http://www.mthhotrains.com/news.asp
What do you think? I love the chuff and whistle sounds. Looks like a beautiful model. Wireless tether is great too.
Take notice of the last minute of the video, there is a great firebox glow and driver lights I think, magnificient piece of machinery.
I am getting the New York state express version when ever it comes out. I cant wait till it does.
I’ve tried to keep an open mind toward the MTH HO offerings, putting the DCS/DCC issue aside, and that if they offered a loco that really interested me I would buy it.
This would be such a loco, but after viewing the video clip and seeing the the pics on their site, of what I hope is only a pre production sample, it just screams “toy train”, and not in a good way.
Too bad, they almost got some money out of me, maybe next time.
The anti MTH crowd will have to bury their heads even deeper in the sand. I think that MTH has a winner with this engine.
I am impressed with the number of steam locomotives that MTH has brought to market. When they announce an engine, it is actually produced.
Can hardly wait to see the full line of MTH engines in person. I will definitely be buying a couple along with the MTH controller to ensure I do not miss any of the features offered.
rjake,
Thanks for posting the link. Actually I looked at the video the other day. While I agree the MTH Hudsons a nice looking model and sound good, I’m going to hold out for the BLI Brass-Hybrids. (And actually have one on pre-order.)
Matt Williamson was kind enough to post a pre-production picture of it on their forum. Here it is unpainted:
(For me - If it looks THIS good without paint?..I can’t wait to see it when it IS painted.)
BLI is scheduled to release their Dreyfuss Hudson this December but I’m not going to hold my breath. They will also be “re-announcing” it sometime in the near future with their new features. My hope is that BLI’s version of the 20th Century Limited will be outfitted with their new Paragon2 decoder, which supposedly has better BEMF than the QSI decoders.
The one thing that bothered me about the video (and I don’t often see other manufacturer’s emphasize this much either) is that MTH never showed how sloooooooow their Hudson could go at speed step 001. For me, this is paramount to a well-operating locomotive. Often I see demos of locomotives making jackrabbit starts rather than realistic ones what start slow and gradually ramp up to speed.
My Trix 2-8-2 Mikes are my benchmark for my steamers, with my Proto 2000 0-8-0 switcher a close 2nd. I have two of them in the NYC scheme and it’s a thing of beauty to watch them ooze to a crawl on speed step 001. And both of them did this right out of the box, with NO tweaking needed.
My BLI Mike and Mohawk (with QSI decoders) are good but they require some adjusting of CV2 in order for them to start out more slowly. Unfortunately, they will never get quite as good as my Trix Mikes but that’s okay.
I will add that I’m delighted that MTH is manufacturing both the Dreyfuss, as well as the Empire State Express locomotives - inc
I know where you are coming from, I agree with some of what you said. The smoke isn’t for me, neither are the station sounds. And although the wireless tether is amazing, MTH steamers might look a little silly sometimes, next to the highly detailed BLI engines without the large gap between the tender and engine.
Maybe they are indeed opening up to a new kind of HO markert with their already well known slogan: “HO trains that do more”. The title itself suggests a definate change in this segment of the hobby.
Perhaps there is a growing group of HO hobbyists out that would prefer to run some hefty diecast steamers with all the station sound/smoke gimmicks simply on smaller two rail track. Maybe they have nostalgic memories of the lionel days when they were kids, I know I do sometimes. There are probably a lot of young folks out there like this who have always wanted to run lionel again, but in a much smaller space, and this time, and with far more realism than O27 ever provided.
I myself think of MTH HO steamers as novelty items in HO, trains that were designed to run at unrealistic speeds, its all about fun. They are for the real laid back crowd that wants the simplicity of staying within one company, and not having to ever switch from DCS. These are people who probably wouldn’t mind running an MTH class J with the UP 4-12-2 or having either of these two engines rest in a small engine house along with the dreyfus hudson.
Tom,
Thanks for that pic!!! [bow]
I’m holding out for the BLI hybrid version as well! I agree with everything you just said in your post!
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Not perfect, but its a gorgeous engine put out by MTH, their best yet I think.
Here is the MTH premier prr T1 4-4-4-4 duplex. If they release this one in their HO line, I’ll definately buy it!
