I know it’s a touchy subject but I think the MTH version is still a winner in the looks department. My MTH version has blackened pilot wheels and white wall tires on the drivers. It also runs as smooth as silk. I also just received the MTH Daylight eight car passenger car set today “Absolutely Fabulous”.
Cheers
Jim
I have not seen either loco in person, so I will reserve comment on the appearance debate.
I will repeat my distain for all this duplication of effort while other potentially good selling models go unproduced.
But, I will note for the record that a quick scan of several dozen GS-4 photos I have on hand shows only a builder photos with the white wall tires. While they were built that way, SP apparently made no effort to keep them that way and actually painted them black the first time they were shoped.
Even earlier GS-3’s, photographed in the 30’s, had already had them painted black long before GS-4’s came along.
So it seems clear that the white wall tires were the doing of the builder, Lima, and were quickly undone by thr SP.
So do you want an as built shelf queen or a realistic in service version?
I agree BLI should have painted the pilot wheels black, but that is easily done.
A side note on MTH,
They have started to come around to understanding the HO market and are now offing their new FA’s in DC as well as DCS/DCC, but the roadnames offered are still very limited and no undecorated model is offered? The FA is one of my favorite locos, and I would consider another set, but I don’t model any of the roads offered and I freelance. MTH is still only aiming at the RTR collector/modeler and has yet to get a dollar from me.
Sheldon
With copper/brass wiring showing around the smokebox, I would suggest this is still a pre-production peek. I won’t be interested in this model, but I must say it is very fetching. I love the three turbo-generators in their wells along the skyline casing. How will it run? Who knows…BLI has a good record of fixing defective items, and they are not immune to them. It would be nice for all concerned if this one turns out to be the winner that their PCM Y6b was.
-Crandell
Darn nice looking locomotive there and if I didn’t already have several in brass I’d be an instant buyer for a couple of these. As for MTH, I just can’t get excited about them because of their DCS operating system and their rather stiff pricing. I realize they kicked Lionel in the pants but HO is an entirely different situation. Besides that, they are rather “trigger-happy” with the lawsuits. And as was pointed out earlier, they really don’t have a handle on the HO market as “everybody” doesn’t want DCS or even DCC, something that the folks at Broadway knew right from the start.
But the bottom line is this, did we really “need” another GS4 Daylight on the market? There were railroads “between” the east coast and the west coast, something referred to as “middle America”?
Mark
Did we need one? Yes. When BLI released the plans to do one, the oonly other was Bachmann. Bachmann’s is a nice engine, my first DCC don’t get me wrong, but an alternative would be nicer. Also, it matches the Daylight COACHES, which we do need. Thouh now what we have is cars that the lettering is too faint to be read from more than 6 inches away, or cars with too-thin walls but a partially painted interior.
Anyone else remember Athearn is doing a Genesis Daylight set? No, didn’t think so. Poor Athearn.
[quote user=“ATLANTIC CENTRAL”]
AustraliaJim:
I know it’s a touchy subject but I think the MTH version is still a winner in the looks department. My MTH version has blackened pilot wheels and white wall tires on the drivers. It also runs as smooth as silk. I also just received the MTH Daylight eight car passenger car set today “Absolutely Fabulous”.
Cheers
Jim
I have not seen either loco in person, so I will reserve comment on the appearance debate.
I will repeat my distain for all this duplication of effort while other potentially good selling models go unproduced.
But, I will note for the record that a quick scan of several dozen GS-4 photos I have on hand shows only a builder photos with the white wall tires. While they were built that way, SP apparently made no effort to keep them that way and actually painted them black the first time they were shoped.
Even earlier GS-3’s, photographed in the 30’s, had already had them painted black long before GS-4’s came along.
So it seems clear that the white wall tires were the doing of the builder, Lima, and were quickly undone by thr SP.
So do you want an as built shelf queen or a realistic in service version?
I agree BLI should have painted the pilot wheels black, but that is easily done.
A side note on MTH,
They have started to come around to understanding the HO market and are now offing their new FA’s in DC as well as DCS/DCC, but the roadnames offered are still very limited and no undecorated model is offered? The FA is one of my favorite locos, and I would consider another set, but I don’t model any of the roads offered and I freelance. MTH is still only aiming at the RTR collector/modeler and has yet to get a dollar from me.
Sheldon