Hello, I too have recently purchased a set of MTH PA-PB-PAs in ATSF livery. When they arrived, the two A units looked lob sided on the track, and none of the couplers lined up. After examining them with the shells removed, it appeared there was flash on the chassis that was not allowing either the trucks to sit well, or the shell to sit well. carefully machined the chassis (with it stripped down so as not to damage the running gear and electronics, removed the couplers and fitted proper KDs (not the ones supplied), bodies now straight, couplers now line up and work. Take them to my local club to run after programming them with their road numbers. Bummer, no go, they sucked out the power from the layout, shorted just putting them on the track, and the crappy sound when I finally got them going were most disappointing. Further the rotten decoders did not respond to the same sound on or off commands as all my other sound decoded locos. Both my home layout and the club run NCE. Ripping out the crap MTH decoders tonight, and replacing them with ESU Select sound decoders and high base speakers. Very expensive and time consuming fix, but at last a well running set. I will never purchase MTH again!
Although I’ve never owned MTH, I’ve always understood them to be good locos. I’m interested in anything Alco, including the MTH PAs.
It sounds like you had problems out of the box. Did you advise MTH, and, if so, what was their response?
Rick Krall
MTH has a good rep (as far as I know) with O Scale. They tend to be a bit proprietary, but then in O scale you have to be. I have heard of issues with HO MTH, but the people who run O scale seem to like them, and they do (er did) make O scale subway cars. Alas, no more, they went over the line again with some graffiti cars, and MTA pulled their license to make the products.
Leastwise this is the story the LION had heared.
They do not make HO scale transit equipment, so that cuts them out of my railroad.
ROAR
Interesting report. I have the orginal Santa Fe Sets by BLI, which were made from the same tooling as the MTH uses now. Can you post pictures of the units? I would like to compare those against the BLI imported version to see if any other changes besides the problems with the chasis.
I am interested in the B units since the ad shows the B unit looking like it is warped.
Thanks
CZ
ATSFPA51–
I owned an HO MTH Erie PA-1 for awhile, and it was a great running and looking unit that did everything MTH said it would do. My only issue was the rear of it sat just a little low on the frame, which from the many photos I’ve seen appears to be rather common. (It is also common with Intermountain F units).
Since that height difference mattered to me, I sold the PA-1 and very nearly got out of it what I had invested in it. I also sold an Intermountain F-7A for the same reason.
Though I once loved Alcos, I read too much of the company’s history for me to want to own them anymore, and instead am buying BLI E units (3 ATSF and 1 ACL so far) to power my passenger trains.
John
I have a pair of pa’s also. I wasn’t to thrilled with them either. Especially the sound. I can say this because I have several MTH HO’s. Steam and diesels. And the proto 3 sound is quite exceptional. But for some reason not so great in the pa’s
Joe C
Both the advertisement photos and many of the models I’ve actually seen in person are actually bowed slightly in the middle–ie the pilots at each end can be slightly low.
Also–I love love love clean ATSF red warbonnet paint–but the MTH ATSF units appear to be way too shiny, even for my tastes. Other roadnames were done with a nice satin finish–but not the Santa Fe ones. They have so much bling a rapper would be envious.
John
I find the sound in my FA’s to be quite good - when it works. Those gimmicky remote uncouplers - yes, they have to go, and normal couplers put on, because even withotu pressing the function key they have a tendencey to open up which results in my A unit running ahead of the train with the B unit pulling it alone - at least theyhave decent pulling power even without resorting to traction tires. My biggest gripe (see first sentence) is that if there is a power interruption, and on the club layout there are plenty, the sound stops. It starts up again when you press the finction key - however if the A unit stopped making sound but the B unit was fine, now it flips - the sound shuts off on the B and starts on the A. Repeat a half dozen times for every trip around the layout and you can see why at the last show I was at, I was reading to throw them across the hall. A shame because they are otherwise nice locos and run well mechanically, mine were fine right out of the box. No power issues, the drop outs on the club aren;t the fault of the locos but rather then fitter pieces between modules which are powered only via the joiners connecting them to the powered track on either side. If the sound would just come back as it was after an interruption rather than running through a restart, it would be fine. The sounds themselves do a good job of capturing an Alco chug, and the single chime horn sounds right for the prototype. Too lound for home use, the volume needs to be cut back, but ina noisy public place, turned up all the way makes them audible - and doesn;t seem to distort. SOunds WAY better than an MRC Alco decoder I tried. Not as good as the Loksound though.
