What I said quite a while back still holds true - I did not buy anything from MTH because they didn’t make anything I wanted or could use - until now. I picked up an AB set of Alco FA’s in Reading. Went whole hog and got the sound equipped ones.
Packing: Pretty solid, using the now-common wraparound shell slide inside a wrapper. Each loco had plastic around it to keep the packaging sides from touching the paint. When unpacked, the diaphragm on the back of the A unit fell off, but it was easily set back in place.
Sound: TOO LOUD! With DCC you cna controlt he volume with F6, plus there is a potentiometer ont he bottom of the fuel tank of each unit to adjust the volume in a fixed manner. First thing I did was turn it down. Out of the box, I coud hear the units downstairs with the train room door closed. However, pretty much every sound decoder manufacturer does this.
The sound was clear, even at the initial high volume. Even better when turned down to normal levels. At full volume there will be no doubt the train is coming even in a public show venue. It sounds liek a nice Alco burble. and having both the A and B units with sound works well - it appears MTH even took some pains to not just throw the exact same data on the chip in the B unit as it does not have a horn and there is no cab chatter from the B, only the A.
The various other sounds are nice, there is manual notching to rev up the prime mover as well as drop it down, in addition to automatic notching when adjusting speed.
Horn is loud and clear, sounds like the proper single note honker as on th prototype and as depicted on the model. There are additional functions to activate 2 toots for forward, 3 toots for reverse, and a crossing sequence. Like other decoders that have this, it’s a feature I will rarely use - I can press the F2 button myself to make standard horn signals, thank you.
Cab chatter - something else I will probably never use now that I’ve played through the entire
I have a number of MTH steam locos including the erie triplex, and the basic sounds are good, but the extras are more toy like. I don’t like the cab chatter at all on nearly all of the steamers, especially the triplex. At one point the engineer mentions going to the lineside phone to get a form D. To begin with, there was no such thing as a form D until NORAC rules were implemented in the 1990s, plus, you wouldn’t send the engineer to retrieve any train orders except when scooping them on the fly. MTH has done a fairly nice job of making a realistic looking HO model, but there is still a little “toy train” feel to them. My fleet usually remains in the roundhouse until the holiday season when we have quite a few young visitors with Grandpa in tow.
Running: Both units ran very well out of the box. A little noisy at full throttle but that’s way too fast for operating on my layout anyway. Should improve as they get some run time. Top speed seems a bit higher than prototype but not incredibly so. This is not some 70’s N scale with a top speed north of 200 SMPH.
The couplers are just like the MR reviews say - they release fine, but you have to slam the cars hard to get them to couple. Since I will run both the A and B together, I will be replacing the rear coupler on the A and front coupler on the B with the Kadee clones so the two units don’t seperate if I uncouple from the train.
Programming: I used Ops Mode (programming on the main) to set CV17 and CV18 to the appropriate values for the road number, then set CV29 and had no problem changing the locos from address 3 to 300. The horn sound to acknowledge every CV as you program it so you know the command was received. That’s all the programming I attempted, it’s sort of all I need. The manual makes it seem like you cna reassign the functions buttons, which I might do for some just to get the most used stuff on the first 12 which are the easiest to activate.
Detail: They are not as detailed as the P2K FA’s I have, however they are also not as fragile. The P2K’s have insnae amounts of fine detail, and with the center door handrails and truck detailes there is almost no palce to safely pick one up. The MTH has grabs and handrails, but not all the lift rings and other teeny items right where you would touch them. It does have nice MU hoses. The MTH is more detailed than the Walthers Trainline FA I have.
Overall I am very happy with my purchase. I got a very good price on the pair, compared to list and what I saw at the Timonium show a coupel of weeks ago. I see these units getting a lot of use, both on my layout and at the club.
On the coupler issue, I accidently found that using Kaydee 158 Scale Head couplers (smaller heads) they seem to articulate & fall into place with the MTH electronic ones easier than the #5 standard ones. For total compatibilty I used a real small round file to releive the inside of the MTH electonic coupler closure bar, to fit the larger/wider head, & still maintain a positive closure. If a person wants to attempt this, please do a little at a time, but if you can clearly see the toggle tab, you’ll have a good idea of what to relieve with the file.
