I got the PRR atlantic 4-4-2 set from Atlas O for Christmas. I think the engine overall was a dissappointment. First of all it looks somewhat out of scale, they only provide one traction tire on the unit which makes pulling the 3 cars it comes with challenging if you try to run at slow scale speed. Also the light is rather dim and they put the hook up for the sound under the engine and under the rear trailing truck on the locomotive which makes connecting it kind of hard. Is it just me or could they have done this engine better?
When you open the box, you’ll first notice the locomotive’s small stature. It is 13¾ inches long (55 feet in O scale), and just about every locomotive that we placed alongside towered over it. With that said, the Atlas O 4-4-2 looks great sitting next to traditionally sized cars.
And your summary stated:
O GAUGE 4-4-2 STEAM LOCOMOTIVE BY ATLAS O Price: $159.95
Features: O-27 operation, can-style motor, die-cast metal locomotive, headlight, smoke unit, digital bell and whistle
Pros: Well made, smooth running, very nice smoke production
Cons: Smallish stature for many layouts, whistle sound a bit distorted
Made in the People’s Republic of China for Atlas O
I bet it looks great with Atlas Industrial Rail cars, but I bet it looks funny with full size Atlas Scale cars. [:)]
Sorry about this, but here goes. “Whistle sound a bit distorted”. As many have noted, it isn’t even a whistle. There is no little distortion, just distortion! The thing sits nose-high, and the drivers don’t match the engines finish. Smoke output is FANTASTIC! The tender is FANTASTIC! I personally like the size, but it is little. I’ve never been more sorry that I bought an engine as this one. The IR line was good, Atlas is good, but the two combined with this engine, is not so good. I keep hoping others have better luck with their engines, but to date, have not heard many good things about it. Hate to be this negative, but buyer beware on this little guy.
As I’ve said before, there is absolutely an art to “selective compression.” The engineers at Lionel for the most part, have had a solid grip on that. For example, of course the 027 Alco FA would look silly pulling scale sized cars. But it doesn’t look wrong pulling traditionally sized or 027-sized cars. And with the general look and feel of the loco compared to the real thing, Lionel got it right. K-Line got it even better with that model.
MTH also did an outstanding job on the “selective compression” of the Rugged Rails SD90MAC… realistically, that’s a huge engine. But MTH got the major details and feel of the loco shrunk down just right for smaller traditionally sized rolling stock. Even the RMT (which was developed by an engineer/designer at Kusan) BEEP - a ficticious loco - still has the feel and proportion of the real thing, even if there is no real thing. And it looks good with traditionally sized trains to boot. And the RMT BUDDY (orginally developed by engineers/designers at MARX) is absolutely smaller than the real thing proportionally, but looks just right with traditionally sized trains. Compare the RMT BUDDY (or the similar K-Line Budd car) to the Lionel version and you’ll see the vast dsize differences. Yet the BUDDY looks good for where it is suppose to look good.
I think Atlas screwed up on this, and I’m sorry to have seen them put the investment dollars into tooling of a product that is headed for questionable success. It means they are going to have to do one heck of a better job on their next IR locomotive release, should there be one.
Like the previous UMD Industrial Caboose, the Atlas IR Atlantic is small even when compared to the IR rolling stock. Of course, some steam engines are small. But I think this was meant as competition to the Lionel stater 4-4-2 steamer. And other than the smoke unit of the Atlas one, I don’t think Lionel has anything to worry about with this Atlas IR steamer. For a length comparison, the L
I’ve seen people talking about a “heads-up” look to this engine (front seeming to rise upwards). Any comments from owners on this? When I first saw it at York, I thought it was “S” gauge. To me, it looks much smaller than other O27/semi-scale engines. Joe
Joe, I haven’t seen the new atlas loco, but they have at least six pictures of it in the Oct-Nov-Dec Atlas Quarterly…Yes, it appears to have a “heads up” look…But, If you look at a photo of a Pennsy E6, it is easy to recognize where this “heads up” look came from; if the E6 is the prototype…
I was wondering how this loco compares in size when placed side by side with a 4-4-2 Lionel starter set loco??
I few years ago, I bought an old #565 American Flyer 4-4-2 on eBay… I bought this loco for two reasons: I wanted a 4-4-2 Atlantic with a Belpaire firebox, which would resemble the Atlantics used on the Great Northern. The second reason was that I wanted an American Flyer “o” gauge locomotive…
Well, when placed side by side with an S gauge American Flyer 4-6-2, the boiler shells were both S gauge, but the O gauge running gear dwarfed that shell…not what I really wanted. So much for an American Flyer Atlantic…
I had some hopes up for this Atlas loco…To be something that I would care to run with tranitional rolling stock, it should be at least close in size to a Lionel starter set loco…I agree with others that say that “Lionel did it right the first time”…
For the price and being from Atlas’s Insustrial Rail line, I wouldn’t expect any kind of real scale fidelity or sleek peformance out of an engine like this. Especially seeing Lionel’s scale Atlantic is has an MSRP of $600 fully loaded. I would expect the Atlas loco to pull decently. As others say, it should compare to Lionel’s 4-4-2, General, or MTH’s bantam steamers. However, engines like Lionel’s Docksider or K-Line’s Porter are very tough to beat for the price. But then I’m comparing apples to oranges since they are scaled off small locos to begin with.
BDT, I don’t have a modern starter set locomotive, but I think they are about the same as an old scout engine. Please note that I purchased this engine because of its size. I like the small size, just not the drivers, nose-up attitude, and sound.
It’s not a bad looking steamer, really. Those drivers though…egad. I think if you blackened the drivers chemically or with paint (depending on how they are finished) you will feel better about it.
I have plans to paint the drivers, just too many projects in front of it. The paint and decoration are perfect on the little guy…but you just can’t fix the nose-up attitude and the whistle. I could probably gut the tender and install a ERR sound commander, or possibly a Williams true-sound board, but at what point should a guy call it quits on this thing?
I thought I could fix the nose-up issue with spacers, but the more I look at that engine, the more difficult it appears. The Atlas rep at York told me that the real Atlantics were nose-up, but were they as nose-up as this model, or is that just a convenient excuse to cover a design flaw discovered too late in the production cycle to fix?
I also wonder about the scale. That engine just looks too small to me. But since Atlas is a primarily a scale-model company, they must have had some scale in mind when they engineered the model, but what scale? Were the real Atlantics rather small compared to the cars they pulled?
To add further insult, my Atlantic is a very poor puller. The wheels tend to spin when pulling even a modest load.
Good points: It has a great smoke unit, and the headlight (amber LED with a focusing lens) will probably never burn out and actually produces a clearly defined bright circle when it shines on the wall.
But overall, this engine is a great disappointment. I was thrilled when Atlas purchased the IR tooling and entered the traditional-sized market. The company’s entire culture to that point was focused on scale models, so the transition to non-scale must not have been easy. I still don’t think they quite understand the traditional-sized market. I have really wanted to support their efforts, but this engine simply is not a competitive product.
When Atlas first entered the three-rail scale O-gauge market, their first diesel also had issues. It took the company a while to get things right. Perhaps there is still hope for their future IR motive power.
I’m sitting here looking at 15 or so side view photos of PRR Altantics, and a few from the “teens” look a bit “nose up”. AF postwar, and recent Lionel & MTH do NOT look this way. I prefer the latter. Joe
