I just got this locomotive last week and in my opinion it’s the best P2K locomotive yet. I got it with DCC and sound but I probably won’t shell out that extra $100 again any time soon. I took it to a friend of mine’s house Friday night and we ran it on his layout for about an hour. After about 30 minutes he asked if I knew how to turn the volume down and after reading the instructions I realised that since I had left the magnetic wand at home that we were stuck with the volume where it was. A little while later we decided to give the new GP30 a rest and run one of his stealth locomotives in it’s place. We had been running it on his maimline while doing some industry switching with another loco and finally the sound the GP30 made at about a scale 35-40 mph became overwhelming.
I have two other locomotives with sound and they end up as irritating after a similar amount of time running. I really believe after this experience, that sound, at least in HO scale and smaller, will taper off in popularity.
Back to the GP30, it ran smoothly and even with the loss in weight due to the sound installation it pulled 15 freight cars up my friend’s 2% grade on a curve without any strain or slippage. The only detail on the locomotive that I will change is the 3 chime horn to a 5 chime that Southern almost always used.
If you are a Southern or N&W fan this new P2K loco should really please you.