First Impressions - BLI Union Pacific 9000 series Brass Hybrid 4-12-2

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

At long last, six years since I placed my order, I have this last loco for my roster.

Out of the box, it looks very well painted and assembled. I saw nothing damaged or displaced, nothing missing. I haven’t looked at the valve gear critically yet to ensure it is all in the orientation it ought to be. For example, the lead angle of the eccentric crank…is it right? Dunno, but if it isn’t, I’ll comment later.

I sat it on my shiny kitchen counter with lots of light coming in from the nearly-wall-length windows. All flanges touched the surface, and neither item, the locomotive or the tender, leaned at a noticeable angle.

Where’s the floppy metal draw bar?

This model has a new version for coupling that I have never seen before, at least not on a BLI steamer. The under-cab component is not Ye Floppy soft-flat-metal-with-two-holes of yesteryear. Nay, nay! This time there is a square eyelet mounted just above the tether plug receptacle. Looking at the tender, there is a slightly pivoting inverted L tip, with the descending L part hooking the eyelet from the top. How would a person hook the small square eyelet with all those wires whorling and waving around it? And boy do they do that! Honestly, it took me two minutes, maybe closer to three, to get the two together, inverted, and sat on the rails without losing the connection.

Then I remembered (well, the wisps of smoke reminded me, to be honest), that I routinely slide the smoke control switch under the cab to the off position before doing all the CV changing on BLI steamers. Lift up the two, found them disconnected immediately, slid the switch to off, and tried to hook the draught gear again. Got it, and it was still hooked when I set the two back onto my programming track. Whew!

The cab light came on as soon as I applied power to the rails. No sounds, no movement, but the cab was illum

2

Nice review, Crandell, but we all love pictures … [(-D]

3

Excellent review. I have preordered a couple of the Hybrid Brass BLI GN S2 locomotives.

From your description I am hopefull that they will have the same quality of construction that your model has.

I have been waiting a long time for these engines as well.

The comments i have heard from other purchasers of the BLI Hybrids certainly indicate the BLI has set a new standard of excellence in these particular engines.

4

Over on the electronic group, I reported on several issues, including:

  1. The chuffs per driver revolution should be six, but is fact about 7.3, and looks obviously wrong at low speed. This cannot be corrected because the magnetic chuff cam on the flywheel and Paragon 2 decoder were not designed for six chuffs, and a different gear ratio would be needed. This was confirmed by BLI. However, they advised that the cam can be disconnected by setting CV 246 to 192; then the chuff rate can be adjusted by CV233 for low-speed sync. This is an improvement, but half-baked, since this sync is affected by load.

  2. You may experience shorting in the engine, as at least two of us found that there is a problem with the last driver set shorting to the frame. A split KD gray washer on the right side fixed mine, but I also found that the spring on that bearing had been crushed inside the frame. If the spring had been normal, the short might not have occured except under bad track twist; my shorts were occuring over normal turnouts and slightly warped straight track spots on our club layout.

  3. I dislike the new “hook” also (H10s was the first to have it), and there seems to be a need for more weight at the front of the plastic tender because the eight-wire cable almost makes it float, vunerable to derail (the small Bachmann engine disease). I’ll be adding some lead.

  4. Although I get that the chuff changes from one sample to another to reflect heavy load, I don’t think the transition sounds very good, as the chuffs are too different in timbre and volume.

Still, a cosmetic beauty and a good smooth runner otherwise.

Hal

5

What was the cause of the derailment?

Rich

6

Thanks for all your responses.

Rich, I don’t know. [:S] I may not have had the drivers all fully seated even though they looked like they were before I moved the locomotive after setting the address. But, that inner route on my curved #8 was always iffy, and I commented about the greatly over-rated curve radii of those W/S curved turnouts shortly after installing them on my second layout seven years ago.

I think I will repeat that process, minus the programming of course, to see if it happens again. Meanwhile, I drove that engine through plenty of hand-laid and commercial turnouts yesterday, and it didn’t miss a beat.

HDTVNut, thanks for your observations. So far, so good in my case. If there was likely to be a problem with unwanted metal-to-metal contact at the rear driver for me, it would have been during that early derailment on the inner curved route. There was a short there at that time, but such derailments typically cause shorts no matter which engine derails going over a DCC-friendly frog. At least, that is my history.

Like you, and I reported about this several days back on another model forum, I could quickly discern the mis-timed chuffs at scale speeds under 20 mph or so. It looks odd to me, frankly, and I may try to cure it with the electronic chuff.

7

Sounds like a nice model! I really wanted to get one, but then I found out there’s no DC version without sound. Don’t want to spend an extra $100 on something I’m just going to take out. Kind of stinks this isn’t offered, because I really like my “stealth” Brass Hybrid Dreyfuss Hudson.

Never was interested in the MTH version with that articulating frame and all. And other brass models? No way are those going to fit the curves on my layout! Oh well.