This is just based on my experience on my setup with 2010 units, on code 83 track, & stock IM, Walthers, & Accurail cars with various Kaydees… I hope your results are equally as good, & this is just my opinion & thoughts on the coupling issues. Hope you enjoy the new units, I really like mine now.
Enjoy!
Well mine hasn’t arrived yet but you have me slightly disappointed with your description of the detail
I have several Protos and have had no problem with handling and running them in fact I repainted one of my Eries for my freelanced ME&O and took off some of the details and then put them back after repainting
However the review in MRR says the unit bristles with metal etched details
From a pic in MRR
“The model bristles with etched metal and wire details including grab irons windshield wipers and lift rings.”
From the review
“The locomotives are loaded with etched-metal and wire details. The radiator fan grill is finely etched, as are the side grills. The plastic windshield wipers and the handrails are close to scale thickness. I was impressed that the door handles, simply molded in place on most models, here were separately applied detail parts”
Since these locos are based on the old Broadway Limited tooling, I am not surprised they lack detail compared to Proto2000.
The only Broadway Limited diesel I ever thought had great detail were the PCM EMD F3’s. ALL other Broadway diesels have left me cold in terms of detail, as does everything from MTH that I have seen up close.
MTH detail is often too course to make it “strong” - toy trains NEED to be strong.
Oh it has handrails and the grills are etched metal and all, but if you look at the roof it’s sort of bare compared to the Protos. There are a few lift rings and a vent aroudn the prime mover area, but that’s about it (plus the fine radiator fan grill). The roof of the Proto units is festooned with lft rings on every removable panel. The handrails on the Protos also stick out more, which actually is probably out of scale. Compared to the Train-Miniature/someone in the middle/Walthers ones, which lack ANY seperately applied detail, they look pretty good. It’s a decent compromise IMO.
The paint is nice and sharp, and the yelloow stripes on the Reading ones covers nicely.
ANother gimmicky bit is thatis has workign class lights. Which are either off, or green. It would be far more common to be either off or white for an extra, not green for first section. And turning them off also turns on number boards (ok, you can only fit so many LEDs in a small space…)
Somethign which is no help to owners of older MTH locos, and when the next version comes out with even more improvements it will probbaly make me mad about these as well, but they are continually updating the operation under DCC. These Alcos I had no problem just putting on my program track (and then today at the club because someone already was using my address) and setting a 4-digit address like any other decoder. Home and club are both Digitrax, I just went nto program track page mode, selected 4 digit address, typed int he desired address, and then hit Yes for the confirmation liek every other loco I program. One of the other members picked up an slightly older 70ACe and I had to program CV17 and 18 individually and then change CV29 to getit programmed to the cab number. So somewhere between the release of that loco and the release of the FA’s, they changed something in the Protosound 3.0 firmware that made it easy to program mine - in fact I programmed the A and B at the same time since I wanted the same address
Your fellow club member with the SD70ACe can get the same capability in his engine with a software update. The locomotive software can be downloaded from the product page on the MTH website for his engine. Just go to the MTH website and type the item number in the search field. Here’s a link to the page for the #80-2003-1 BNSF SD70ACe. Click of this icon to download the software:
The PC application that loads the software from the PC to the locomotive can be downloaded from www.protosound2.com.
All the software is free, but you do have to have access to a DCS system to perform the upgrade.
If you model prior to about 1910 there was a form D. Form D train orders gave a regular train right over another train. After about 1910 Form D was combined with Form C orders giving a train right over another train.
However since no manufacturers make a pre-depression era, let alone a pre-WW1 era steamer with sound, you are correct that Form D didn’t appear until the 1980’s.
This is a curiosity question. If both those models represent the same prototype, why is there a length difference? Or is it just the camera angle? And is the difference in location in roof details something that happened as the prototype went through phase changes?
Without seeing the sides I would venture that the MTH unit is an FA-1 and the Proto Unit is and FA-2. The Extra length is in the area from the radiator fan to the back of the unit. The FA-2 was designed to put a steam generator in the back for passenger service in order to have a dual service locomotive. On the FA-1 the intakes extend to the back of the unit on the FA-2 there is a blank metal panel then the intakes start.
