Just read the review by Model Railroader of the latest version of this model. The USRA Light Mike gets an amazing .5 MPH for its slow speed start.
Other than being light on detail this engine gets decent marks. Now has the 8 pin socket for DCC.
I hope they are thinking about re-releasing their Mountain sometime soon.
Don–I’ve got an earlier version of the IHC USRA Mountain, and it’s turned out to be a reliable, smooth running steamer for me. It came in GN colors (the original is C&O) and with a little work and TLC, I was able to turn it into a kinda/sorta GN Mountain (GN has occasional trackage rights on my Yuba River Sub). Frankly, with the review of the USRA light 2-8-2 in MR, this month, it sounds like an excellent–if not really ‘detailed’ version of a light Mike.
But as I’ve always said, that’s why Cal-Scale and PSC provide castings to improve the looks of generic steam.
Having seen what several modelers have done with the IHC 2-10-2 (especially Canadian modelers), I would say that IHC is serving a real market for those who want affordable, good-running steam and aren’t afraid to ‘tool’ around with it.
Good on them.
Tom [:)]
You also have the Yardbird detail kit for $15 and the super detail kit that Bowser sells. You can dressed it up fairly inexpensively.
I saw one test run at the LHS and was quite impressed.
I was hoping that SuperStore in Canada would use the IHC Mike in it’s next trainset but no such luck. 
I’ll hold off on buying a few until after I read the MR review for myself but with a Bowser super detail set as mentioned by “loather” it looks like a good candidate for the GER.