Mixed Freight
Well-Known Member
Good day all,
I thought I would would share with you my very first MTH locos that showed up on my doorstep a little over a week ago. They are a set of MTH Rock Island E8 Rail King A-A units, a powered unit and non-powered unit. Used locos, but in extremely nice condition. Not a true 1/48th size, but rather traditional sized, which is what I wanted in this case.
After doing a little research over the past few months, I elected to go with these locos since they are a "PS-1" version. These only work on conventional transformer control and not MTH's DCS system, which I don't have or want to mess with right now. The powered unit is sound-equipped, and one can both program it and extract extra sounds and functions out of it with nothing more than a conventional transformer. Now that I can handle!
I kinda' took a chance on ordering these, as they were not tested by the seller and advertised "as is". I've heard stories in the past about how the PS-1 electronics board can croak if the on-board battery goes bad, but fortunately a previous owner had replaced the battery with a "BCR". This BCR device supposedly is a permanent replacement for the original battery and should never go bad or need replaced.
Naturally, I did some inspections and maintenance to these units before trying to run them. The powered unit needed one of its traction tires slipped back on, and the truck axles and gears lubed and re-greased. Good thing I checked this, as the rear truck especially was dried out and squeaking. One of the non-flanged plastic wheels on the rear truck was cracked through the axle, so after some disassembly I epoxied it back together with a steel washer for reinforcement, then re-assembled everything. The non-powered unit simply needed some oil on the axle bearings, and that was it.
After getting everything ready to go and reading the initial instructions in the owner's manual, I set them on the tracks, plugged them together, and powered them up for the first time. Success! I was able to run them for a little while before having to shut them off for the evening. Over the course of the next few days, I learned some more on getting additional sounds out of it, and activating the electric uncouplers. Pretty cool!
That only left me with a few things to correct that the factory didn't do. For one thing, I made up some light shields to prevent the light bulbs from lighting up half the interiors of the shells when running. And something else had seemed odd to me after first unpacking the units. After a day or two it occurred to me - the factory DIDN'T paint the pilots to match the shell paint schemes. They simply left them black like the trucks and the rest of the under frames.
And here's some pictures illustrating my fixes..................
Here's the non-powered unit. The light shield is made up of some black poster board pieces cut to fit inside the shell, and glued in with some Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue. I also applied some shiny aluminum tape to the light bulb side of the shield, to better reflect light out of the headlight lens. I have also re-installed the pilot to the truck after painting it to match the shell. Probably not a perfect color match, but close enough to suit me!
And another view of the light shield.
And here's a few pic's of the powered unit..................
A slightly different configuration for this light shield, due to the front truck motor. With the shiny aluminum tape once again.
Another view of the light shield (albeit slightly fuzzy in this shot). Also, you can plainly see the BCR battery substitute in these pictures.
Here's the whole mechanism. The repainted front pilot not shown here.
And here we are............... ready for full time service now...............
.................... pulling my 12-car Golden State passenger consist!
You can see the tail end of the passenger train on the far side of the layout. 12 cars total stretch quite a ways, even if they're traditional and/or O27 shorties!
Well, as much as I'd love to have passenger trains in a true 1/48th scale, even with the considerable room I do have, I still don't have quite enough room (least not in my opinion) to do them justice. Might have to wait until my next house, or my next life, whichever comes first.
Hope you've enjoyed.
I thought I would would share with you my very first MTH locos that showed up on my doorstep a little over a week ago. They are a set of MTH Rock Island E8 Rail King A-A units, a powered unit and non-powered unit. Used locos, but in extremely nice condition. Not a true 1/48th size, but rather traditional sized, which is what I wanted in this case.
After doing a little research over the past few months, I elected to go with these locos since they are a "PS-1" version. These only work on conventional transformer control and not MTH's DCS system, which I don't have or want to mess with right now. The powered unit is sound-equipped, and one can both program it and extract extra sounds and functions out of it with nothing more than a conventional transformer. Now that I can handle!
I kinda' took a chance on ordering these, as they were not tested by the seller and advertised "as is". I've heard stories in the past about how the PS-1 electronics board can croak if the on-board battery goes bad, but fortunately a previous owner had replaced the battery with a "BCR". This BCR device supposedly is a permanent replacement for the original battery and should never go bad or need replaced.
Naturally, I did some inspections and maintenance to these units before trying to run them. The powered unit needed one of its traction tires slipped back on, and the truck axles and gears lubed and re-greased. Good thing I checked this, as the rear truck especially was dried out and squeaking. One of the non-flanged plastic wheels on the rear truck was cracked through the axle, so after some disassembly I epoxied it back together with a steel washer for reinforcement, then re-assembled everything. The non-powered unit simply needed some oil on the axle bearings, and that was it.
After getting everything ready to go and reading the initial instructions in the owner's manual, I set them on the tracks, plugged them together, and powered them up for the first time. Success! I was able to run them for a little while before having to shut them off for the evening. Over the course of the next few days, I learned some more on getting additional sounds out of it, and activating the electric uncouplers. Pretty cool!
That only left me with a few things to correct that the factory didn't do. For one thing, I made up some light shields to prevent the light bulbs from lighting up half the interiors of the shells when running. And something else had seemed odd to me after first unpacking the units. After a day or two it occurred to me - the factory DIDN'T paint the pilots to match the shell paint schemes. They simply left them black like the trucks and the rest of the under frames.
And here's some pictures illustrating my fixes..................
Here's the non-powered unit. The light shield is made up of some black poster board pieces cut to fit inside the shell, and glued in with some Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue. I also applied some shiny aluminum tape to the light bulb side of the shield, to better reflect light out of the headlight lens. I have also re-installed the pilot to the truck after painting it to match the shell. Probably not a perfect color match, but close enough to suit me!
And another view of the light shield.
And here's a few pic's of the powered unit..................
A slightly different configuration for this light shield, due to the front truck motor. With the shiny aluminum tape once again.
Another view of the light shield (albeit slightly fuzzy in this shot). Also, you can plainly see the BCR battery substitute in these pictures.
Here's the whole mechanism. The repainted front pilot not shown here.
And here we are............... ready for full time service now...............
.................... pulling my 12-car Golden State passenger consist!
You can see the tail end of the passenger train on the far side of the layout. 12 cars total stretch quite a ways, even if they're traditional and/or O27 shorties!
Well, as much as I'd love to have passenger trains in a true 1/48th scale, even with the considerable room I do have, I still don't have quite enough room (least not in my opinion) to do them justice. Might have to wait until my next house, or my next life, whichever comes first.
Hope you've enjoyed.
