with one. Wasn’t sure if there would be a big ru***o get them.
Starting off The detail between the two is almost identical with the exception of the hand rails. The hand rails and grab irons on the BLI are made of some sort of fishing line looking stuff. Kind of a translucent grey odd looking and not very complimentary to the model. The rails are very large/fat and I am sure not prototypical. The rails on the LL on the other hand are very fine and black. They look much more in proportion. The BLI has a very convienient hole covered by the stacks that gives you very easy accesss to vol etc. The LL has the magnet and reed switch which is not that difficult if you know where the reed switch is exactly for adj sound and reset. On the LL the speaker edge shows just above the fuel tanks on both sides. Very noticeble when looking at it from the side. You can see the speaker from underneath it appears to be a single one inch speaker. Not sure of the BLI but if sound quality is any indication the BLI has two speakers… As far as operation of each unit the BLI weighs in at 9.4 oz and I stopped adding 40 ft cars at # 26. It was still going strong. The LL was a little lite at 6.3 oz and died at car # 18. The BLI ran very smoothly at very slow speeds where as the LL was jerky at slow speeds. That may improve with break in time. Sound was very impressive with the BLI. As I stated in a previous thread the Horn on this baby is the most awesome sound of any of my many sound units. The coupler clank on the BLI was very crisp and clear where as the LL was kind of dull and muted (again I think due to only one speaker). The
Thanks for the info, Terry. That was the two competitors I had in mind for a future SW purchase. This info makes me lean toward BLI.
dragenrider - Yes If you don’t mind the fat guardrails the BLI wins hands down. I would imagine you could replace the guardrails with something a lttle more accurately if you wanted to. I don’t worry much about prototypicallity (is that a word?) myself. The more I think about it the more I think I may put in an order for the other NYC rd# and religate the LL to the back 40 yard.
Terry[8D]
I like my BLI NW2 but one little gripe is it sometimes de rails on a turnout but not every time, the sound is GREAT, just park it up ticking over and you can listen to it for ages while doing other stuff.
Steve - Great minds think alike. If I am “working on the Railroad” I love to have a couple of sound units just sitting around idling. Love the sound. My poor non-sound units never get to play anymore. I have a LL P2k non-sound S-1 that has problems with my Peco t/o sometimes. It’s erratic so I can’t figure out what the deal is. If I pull out on the front truck it seems to be OK for awhile so I guess there is something going on in the worm gear or something - too loose.
Terry[8D]
Thanks, Terry. The comparison of these two models must be of interest to alot of people, inclucing me.
All I have is small, switching layout … and I was going to break the bank and buy two LL Heritage 0-8-0’s. But I like 1st generation diesels so much, I think that now I will get one LL steamer and your BLI diesel. Maybe I’ll try my hand at a Tsunami installation in the LL’s tender.
Please give us updates if you see anything new in these models.
Greg R.
hi Steve
Can you narrow the problem down anymore? Does the BLI derail on one particular brand of turnout?
I’m kinda new to all this. I just have a really small switching layout. And perfect, slow speed operation is really important to me.
Thanks
Greg
Greg - Tks for the reply. I have 22 loco’s and 14 have sound. About half of which I put in the sound. And for some reason this little SW-7 has the most impressive sound particularly the horn. When I first took it out of the box and had it on the layout I was mashing the F2 button for probably two minutes and looked up to see my wife looking oddly at me. She doesn’t understand how a “toy train” could excite a grown up so much. I don’t think you will be dissapointed in the sound or operation of this little gem.
Terry[8D]
Well my experience with the LL SW8 has not been good.
First the speaker has distortion and makes the horn sound fuzzy.
Then the rubber traction tires seem to be causing an electrical pickup problem as the engine refuses to go through my dead frog Atlas turnouts. This is the only engine on my layout (50 plus engines) that refuses to go through the turnouts at switching speed. I can get it to go through but it still shows hesitation.
BOB H – Clarion, PA
Bob - I concur with the distortion with the horn and the other sounds. I really couldn’t appreciate it until I put them side by side and alternatly hit the horn button on the BLI and then the LL. I may take it apart and see if I can upgrade the speaker.
Terry[8D]
Bob - Tks for the head ups on the traction tires! Didn’t even know the LL had them. They must have put them on to make up for the light weight. I was able to pull 18 forty footers. Imagine if it didn’t have the traction tires.
Terry[8D]
Update to the LL SW-8. I took the fuel tank cover off to look at the speaker and found it is a 16 ohm speaker? So much for swapping out the speaker to see if it improves sound quality. It is a one inch round speaker and feels much lighter than my spare soundtraxx one inch speaker. Just thought I would mention it.
Terry[8D]
Have you tried turning down the volume on the SW-8? I noticed a significant improvement in the sound quality on my Proto 2000 GP-9 after I cut the volume by about half - they seem to come from the factory set at maximum volume.
Mgutwein - Been to Vancover BC many times (no idea where that is in relation to you). Anyway haven’t tried to adj vol yet. But that is a good idea. I still can’t get it to accept a four digit address. It will take a two digit ok but not four. I did it on the prog trk and in ops mode - no go. Next time I put it on the prog trk I will tone down the sound and see. Tks.
Terry [8D]
Interesting…I was looking into getting either a BLI or LL sound switcher in the future…well when one of them makes a Santa Fe zebra stripe painted switcher.
Now I’m hoping BLI does a Santa Fe NW2, as this thread seems to show a clear preference to the BLI switchers.
[2c] scubaterry,
When I was asking help on programming a 4 digit address into my BLI locos someone on the forum suggested muting the sound while doing so. May help, may not.
Thanks for comparison by the way, good info.[tup] [tup]
Jon
Hello all.
Just got my limited run CP Rail LL SW8 and have had sporadic problems over Atlas turnouts as well. Overall I’m satisfied with the sound performance (after turning it down as mgutwein suggested. I guess the question would be if I’m having problems due to traction tires, do I simply remove them? My son and I have a small, level switching layout and the most we’d be pulling would be 6-8 cars at any given time. Are there electrical (insulating) ramnifications from removing the tires?
Your thoughts would be appreciated.
TX
G.
If they use the traction tires I’m accustomed to then if you remove them the wheel will have an “open” groove where the tire used to be. This would likely cause a wobble, derailments, and possible damage to your tracks. So removal may be an option but you’ll also likely have to replace the wheel as well.
Do the switchers still have the derailing truck and reversing (In analog mode) problems?
Back to the Lifelike SW-8 thing. I did turn down the volume but I still could hear the distortion and I am losing my hearing and still could tell it was there!
As for the traction tire thing, we decided to hook 36 Bowser hoppers to the engine and run it up a 3plus % grade on my layout. My som was running it and I saw that he had that many cars hooked to it and was just about to say something when he gave me the nod. I then realized what he was trying to do. He was burning off the rubber tires, as they were really slipping. He was hoping that they would wear down a bit and allow the rest of the wheel to come in contact with the rail and thus make better connection.
Then later we MUed the unit to another engine which was significantly faster unit and run the two together. We figured that the faster one would help drag the Lifelike one along and maybe get it broke un a little faster.
I still have to look at it now that it had a few hours running (or dragging) on it. We swapped out the shell with a custom decorated P&S body we had done and was running it during the Ops on Sunday. If the traction tire problem continues we are looking at swapping out the axle set with an older all metal wheel set.
BOB H – Clarion, PA