In my opinion, and granted I just have the MTH catalog, but I think the MTH steam engines look a little “off.” Something about them reminds me of the O guage (not scale) stuff I’ve seen. Things like too much space in places that shouldn’t have it, or paint that looks too shiny or too thick, or overall locomotive proportions that look wrong, etc. (plus the smoke doesn’t excite me either). For the money I don’t think it’s worth it, and even if it wasn’t more expensive I think I would take a BLI or Proto or take nothing at all.
True. The first thing I noticed and disliked about the MTH dreyfus hudson was that the paint looked too thick. Not a big deal, but for the price one is expected to pay for the model, more attention to detail is needed.
The gap thing, although somewhat annoying, I can live with because it allows for continuous running on tighter curves. Although this isn’t prototypical, it would still be fun to have one or two of these MTH engines to play with on a small to medium sized layout once in a while.
As far as MTH’s class J, they almost sold me, I’m still considering it, in my opinion its far better than the glossy/shiny excursion type put out by BLI. I used to have it, I don’t like it all. The only problem with MTH’s is the silver lining around the wheels, as its been pointed out before by others on here, this doesn’t look right.
I suppose I could live with these abnormalities in detail if it weren’t for such a high price tag. Maybe down the road if they go down in price I might get one of the J’s. I’m also waiting to see when the Powhatan arrow set comes out, and if it will look appropriate behind MTH’s J. For some reason they took it off the catalogue.
Oh, I almost forgot. MTH engines have one heck of a realistic looking coal load. Thats one thing the company has done perfectly. The coal load on their dreyfus hudson and class J look amazing.
I saw and ran one of these at the LHS on Friday and I came away with some decided pros and cons regarding it.
In the model’s favor, its overall appearance as a nice general representation of this classic Hudson has been quite well executed. The cast boiler and tender have plenty of weight and will stand up to a lot of handling without pieces falling off. On the layout, it could easily pull any number of cars we attached to it. The locomotive sound was OK and the driver lights an interesting novel aspect that the original had. The sparce visible details that were on the prototype are well done on the model.
Among the things I didn’t like (beyond the obvious DCS operating system preference) was the shiny, thick paint, which gave the loco kinda the look of one of the old O-gauge toy trains of yore (can you recall the Lionel Pennsy Torpedo?). Similarly, the voice/train-talk sounds were right out of the Lionel days and I regarded that as a highly junvenile feature. The puffing smoke is a total joke, making the model look for all the world like a down-sized version of a Lionel model from my youth chuffing around the tree on Christmas morning! In addition, the “real coal” in the tender must have been an after thought as it consists of absurdly large lumps that would be 12"-24" in diameter in HO scale. The poor fireman! Finally, of course, is the price…yeah, its a relatively nice looking model but not at that figure, thank you.
I’d have to say that for those who are just hobby dabblers with big bucks, or perhaps stuck somewhere between being toy train enthusiasts and actual model railroaders, the model could probably be a hit. Serious hobbyists will undoubtedly look elsewhere.
CNJ831
I think it is a very good looking model engine, and it looks good as filmed. It sounds great in the chuff department…one of the best I have heard. Whistle? The jury is still out.
If this engine appeals to you, and you have the wherewithall to pay for it, you can prevent some of the chatter sounds from what I understand.
Then, there is the substantial problem for me…that darned DCS problem that just won’t go away. Not for love nor money.
-Crandell
Is the paint too thick or is there a soft edge in the tooling? Close-up photos show individual parts and cast on details which should have a sharp crisp 90 degree edge as having a rounded-off edge and filled-in corners.
MTH has real nice stuff but I have found a seat belt works well. After watching their promo videos or reading the emails they send me I get all excited seeing their new stuff click on the itme and see the price and then fall on the floor, hence the need for the seat belt. Some day I’ll learn.
