I guess its the collector in me, but I just can’t say no to a Union Pacific FEF Northern, especially in the Greyhound scheme. The same goes for their streamlined Hudsons and Challengers, but thats another story.
How are the Northerns for running? The local hobby shop had a few buried at the bottom right hand corner of the HO center isle shelfs along with a Greyhound and 3985 challenger and NYC 20th Century and Empire State Hudsons.
Weather or not they run good I plan to buy all the old ones for display.
where is this hobby shop located at ( i might just have to beat you to the northern and the challenger) Just kidding the northerns and challengers are for running cause a challenger will just look silly in a switching yard, Good find
I would not call Rivarossi “worthless”, expecially if you have the latest run…(small flanges and can motors). The newer Rivarossis run nice and would be amazing models if you installed a tsunami sound system.
I don’t entirely agree that the Riv FEF-3’s are good runners. I bought one several years ago and put a Tsunami in it. I use Peco 75, which my other 129 engines seem fine with. But backing the FEF-3 toward frogs seems to cause that “hanging” rear truck to derail most of the time on medium radius switches. That “feature” seems poorly designed. Low-speed smoothness is only fair.
Detail is OK, but there is no footplate on the back of the cab. I don’t put this engine in the same steam class as Trix, BLI, LL, or the Lionel Challenger. Of course, they all have some problem(s). My favorites for appearance and smoothness are my Trix BB and LL 0-6-0/0-8-0’s. The LL’s won’t pull much, however.