The APRR had sent out some engines for upgrading. There were 4 engines that were sent to the Dedham, MA shops for painting. Once they come back, decoders are needed so they can run on the layout.
The engines were sent to NJ John, my resident DCC decoder installer for upgrades. All of the engines John upgraded are non-sound decoders from NCE. While I like the sound of both diesel and steam engines, the cost to put in sound decoders can be very expensive. Besides, if there are a number of people in the room and you have sound engines running, you can't hear anyone talk or yell at each other. Besides, the yelling and banter at times sound better to listen to than the locomotives...
First engine to be upgraded is an Atlas B23-7 #2340 This was one of the Atlas Classic Series Engines.
Next engine to be upgraded was an Athearn GP40 BB model. I have the GP40 series starting with #400 as I have other engines coming back to me that are being painted.
Next engine is another Atlas Classic U23B engine. This one is numbered #2350. Both #2340 and #2350 run very well. I may put them into a consist on one of the larger trainsets in staging.
Last engine to come back on the layout is GP38-2 #300. This engine was one of the first painted by a guy I met years ago. Over time the paint on the rails started to flake off and I decided to have them touched up. It did have sound in it, but the MRC decoder that was in it wasn't that great so I asked John to rip it out and install an NCE decoder. We gave it a test run tonight and it ran just fine.
I wanted to give the engines a little workout as some haven't been run in DC for years, maybe more, especially both GE engines. While they're not running at protoytpical speed, they need to be broken in.
Here's the Geep engines running on the layout. No, Kyle Busch and Mario Andretti are NOT running these engines!!
Same story with the GE engines...
Special thanks for NJ John for getting decoders installed for me so we can add these to the fleet and to future operating sessions!
nice to have locos in a corporate colour !
ReplyDeleteI like them!! Always a big fan of the four axle B Boat your B23-7s look great. The EMD 400 and 300 'class engines' also look mighty fine. Thanks for the videos!!
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I've found NCE decoders have a high defect rate, as much as 25% across the product line. Luckily, the Power Ca and SB5 work fine so far.
ReplyDeleteQuality work! Great looking locomotives that run well! Very nice!
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