Well everyone knows that I am not an MTH fan because of all the legal games they like to play. However their last two models the 4-6-2 and Mohawk made me want to like MTH so I could buy them! I thought that the 4-6-4 would be the model that made me decide to break down and let MTH off the hook, and be my first MTH model. But in general I am very disappointed I am not tempted to purchase one of these at all. As some of the others have said either the paint is waaay to thick or the tooling just is not clear and crisp. I don’t think it looks much better than the old Rivarossi. The smoke is very thin and toy like. The puffs might be synchronized with the sound but if the video clip is correctly timed the chuff and puff are not synchronized with the wheels. During the video section where it is running after the station stop I counted about 5 chuffs per rotation of the wheels instead of 4. I hate the way the rear truck just floats under the firebox (a common problem on all manufacturer’s) so that I can see “sky” in between. Then there is the whistle sound. I can say that I have never heard a real NYC Hudson’s whistle, but it sounded more like the whistle I would expect on a smaller locomotive like a 2-8-0. I expected it to be more like the UP’s 4-8-4 from a similar time period. Of course making decisions like this based on a video clip is probably silly. Too many things can be different, so I will reserve judgment until I see/hear one in person. I really hope the real one is better.
I think the review of the MTH HO scale N & W J type explained the engine and reviewed the model with no bias involved. The sound on the MTH engines is far better the allot of the other brands in my mind. I think the sound on the J type is better than the BLI or the Bachmann. So i sold the others and kept the MTH model. I think many will continue to complain about MTH and it has nothing to do with the quality but just the brand. I will just keep enjoying them while others sit in disbelief. I even sold my Lionel HO challenger and purchased the MTH HO challenger with the same money. I was a good move, the greyhound model with the silver striping matches my passenger cars and runs very smooth. These engines do not seem to be very toyish to me and the engines look good when i compare them to pics in books i have.
The price for the MTH is higher than other models on the market also besides the fact some things are incorrect. The dealers don’t seem to discount the MTH items over 10% so I would believe they are a short discount to dealers.
The UP 9000 really has some issues with the sand dome and a few other details. Many of us emailed them about some of the issues when they were first announced and the front air pumps and an extra set of market lamps were included the package so they did respond to some of the issues. The Hudson in the video has that long spacing between the engine and tender, but I noticed the ad shows them much closer than the one in the video.
The space between the loco and tender is not what I am looking for in an HO model train, but they do offer many models now and I am sure many will purchase them simply because they are available and are out on the market first. That is not a bad thing to have competition in our market place. I do hope they offer future sound packages that are more in line with the guide lines set out for the industry to aid in consisting multiple units.
My thought is they should offer a DC version only to be compatible with the DC operating modelers. The extra sounds and smoke is a hold over from the larger scales of trains and I can do withou
Hi all,
I’m not an NYC fan so didn’t order any of the 20th Century Limiteds or ESE’s, but the MTH models continue to impress in a very possitive way. Tom (tstage) made the following observation…
I agree, Tom, low end speed performance is also one of my top criteria for judging an engine. I own five MTH HO engines and they have all crept smoothly at 1 smph on speed step 1 right out of the box. Someone who purchases one of the NYC models will have to confirm if they are the same, but this seems to be the norm rather than the exception for MTH engines.
The MTH station stop sequence in the MTH video doesn’t show the slow speed performance well at all. That’s operator error on the part of whomever was running the engine during the video. When you run through the station announcement sequence on an MTH engine (with DCS or DCC) the engine will automatically start moving out at whatever speed the engine was doing when the sequence was started. When I use the feature I always trigger it when the engine is at speed step one so that it will creep, rather than jack rabbit, upon departure.
One other thing that several people have mentioned in this thread is the gap between the engine and tender. When these en
There is no doubt steam makes a whistle sound different compared to just using air pressure. The other factor is speed and wind against the whistle which makes them sound much different than while sitting still. If an engine was having foaming problems with the water, the whistle could be an entirely different tone due to the water being pulled into the chambers. It is a wet muffled sound without any volume.
I have a Mark V video that has a live recording of a J3 in Kankakee Illinois on the Riley leaving town and the whistle is acceptable, but not exactly right on. It is hard to get a whistle correct from a recording since structures do cause echo’s and all steam whistles sound different when a locomotive is at speed compared to sitting still.
The other factor about whistles with some of us who were actually there is our remembering of the sounds. I watched the NYC around Mattoon Illinois in the early 1950"s era, but now I rely on the video for what I believe the whistle should sound like today.
I appreciate the companies trying to get the sound correct and som
Thanks for your input, I think I will buy the MTH class J. It does look very impressive, it will be my first MTH purchase.