Hello all and thank you for taking of your time to click on, read, and consider posting to my question. As always, I value your opinions greatly.
My young Son has his own DC N Scale layout in his room. It’s modest but suits his current needs, he enjoys it, respects it in terms of treating the equipment properly, but most importantly, he has a lot of fun operating it (which is the point right [:D]). Anyway, this past weekend we came across an N Scale Life-Like Canadian Pacific FA2 powered locomotive that included an unpowered B unit in a hobby shop fairly close by. The person in the store said that it was “new old stock” and had never been run before. Based on my inspection I would agree. It looked mint, crisp, no marks, or damage and the trucks and wheels looked as though they have never seen a track (the white stripes on the nose were not 100% sharp and the number boards on the nose were blank…easily fixed with decals though). My Son’s other N Scale locomotives are all modern DCC ready Kato and Atlas and I suspect that Life-Like will not be up to their (Kato and Atlas) standards in terms of quiet smooth operation. But he really liked this CP FA2/F2B set and I was wondering what they were like? The couplers are old Rapido that I assume can be converted to micro-trains magnetically operated ones that he currently has on his other locomotives and rolling stock. The price was $60 (plus State tax) which seemed a bit high to me…yes or no? I have never seen or operated any N Scale Life-Like locomotives before so I am pretty much in the dark here and would appreciate your thoughts before I either choose to purchase this for him or take a pass.
Again, many thanks for all thoughts, advice, and opinions.
Kindest regards,
Don.