–Randy
I have an A-B set in SP. I got the “DCC ready” (which it’s not - lots of soldering) so I can’t speak for the decoder issues - my digitrax decoders work very well. Also no problems with body fit or coupler height.
I have, however, had a lot of problems with gear noise. I’ve lubricated everything that I can get to without doing a complete disassembly and seen only minor improvement.
I also have this issue with an ABBA set of intermountain FTs.
I’m just not comfortable doing a complete tear-down on a set of locomotives that i’ve paid several hundred dollars for. I also don’t feel that I should have to for a “ready to run” product that costs this much.
My Genesis locomotives make these things sound like lawnmowers.
Is this common? Am I missing something here?
Hmm… Maybe this is why less than 5 of the 1200 locos we have registered in my 70-member club are MTH. And we’ve been DCC since 1999. Their toy-like appearance and reputation do them no favors, either. At least Bachmann’s toy-like appearance is counterbalanced by their cheap prices. MTH has a top-end price for a not-so-top of the line product.
As I tell people at my club, if one wants DCC and sound, but a DCC & Sound engine. Don’t buy MTH with their DCS. They are more trouble than they’re worth, IMHO.
LION,
Actually, there’s no need for the proprietory nonsense that MTH (and Lionel, for that matter) brings to the table. Our hobby should be based on compatibility at the railhead, which is why the NMRA was created.
John Mock,
Oh, c’mon, are you back on that anti-Alco kick again? I thought you had moved past that. Railroads that wanted to be Alco customers didn’t have nearly the number of problems that other roads had that were less interested in preventive maintenance (and didn’t really want Alcos, either, just using them to beat down EMD on price). For example, the NH had over 140 Alco 244’s, yet suffered only one crankshaft failure in over 20 years of use on RS-2’s, RS-3’s, FA-1’s, FB-1’s, FB-2’s, and PA-1’s, and that was due to misaligned crankshaft supports. Yet crankshaft failures plagued other roads. Why did the NH not have these problems?
Paul A. Cutler III
Not a fan of bashing threads, but the truth is the truth. My ABA set of MTH NYC PA’s are shelf queens, all three of 'em. Never again.
Stu
I do not have those models, I do have an ACE, but no real track to test it. When I did, the sound was loud, & the elec couplers worked, but not a real true layout test in 5 feet… Doh…
I am on the experimental side tho, & would like to try some of those Elec Couplers on other projects, one being those new Sound Reefers, but I doubt the Reefers DCC have extra outputs… I would have to mill in the Coupler Board to the car floors & fit them.
I also have not tested the couplers on the ACE to see if it has to have any keep alive current to ‘hold’ the coupler closed… My ACE was not the initial run, but maybe a continuation, I did alter the DCC Couplers by some light filing to be 100% Kaydee #5 compatible, but they work even better with the Scale Head versions.
I did experience the sound dip where it had to do the entire ‘Start Up Sequence’ operation on me. I took it as annoying… Just my opinion…
I want to try playing with their newer GP35’s, as I have a little GP friendly Switch yard.
I hope MTH will address your issues, it is a real let down when a new unit is not up to expectations.
Please let us know how it turns out.
I wish you the best of luck.
Paul,
Your post, for me, is so ironic.
I was planning on posting a thread either here, or on another forum asking New Haven / northeastern modelers how they would feel about suggesting to MTH to consider producing an HO scale GE EP5 “Jet”. I expected that you would reply with your thoughts on this, but I’m sorry to read of some quality control issues with HO MTH units. I had heard many positive comments on them (minus the price tags and some detail issues).
Seems that MTH would be the logical manufacturer to produce a “Jet” since they tend to lean towards northern roads just as Athearn slants heavily towards the west and midwest.
