I’m considering purchasing a Roundhouse RTR 2-6-0. Does anyone have any experience with this loco?
Look and you (or I) shall receive. I found a video review of this locomotive on Youtube. Roundhouse RTR 2-6-0
Marlon:
That is one nifty little locomotive. I have a couple of the older Roundhouse steam kits (2-8-0/4-6-0) that I built Lord-only-knows how long ago, that were little ‘coffee grinders’ but did the job rather nicely back then. I’ve always thought about re-suscitating and remotoring them.
The new ones are sure quiet. Watching that video makes me think I should get my older ones out of the box and go to work on them, LOL!
Tom
One of my buddies has several of these and the 4-4-0s. He really likes them and they run quite well. If you manage to get one with the original MRC sound decoder, you may want to replace with something better, as my friend got disgusted with his randomly losing their programming (which I witnessed). He replaced all of the factory decoders with Tsunamis and they all work great now.
My only prior experience with Roundhouse locomotives was their Shay kit. The boiler was a slightly hollowed tube of lead (at least it sure felt like it.) The kit required LOTS of flash cleanup on all of the metal parts. And as you mentioned in your locomotives, it had that “coffee grinder” motor in it. With all the weight it had, it would pull like a mule, but you always knew when it was running. Thanks for all of your feedback.
Bought one on a whim last fall. Was not a great financial burden. Runs well. Easily converted to DCC. No regrets.
D
I was very surprised to see that these RTR offerings look so similar to the last kits that Roundhouse released of which I have a few.
They could have at least added some extra detail, these are the blandest looking steamers I have seen in a long time. They may run well, but they sure are plainly finsihed…
My guess is that the kits don’t come with much detailing, so they basically just assemble the kit, then stick in a different box. I wonder if someone out there has detailed one of these locomotives and would consider posting a thread, or MR could do an article on one.
I thought these were just re-releases of the same locos too at first, but a close looks shows many differences compared to the kits. Detail is still very sparse, but the overall construction is of much higher quality, especially the drives.