Once again I find myself opening a post with “Wow, it’s been a while since the last update!” and it has. A lot of stuff has happened over the past few months that has slid working on the layout down the priority list, and updating the site even further down the priority list. Things have been going on around the layout though with some new vehicles and a new building completed. But the focus of today’s layout is rolling stock.
Back over the July 4th weekend, Model Train Stuff launched a decent sale that surprisingly is still going on, initially it appeared that this was just a holiday weekend sale, but it’s since been extended and doesn’t currently appear to have an end date.
Thanks to the sale I decided (against my better judgement) to pickup a Rapido Horizon Amtrak Dinette car and to finally pickup a mainline freight engine in the form of a Kato GE ES44C4 in the same Florida East Coast Champion livery as my SD40-2s.
Rapido’s run of Amtrak Horizon cars are very similar to their Comet cars. Given my experience with the Comet cars, I originally had absolutely no intention of getting any of the Horizons. Since that post, I’ve brought the Comets back to the layout a few times and pulled them pretty quickly out of frustration – and given that the Horizon’s are almost the same cars the odds of it being another diva were pretty high. But it was on sale, so I figured why not?
Imagine my shock when I unboxed the Horizon, placed it on the track, tapped it – and it rolled off, and then kept rolling down the track…. Unlike the Comets, the Horizon Dinette freely rolls around the track. Also unlike the Comets – I’m not having any of the uncoupling or derailing issues with the Horizon, and that’s with the stock couplers the Horizon came with.
I haven’t had issues with the trip pin snagging on the track, the car just runs like it should. I don’t know what Rapido did right with the Dinette that they didn’t with the Comets – but if my Comets ran like this Dinette they’d still be on the layout.
As I mentioned, the other addition was something that’s been on the list for a while – a mainline diesel freight engine. I’ve got a lot of passenger engines on the roster, as well as a few yard and road switchers, but nothing that would have been used for mainline freight.
As part of the sale were Florida East Coast GE ES44C4 engines with ESU LokSound installed for under $200. Initially I just purchased #801, but because I like to have pairs I eventually ordered #805 as well.
For the most part I like them. They’re Kato engines, so as expected they run well right out of the box. From a paint and graphics perspective I also think they look pretty good.
Now that I’ve got engines from a variety of brands though, detail wise they’re not quite as nice as I’d like.
Let’s start with lighting, and this is kind of standard for Kato – the ditch lights. They’re there, but they don’t flash like what’s available from BLI and others. My assumption (because I haven’t opened the shell) is that the ditch lights are both lit from the same bulb so it’s not possible to get them to flash.
What about the number boards though? They sure look like they should be lit – but they’re not. This may be a railroad specific thing – but Scaletrains has lit number boards as well as walkway lights on their ES-44s.
Then there’s the sound – and despite the way folks rave about ESU LokSound, I’m getting a bit underwhelmed by them. The LokSound that I had installed in the RDC’s sounds good and has quite a few sound options, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the ES44C4s.
Much like the LokSound that was installed in the P42 that I got a few months ago, there’s not a light of functionality. Lights on and off, engine sound, bell, and horn. No blowers, sanders or other sounds. Plus I need to check the sound file – because the engine sounds are identical to the sounds on the P42 which doesn’t seem right to me.
I still think that these are good engines – but given where the market is going, I’ve got to ask, is Kato starting to fall behind?