[quote user=“Paul3”]
Hmm… Maybe this is why less than 5 of the 1200 locos we have registered in my 70-member club are MTH. And we’ve been DCC since 1999. Their toy-like appearance and reputation do them no favors, either. At least Bachmann’s toy-like appearance is counterbalanced by their cheap prices. MTH has a top-end price for a not-so-top of the line product.
As I tell people at my club, if one wants DCC and sound, but a DCC & Sound engine. Don’t buy MTH with their DCS. They are more trouble than they’re worth, IMHO.
LION,
Actually, there’s no need for the proprietory nonsense that MTH (and Lionel, for that matter) brings to the table. Our hobby should be based on compatibility at the railhead, which is why the NMRA was created.
John Mock,
Oh, c’mon, are you back on that anti-Alco kick again? I thought you had moved past that. Railroads that wanted to be Alco customers didn’t have nearly the number of problems that other roads had that were le
“Their toy-like appearance and reputation do them no favors, either. At least Bachmann’s toy-like appearance is counterbalanced by their cheap prices. MTH has a top-end price for a not-so-top of the line product.”
Paul,
Since the topic here is diesels, I will assume you are referring to Bachmann regular line diesels? True in the past, you should take a look at most of the new ones.
As for the toy like appearance of most MTH stuff, I agree. steam or diesel, new tooling or stolen Broadway tooling, they find a way to make them look like high rail toys.
As for ALCO’s in real life, I agree with you on that one. Sure they had an early turbo cooling problem, but once that was fixed, those locos ran fine. Even though they did not buy more later, the B&O got great service from theirs, as did the Western Maryland.
We love them here on the ATLANTIC CENTRAL with a large fleet courtesy of Proto2000 models at bargain prices.
Back when MTH was just getting into HO, I often expressed my concerns about their product and thier business practices on this forum - but what do I know, I’m just a hick with a pickup, some guns and some little trains without brains.
Sheldon
Paul Cutler–
Apparently you haven’t read the excellent Joe Strapac series of books on SP diesels. I have (read more volumes of that series of books just recently)–and SP was an Alco fan–they bought plenty of Alcos, longer into the '60’s and more units of those models than most western roads–indeed more of some models than most roads, period.
SP also had severe mountain grades and tunnels that NH just did not have (nor any other American railroad to the extent of SP), and the Alcos, even brand new 251-engined Century units, just could not hold up in SP’s demanding service–even brand new they failed way too often. The problems are actually quite well documented, and cannot be blamed on unsatisfactory maintenance as some have alleged. They did run their RSD-15’s, on the Cotton Belt, at higher speeds than Santa Fe, which had a shorter route–and at the higher speeds SP ran them, they had overheating issues (which Santa Fe evidently did not experience, or definitely not to the same degree). It should also be noted the GE U-boats failed too often as well, but apparently were more reliable than Alco Centuries, and SP bought the U-boats to “keep EMD honest”.
As I said, I basically liked my MTH PA-1 but didn’t think I could satisfactorily fix the uneven body “sit” on the frame.
I don’t hate Alcos or I wouldn’t have bought the PA-1, the all time classic of diesels.
Be careful with the MTH bashing. They have a propensity to sick the lawyers on people. Remember that is how they got the tooling from BLI!!! Our club has 70 HO scale modelers and only one person has an MTH locomotive.
Pete
Antonio,
Personally, I’d rather have BLI do an EP-5. MTH…not so much.
Sheldon,
Yep, I’m talking about Bachmann diesels (not steam or electric). I have seen the S-4 and the RS-3 in person, and I’m not impressed. The RS-3 is particularly bad with some of the worst renditions of AAR Type B trucks since AHM’s Yugoslavia-made RS-2. The S-4…I’m not a real fan of beause I just don’t like the way the cab windows look to me.
Hey, we agree on something with Alcos and MTH! I think someone’s warming up the snow machines in Hades right now… 
John,
And apparently you didn’t read the NHRHTA’s Shoreliner, Volume 14 Issues 3 & 4 where they quoted not only road crews but also shop foreman about the NH Alco FA’s. About how they ran and how they serviced them. About how every morning, every loco in the shop got oil samples taken and analyzed. If the spectro came back showing higher than normal deposits of different materials, they knew what to fix. And the spectro machine was right there in the shop, with results after lunch and repairs started that afternoon before the power went back on the road. The NH believed in preventive maintenance…at least while they still had money (which they didn’t after 1961, but that’s a whole other story).
