Hey all i was thinking about getting a Heritage USRA 0-8-0 with sound, anybody own one? and what are your thoughts. Thank You in advance.
I don’t have one with sound but I have 10 or 12 of the previous run. They are a bit week in pulling power on the grade, but they really shuffle a big flat yard to beat the band. I really like them except the old ones had weak electrical pick up on the tenders. The new tenders now pick up power on all 8 wheels so that should not be an issue with the one you are considering.
Thanks Texas Zepher, i got a Walthers flyer and it had a Southern roadname 0-8-0 i thought i might give it a try Firsthobby has it in stock With sound 215.00 without 145.00 seems like a good price.
I have one of their older 0-6-0’s, and I love that little engine. As Tex says, the brand, in general, is notoriously weak on pulling power, but what do you want for a flatland switcher?
I believe that tstage (Tom) bought one of the newer ones. Perhaps he will comment.
I have 2 of the older Proto 2000 0-8-0’s. They DO NOT have tender pick-ups. The newer ones that Walthers is releasing now come with Tender pick-up’s, DCC and QSI Sound. You can also get these with out DCC and Sound, but they still have the pick-ups. The newer models also come with a seperate driver with rubber “tires” that can be swapped out with one with the metal driver installed on the locomotive for more pulling power.
I also have 2 of the 0-6-0’s. I older model and one of the new ones. From my understanding, these always came with the pick-ups in the tender (both my older one and the new one has them). Again, the new ones come in standard DC or DCC with QSI sound. Again they both come with the extra driver with rubber tires.
Almost forgot…No more light bulds either. My new 0-6-0 came with LED’s. Very big improvemt over the older style light bulds.
I have the earlier release SOU 0-8-0 without the tender pick ups and it does stumble going over atlas switches. But the level of detail is superb.
Crandell,
I’d like to [:)] but I haven’t yet. [:(] If they run and look anything like my little Proto 2000 S1 switcher, they are a champ in my book If I do get one, I’ll have to get the undecorated version because they didn’t have any NYC in this release.
Tom
I have one of the older 0-8-0s, and while it ran well, it could only handle 2 or 3 cars on the 2% grade between my staging yard and the industrial district where I intended to use it. I was going to get rid of it, but manage to add sufficient weight to it that it can now handle 6 to 8 cars on the same grade. I decided to keep it and stripped off all of the factory piping (which looks nice, but in my mind, is undersized). I believe that while the pipe sizes used may have been “correct”, they were for inside diameters and are too small. Working from photographs, I redetailed the loco to match CNR 8414: in addition to all new piping, the rear frame was cosmetically altered and the front frame extended to accommodate the CNR-style front end. New footboards were fabricated from brass bar for both the loco and tender. The running boards were lowered and new lead-filled brass air tanks were installed. The tender was altered to follow CNR practice, and the coal bunker opened to allow for a loose coal load. I intend to add tender pick-up when time allows.
Wayne
We have one of the older runs of 0-8-0s in CN at our club. I could only pull about 5 cars with it up the helix’s. Was a little jerky over switches, but otherwise ran sweet. Headlight was very bright too!
The newer Protos have fixed both problems with full wheel electrical pick up in the tenders and traction tires.
Tom
Have an older 0-8-0 runs fine, use shinohora track so no problem on switches even without tender pickup. Pulling power, it seams everone wants it to pull long trains up grade right out of box! Ya got to fiddle with them to gret what you want, what you are buying is some brass type detail and smooth running mechanim, like the k-4 from spectum I just got badddddd pulling power out of box but little weight, little tweeking and you get what you wanted.
Thanks everyone i think i’ll place my order looks like the newer one should be pretty good.
Hey Bruce
I have two of them. I was only going to have 1st generation diesels on my little layout, but I could not help myself when I saw the Heritage 0-8-0’s. It runs perfectly all over my switching layout ---- many turnouts and tight track. Absolutely no hestition over any of my switches … never once. I never tested it for pulling power. I since bought a second one, and I am going to upgrade one to Tsunami. I’ll post the difference in sound and motor performance when I do.
Greg
Thanks for the info Greg, Does it sound pretty good out of the box? Let us know how it sounds with the Tsunami.