Has anyone seen or purchased one of the new engines by Piko? If so, what are your thoughts?
David
Friend of mine has seen one and thought it was good value, nice moulding and paint job but he thought the pantographs were very thick and toylike. Not up to LGB or Aristo finish quality but worth it.
Just for info I’ve just got my first Zimo steam sound decoder, similar to the one I fitted in my dash-9, and will be fitting it in a LGB mallet to experiment with it so I’ll be ready for the diesel versions in the new year!
Paul
FYI, GR will be doing a product review on this engine. . .
Okay, I will look foward to reading it in the coming issues.
devils, that sounds great. Unfortunately I have been so busy with school and layout construction that I have not even touched any control systems for my locos 
Seen it, hate it, will never buy it.
Can you elaborate? What did you find faulty with it? Was it made poorly? Did it run poorly? Please justify your reasoning here.
I prefer, American. Dont get me wrong, it is a good model interms of detailing, and operations, but I just dont like European trains.
David
I saw one up close yesterday and it looks good. The bogies are nice and the wheels are blackened, much better than shiny chrome on the LGB locos. The body moulding is good and certainly looks like the prototype photos, colour is spot on although the handles etc aren’t separate pieces but moulded into the bodyside and colour printed on. This is only noticeable when you inspect it closely. The pantographs are a bit bright and toylike but could be toned down to look better. It felt reasonably heavy so I doubt it would have problems pulling a decent train although I forgot to look for traction tyres. It was £180 UK which seemed good value to me. Put it this way if it was swiss RhB or standard gauge US I’d quite happily buy it on looks, but I’m looking forward to seeing the review of what’s under the Hood and how robust the mechanisim is.
Paul
I collected my Taurus on Friday and agree with everything that Devils says above - it looks a cool loco!!
Unfortunately I’m still waiting for the decoder and sound system (which I don’t think have been released yet) so I’ve been unable to run the loco (as I’ve got MTS plus some Reverse Loop Modules which, I’m told, is a no-no when trying to run locos on analogue). I’ve got one of the new LGB DB passenger coaches on order…and hope LGB will still be around to issue more DB coaches with different running numbers to build up a 5-coach train…
Keith
Cool! I cannot wait to see one in person myself.
Keith
Over to you then, not even an old analogue controller you can test it on?
By the way have you seen the Zimo mx690s (3Amp) & v (5 Amp) decoders?, they’ll be coming with electric sounds early in 2007, £90 & £100 respectively and can be easily progammed to work with MTS, it’s a lot cheaper than the LGB version + sound unit, and 100% compatible with standard DCC as well. I’m now going to be using these on all my double motor LGB locos and Aristocraft stuff. keep an eye on DCCsupplies website for them, the steam version is out now and the manual is on their site to see if it’s worth investing.
I’ve been going on about these decoders for a while since I discovered them but have been impressed with the performance and it’s much better than LGB’s two decoders per loco and the speed matching problem with 2 motored locos.
Paul
Somebody gotta picture of one?