And sorry, but SP was not much of an Alco “fan”. Sure, they had a total of 449 Alcos, but Alcos made up just 15% of their entire 1st Generation diesel roster. On the New Haven, Alcos made up 64% of their 1st Generation roster. Now that’s a railroad that wanted to be an Alco road and wanted them to succeed. Meanwhile, it looks like SP wasn’t really that interested in Alcos. Certainly not on the roster. On a road where they had almost 2000 1st Gen. EMD’s, less than 500 Alcos isn’t that much for the SP. Let me put it t
Paul–
The New Haven was relatively flat by comparison, and as such just about any make might have been reasonably successful for them–just as Santa Fe’s three relative “orphan” Alco DL-109’s ran out their miles on the eastern, flat portions of the Santa Fe and lived to relative old age (something like 22 years of passenger service). Even brand new, the DL-109’s failed on one of Santa Fe’s hottest passenger trains on their very first trip–it’s well documented. They realized the DL-109’s simply were not built for the mountainous portions of the railroad–but they could really run on the flatlands–so they sent them there and let them grow old there.
By contrast to New Haven, the SP in California had some of the most brutal terrain of any railroad in America, with steep grades and tunnels of 4000 feet in length that caused both overheating and smoke issues. They invested in reasonably large groups of second generation Alcos (large as compared to most other purchasers)–late in the game compared to most other American railroads. Those Alcos and the competing GE U Boats simply could not match the availability for service record of the EMD’s, though the GE’s held up better/longer, and some U boats lasted into the mid 1980’s before they had a career ending failure (many years after SP put in place a policy that a major failure was the end of a GE U Boat). According to Joe Strapac, SP wasn’t even totally happy with the EMD motive power until they got the tunnel motor constructed (several years after Alco was already gone).
I’m not an SP fan, but their operating conditions and operating practices certainly seem to qualify as one of the most brutal environments for motive power in America (if no
You know what, in the make believe world in the top of my garage, on the ATLANTIC CENTRAL RAILROAD in September of 1954, all the ALCO diesels run just perfect. They have all had their turbos updated, and have no cooling problems and are even tuned so well they don’t blow any black smoke - and I like them just fine that way.
And the nice people of Proto2000 have supplied great numbers of them at bargain prices…
Sheldon
John,
The issue here is maintenance, or the lack thereof. Alcos needed more preventive maintenance than EMD’s. The rule of thumb is that with EMD’s you run them until they break, then fix 'em (and the fix isn’t that expensive). With Alcos, if you ran them until the broke, the expense was quite high because the failures were more damaging. Railroads that didn’t understand that had problems.
As for the DL-109’s, they also had issues when new on the NH. But then they were new; teething problems are only to be expected. And BTW, I thought ATSF only had 1 DL-109 and 1 DL-110 (B unit)?
For example, the Rock Island put EMD’s in their lone DL-109 (the famous “Christine”). Not exactly a mountain railroad, the RI. Why did they do that?
Actually, the NH DL-109 fleet was used on mainline passenger & freight trains from 1941 to 1948. Only after the PA-1’s and CPA-24-5’s arrived did the DL-109’s go into commuter service (and then they were also removed from most mainline freights due to the arrival of the RS-3’s). The NH got, overall, 18 years of service from their 60 DL-109’s (1941-1959). Not bad for what were, essentially, switcher prime movers.
And yes, I am telling you US Class I’s did deliberately under maintain their loco fleets. The grimy condition of SP diesels throughout their history is evidence enough of that. It’s all about the bottom line. And RR’s are famous for cutting corners when they think they can get away with it. Why did the NH deactivate the dynamics on most of their engines in the 1960’s? Because they couldn’t afford it, that’s why. Now I’m not saying that any RR shop worker saw the Alco in his shop and said, “I’m not gonna work on that!” It was more like all diesels got the same care from the shop forces, and Alcos simply ne