Dear railfriends,
I’d like to buy both these “premier” locomotives. However, being european, and so not expert about the “real” ones, before ordering in the USA, it seems to me that asking your opinion on this field should be a more adequate solution.
1-What do you think about PCM, Life-Like and Trix PA’s? I’d go for the PCM… any problem?
2-The same question about, now, the E7… Which one do you suggest between Broadway Limited and Life-Like?
Thanks a lot.
Well the BEST E unit and PA unit has to be Walther’s P2K line…
So you know Life Like sold their train and slot car division to Walthers.
I only have the P2K (Life-Like), about 30 of them to be specific. I obviously love them. But have no experience or opinion of the others yet. I ordered an A-B-A set of the PCM but then found out the D&RGW paint scheme they were doing was the original silver one that I hate. They have yet to make a P2K that has sound from the factory. The P2K PA was one of their first units so I would guess it is the worst technologically, as the PCM and Trix have only come out in the last couple years.
I own bunches of both and you can’t go wrong with either. The nose geometry is slightly different on them but one could never tell without them sitting side by side, or right beside a picture. I’ve seen the BLIs on sale between $109-$139. That would be hard to beat.
I have no experience with PCM, but I can tell you that Proto 2000 is hard to beat.
Thanks to BRAKIE, Texas Zepher and jeffrey-wimberly for your kind answers. However, the problem is that I’ve seen a Proto 2000 ALCO PA two years ago and, in my opinion, on the body side, air gratings and intakes are very toy-like… while, apart from this characteristic, the overall detailing level is very good and fine… For this reason, I’d like to know point of views from PCM Alco PA’s owners…
I am not sure about the other roads, but the Daylight set PA/PB/PAs isn’t supposed to be released until next month, so there probably isn’t anybody out there that can answer your question in regards to the PCM models. The wait is killing me. I ordered them in September. Not meeting the original delivery dates seems to be a trend with BLI/PCM. Oh well, I got a good price.
Ah, I see. But remember the gratings on a real PA (especially the big one near the rear) were very coarse compared to the EMD gratings.
The car body on the BLI E7A is much better in fidelity than the Lifelike in the nose area.
Both run good but some BLI E7’s with sound can be purchased here in the USA for around $129 or so, but not all roads are available. .
| 617 E7A | C&NW QSI Sound | 5008A | Green/Yellow Mars Light List $225 | 1 | $129 |
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I don’t know about P2k’s E7s, but their E8s are good locomotives. I bought mine for $50 last year. Only problem that bugs me is the coupler mounts. They’re a bit odd if you’re used to the couplers being rigidly mounted to the frame.
ETR_500,
I’ve got a BLI E7A and it’s a no brainer to recommend it to you. Even with the original IC it runs fantastic-good pulling power and excellent slow speed to top it off. Looking forward to installing a chip update just to see how fantastic performance can be made even better! Also have P2K E7A with self installed non-sound decoder and it also is an excellent runner. Can’t go wrong with either make is my conclusion. [tup][tup][tup]
jondrd [8D]
Being a D&H modeler, I have several of the LL PAs and the details and the grills are right on. As someone else mentioned, the protoype stock PA grills were quite coarse compared to EMD’s grills. Even the posts behind the grills are visible in the model. With all the silver paint it helps to use a light black wash in the grills to get them to “pop”. They have the same drive as the E units and they weigh about 21 ounces.
Are you sure you weren’t looking at a LL FA ? The original LL FAs had the toy-like grills that were movable, the fan also turned via a belt/pulley system connected to the motor.
As far as E-units and/or PA’s, I guess it depends on what railroad you model, not every railroad had both - some had neither one!!