I’d been looking for an Alco RS-3 painted in the Conrail blue paint scheme. While surfing eBay, I found the next best thing-an Alco RS-2. While it wasn’t what I was looking for, it had the Conrail paint scheme. For $30, with shipping, it was a pretty good deal. A couple days later, the train arrived. I immediately opened the box and took it to my layout. I use the cheap Lifelike Power-Loc nickel-silver-rail track, with two Bachmann E-Z Snap brass rail crossing (my local hobby shop doesn’t carry the Power-Loc crossing, except for the Santa Fe Railrunner set). So, I put the engine on the track, after swapping the factory horn-hook couplers for knuckles that were included. It ran a little jerky until it got to the first crossing. It hit the brass, sputtered, jerked once more, and died. I was ON THE WARPATH. Only two other engines did that, and I never use them. I have a Model Power FP9, and it runs fine. The only similarity two the locomotives is that they can’t pull my thirteen car, two caboose train, and two keep three cars on the track, they’re loaded down. My Bachmann B30-7 (Conrail, which I did another review on), can pull that train no sweat. Add on its helper, another B30 (CSX), and it runs a little slower, but pulls hard. The RS-2, couldn’t pull for its life, and it runs badly. I pulled off the mainline, ran to the hobby shop, and had the owner, my neighbor, run it on the store layout. It ran just as poorly, and that was because of the magnetic trip pins, as they were set to low. I came home, bent up the pin, and tried again. Still, died at the crossing. I finally checked each section of track, which I found that the all the track but the crossings were nickel, and the train ran better on them, while died on the crossings, which are brass. Overall, if you have a Model Power RS-2, and it runs fine, can you give me some tips?
Model Power locomotives are one of the poorest running locomotives available, that is your problem. You pay for what you get when it comes to locomotives in this hobby. Take a look at Atlas, Kato or even Athearn Ready To Run RS loco’s.
B30,
I have one of these I bought when I first started back into the hobby a few years ago. Unknowingly I purchased one of these RS-2’s and was really disappointed with the performance overall. I really loved the RS-2 though so I thought I’d tear it apart and see what I could do. Here’s what I did:
- First, it’s a cheaply made loco so don’t expect too much, but we should get it to run smoother for you.
- What I found was that it was only picking up power from the front truck, which tends to cause problems when crossing turnouts or rail crossings. I tore the thing down to the frame and unsoldered all the connections. Then I moved the crappy copper spring/wheel pick up to the back truck. This spread out the pickup points.
- I then followed part of the Atheran Loco tune up instructions and pulled the motor out. Here is your big problem, it’s only a 3-wound pole motor instead of a 5 or higher. Can’t beat this unless you change the motor out. I carefully took the motor apart and cleaned the rotor surface to make sure the brushes let the rotor spin freely.
- I took the brushes and brush springs out and cut the springs down just a little bit to release some tension they may be putting on the rotor.
- finally I rewired it and made sure I got all of the soldered connections good and clean, no cold solder joints.
It runs much better now than it did stock but it’s still not going to win any awards in my book. Sorry I don’t have pics of this project it was kind of done on a whim when I got frustrated enough. Good luck, let me know if you have any questions.
I bought a Model Power RS-2 when Hobby Lobby was selling them for $7.50 a few years ago. Although a smooth runner right out of the box, it lacked good pulling power and requires high maintenance because of poor electrical pickup. The plastic used for the model is rather soft, so the handrails are very easy to break. The coupler boxes on the trucks are also mounted very low, which means most knuckle couplers won’t fit.
As long as everything is kept very clean (track and wheels), it will run pretty smoothly. But I am sorry to say it won’t be as reliable as most other models available today (it is better than train set Life-Like). If you’re mechanically inclined enough to be able to add electrical pickups to the rest of the wheels, it can run better.
Slightly off topic but do the DCC/sound Model Power loco’s have the same problems? Let’s face it a DCC/sound loco for $100 new is pretty tempting.
As for the RS2, are you describing that only one truck picks up power by design or was one not picking up due to a manufacturing defect? Would it be practical to purchase a second for the extra power pickup?
I have only 1 Model Power loco, a die cast F unit from the late 80’s/early 90’s. It is all wheel drive, all wheel pickup with a can motor. But I’ve never run it yet since my DCC system won’t support dc locos.
Rude,
It has the pick up on one truck only by design. At least I think that’s how it was. It’s been quite a while since I worked on it. [*-)] The plastic part of the truck has two little copper strips that are basically just hanging there, and they have a lil spring tension that pushed out against the inside of the wheels, one on each side of the truck.
I was looking into a DCC conversion for this unit but you would first have to remotor it and unless you absolutely cannot live without that loco it just wasn’t worth it for me to spend $20-$30 for motor and shipping to replace it.
[2c]
You would be better off buying a Proto 1000 RS 2, a can of conrail blue spray paint and a set of decals. A little more - but not wasted - money.
My RS-2 gets power from two wheels on each truck. It honestly would have been cheap and easy for them to add pickups to the rest.
ruderunner, what scale is your metal F Unit? I know they have an all metal F7 in HO with all wheel drive and electrical pickup and a can motor with flywheels, but that’s only been around for maybe 5 years now. The Metal Train HO products from Model Power are much better quality than their plastic products, and seem to be well reviewed.
I believe those are the same RS-2’s that AHM used to sell. If that is true, it’s really not worth the money. Do as suggested - spend a little more and get a Proto 2000 version, Conrail Blue paint, and a set of decals.
I don’t know that any of the very few inherited RS-2’s ever got painted in Conrail blue. It doesn’t appear any of them got repowered with EMD prime moves liek the RS-3’s, converting them to RS-3M’s. There are pictures of units AFTER modification still in plain former road paint liek PC with just a small CR stencil - so painting them to blue happened even later.
–Randy
Hey, I had one of those back in the early 80’s. It was in a train set that I picked up at Radio Shack in Leesville. It too had the pickups on only the front truck. I pulled the pickup plates out and used them to make a tracing on some thin copper plate and cut out a new pair of pickup plates for the rear truck and installed them. I wired it up then added a couple of pieces of lead sheet to up the weight. It ran like a champ for several years until the motor finally died. By then I had a pair of Model Power F3’s and several Athearn F7’s and a couple of Athearn GP7’s and a GP9. Fixing the RS2 just wasn’t in the cards and none of my friends wanted it so it got chucked into file 13.
Darth, it’s an HO F uint. I know the chassis is die cast, but can’t recall if the shell is too. It was part of a special run done for Loctite, maybe a hundred of so made for company executives. It was a trainset with an oval of track, 5 cars and power pack. Plain white box with Loctite and Modelpower logos.