Hi,
Anyone have any experiences or opinions about the HO Atlas C30-7s? They are older tooling, but there aren’t many options for C30-7s. BLI has made some but they are few and far between and cost double or more than the Atlas units. Anyone know if the Atlas versions are accurate and how they run? How do they compare to the BLI ones?
Thanks
Kevin
I have a BLI sound equipped loco. It has a QSI decoder. Model I have is Conrail. It originally came with the incorrect truck sideframes. They offered two styles and there was a mixup on the CR unit. BLI supplied me the correct versions. Unit seems to run okay. The class lights are always illuminated (white for extra) and the can’t be turned off. The blue handrails seem to be a slightly different shade of blue than the body.
I also have several Atlas units, one of which having a QSI aftermarket sound decoder installed. All of these run very well, having the typical Atlas drive. Atlas offered two different side frame styles, and the CR units came with the correct style. I added some detailing parts like windshield wipers, MU hoses, and the typical CR cab signal box.
I can’t vouch for the prototypical accuracy of either unit, but I will say that it is hard to tell the models apart when they’re sitting side by side. As I recall, MR did a product review of the Atlas units and did not find much to complain about.
The Atlas units come with an 8-pin dummy plug to allow use on DC. You can pop this out and easily install one of those square decoders with the 8 pins in its place. You would need an extender to mate the decoder to the socket on the light board due to some interference on the end of the light board, but there is room to do so.
In my opinion, you will not go wrong with the Atlas model.