I picked up this set of locos a month or so back, and thought the members here might enjoy seeing them.
Right of Way was a small brass importer that was around during the early days of what might be called the “3 Rail Scale Renaissance” in the late 80s/early 90s. Unfortunately, they exited under conditions that left a bitter taste for a lot of folks, with Bill Benson, the owner, having taken pre-order deposits for a project and then essentially disappearing(I won’t tackle that one, but it’s hard to discuss ROW without mentioning this unfortunate end). Aside from being nicely detailed for the time and with solid drive trains, ROW offered an in-house sound system in all of their locomotives(or at least all I’ve encountered) and full electronic reverse unit.
The Alco PA1s were something of a signature product, or at least one often mentioned in conjunction with the company. The are full scale locos(and yes, an O scale PA is certainly not a small engine), sold as best as I can tell always in an ABA set with a single powered unit and two dummies. The powered unit contains the sound and reverse unit, along with a pretty substantial lead weight around the rear motor. The dummies are tethered via a 4-pin tether-as best as I can tell the tether controls lighting and also ties center roller pick-ups on all units together. The usual stated retail price of the set when new was $1400.
Mechanically, these units have vertical Pittman 8332 motors driving all axls of the associated power trucks. Member Lou N. on OGR, who worked for ROW(and if I’m not mistaken later had careers with TAS and maybe even Lionel?) has reported that these are ball bearing motors and even back in the early 90s ROW was paying around $60 each for them.
The overall construction of these is interesting. The chassis is thin sheet aluminum, and is very “floppy” unless the shell is installed.
The shells themselves of course are the real attraction here. They are brass with etched fan screens, and overall very nicely detailed although much of the detail is cast in. Probably the biggest visual detraction are the switches on top, one for reverse lock-out and one for sound on-off. The non-powered units have holes for these switches. Probably the biggest attraction, though, is that on these D&H models, and if I understand correctly the Santa Fe ones, the “silver” finish is actually a satin nickel plating. It’s quite striking in person.
These are loaded with lighting, including directional headlights and lights on all the number boards. The lighting is all run off the sound board.
Despite being conventional and not having flywheels, these are excellent runners. I was able to get respectable slow speed with my Z4000. The sound isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s also to appreciate for what it is. There are two socket ROM DIPPs on the sound board, one with a hand-written “bell” label, and the other with a hand-written “Alco” label. Lou N. reports going out and recording these sounds on a cassette recorder.
I had planned to put TMCC in these, but haven’t brought myself to do it. For one, although I know it’s been done, fitting an antenna is certainly going to be challenging(the fuel tank might be the only easily insulated separate part, and I’m not sure how good of an antenna it would make). For another though, I kind of hate to lose the charm/engineering of the old sounds. Since the motors lack flywheels, TMCC would either need to be open loop speed control(which I suspect would actually do well in these) or back-EMF via a Cruise Commander or a Legacy BEMC. DCS would be out of the question as far as I know without remotoring(the motor end bells only clear the shell by a few millimeters at the top)
This set is #38 of 50. I assume the 50 production number refers to just D&H, although I’m sure there were not huge numbers of these. From what Lou N. says on OGR, the D&H and Santa Fe were the most common, with a handful of others made in single digit quantities.