8

Ulrich, I’ll attempt a photo this weekend, later on. I don’t have a scenicked layout at the moment, and probably won’t for another year at least. Some parts of mountains are done with portals, etc, but…no backdrop or other interesting details and structures.

Darth, like you, I just couldn’t get over the MTH weirdness. It is a nice model mechanically, looks good, probably sounds great, and has the nice touch of the working Gresley gear. That swinging set of flying pumps…nope, just can’t do it.

If BLI had received orders, shortly after they announced it, in the 2000 range, I think they might have produced some Stealth versions. Even so, I suspect this may be a one-time run unless interest piques and several hundreds of orders come pouring in.

-Crandell

9

Here ya go, Ulrich. First image of the UP 9035 4-12-2, and the first image taken on my layout in over a year.

10

As for problems through the number 8 curved switch, I have a couple of code 100’s like that on my layout and brass 4-8-2’s and 2-10-2’s gave me trouble going through those switches while performing fine on the rest of the layout.

I attacked the guard rails and frogs with dental scrapers, files, emery paper and several choice vulgarities until I opened up enough clearance for the big engines to run smoothly through those cuved switches.

Charlie

11

Ain´t she a lovely brute!

I wish I had the space for a layout big enough to run a loco like yours (and the necessary funds to go with it)!

12

Excellent picture of a great model. I pick up my models next Saturday and I enjoyed hearing about the model in you review! I might show a review of the two cabs side by side to see the modifications. Thanks again

CZ

13

I noticed it does not have the third cylinder crank, but that cannot be seen from either side, only by looking at the underside. Does the valve linkage work on the front of the third cylinder??? The picture below is a Key 4-12-2

CZ

14

CZ, I haven’t looked. I doubt BLI went to the trouble and expense of incorporating an honest-to-goodness detail like that, but I don’t really know. I would be surprised, frankly, as it would add to the cost of an already dear brass hybrid where many customers had been assured their original order price would be honoured.

I will take a look later today and report back what I find. Your Key model is truly a work of art.

15

I got mine last tuesday, nice model, I had to tweak my layout curves N stuff, after that its perfect. The Valve gear is the original design, but BLI confirmed it does not function because of the small size. UP later did double walchearts on one side removing the original on some engines. The outer wheels have good side swing and the 2 inner wheels are blind so it goes around my 24 inch radius like a champ. Some of my track (which is modules) is lumpyish, it takes them like a champ. Admittedly I have to fix this but the modules are in testing mode while I track plan/devise/whatever, and I have a design in my mind to deal with rough module ends. Also the outer wheels are sprung. Rarity on other engines non-brass. videos (not my layout) running on the D&J https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nzdsQiaReA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzG46ouY1nE I email chatterred BHI about the chuff, they don’t have any adjustment CV adjustment for the chuff, use the timer to get close. But I am evaluating the QSI Titan for possible replacing the decoder. QSI has a motor calculator to get its chuff and its perfect and its adjustable. The chuff is about the only mini-gripe I have but everything else is just fine.

16

I am curious about your take on replacing the sound with the QSI unit. Does the QSI let you get 6 chuffs and can they be offbeat like the prototype. The 9000 class with the middle cylinder at an angle really was an offbeat sound.

I was wondering if the QSI could be munipulated to create such a sound. The BLI really is not correct as it seems to chuff 3 and 3 according to the sound video on the BLI page.

Don Strack has a real recording on his web site. The recording was made in 1954 so this loco was not just outshopped but does sound like they did in normal operation.

http://utahrails.net/up/up-4-12-2-sounds.php

17

CZ, the Gresley gear is fixed on the BLI version, and I can confirm from my initial test and viewing a few days ago that it does not move. That is why I doubt BLI went to the trouble of mounting a crank and system in the frame where it cannot be discerned.

The BLI Paragon 2 decoder is no slouch in terms of motor control and sounds. I do with the whistles were more prototypical, but they only provide a library of three options on my few such versions. The new Niagara sounds nothing like the sounds of the QSI-equipped earlier Paragon versions.

As for the chuff, it seems a hair fast. I’ll have to take a closer look, recalling that there are three cylinders to cycle in one revolution of the crank, but my observations have the first chuff on the next cycle taking place when the crank has only completed about 88% of a revolution.

18

I was wondering if the Niagara has the single note horn for the whistle. That was standard on that locomotive.

CZ

19

There is a provision using an F button to get an ‘alternate horn’, according to the P2 manual, and the QSI-equipped early Paragon Niagara did sound the horn with a press of F11 or whichever it was. That much is certain. I will play with the 4-12-2 this evening and check out those two if my DT400 throttle can make them work (it only has nine functions plus two optional, I think…it’s been so long since I used F buttons above 4, plus mute F8 and lights F9, that I have forgotten all those details).

20

I’m looking into the chuffing on the QSI Titan, it has a feature to set the chuff via driver diameter, thats how it maintains sync. I figure if you fake the diameter you can get 6 chuffs. But thats the initial thought on it, there might be other chuff controls, the tech manual for the Titan is encyclopediac huge. I printed out the manual and its like 500 pages…