I finally got around to running the newest Diesel on the line. I made a very active decision to finally get a BN green locomotive as techinically, that is the Railroad that I actually worked on as a Machinist helper in the early 1970's. I have 3 pieces of rolling stock that are BN green, including a caboose.
The initial run was uneventful. I ran it for about one hour. I didn't put any of the detailed parts on. Several days ago, I changed out the front coupler to the USA knuckle. I put on the handrails and other small detailed parts. I proceeded to run the train for a contnuous 4 hours! As usual, the USA trains engines are solid performers.
The smoke unit puts out more smoke so this has obviously been redesigned. It has been reported that due to some of the internal changes, these engines do not act the same as earlier USA Trains units under the same power. This creates a problem with running this engine with the older USA engine in the same consist.
One of my per peeves with MOST of the USA Trains engines are the on/off switches that are located on the BOTTOM of the train. The NW2 has a nice door on the unit for easy access. These Geep 30's have them on the bottom. Too bad.
The unit pulls very good and it, like all USA Trains, does have the traction tires and sliders. When I ran the engine the second time, there had been 2-3 days of solid rain. You can see the rain splash on the box car in some of these photos. The engine, with it's 12 power pickups grunted through the rain splash and grime on the track. I did NOT have to push it along once. I was very impressed. I had it pulling two Aristocraft track cleaners with the drywall sanding screen modification.
I will have to get some more BN units to make a longer consist but I won't be going overboard on the color. I still consider myself more of a Burlington Route Lover. And speaking of BN - here is a photo of the "gang" that I used to work with during my stint as a Machinist Helper with Burlington Northern.
