I like how you show us around the engine while listening to the different sounds. Also, great history on these engine, its nice to hear about how and why they did things.
AWESOME..outta my price range BUT love steam engines esp the Northerns (4-8-4), Nickel Plate's Berkshire (2-8-4) and Canadian National Railways (before became simply as CN in the 50-60's) light Mountain (4-8-2) steamers.. Im from New Brunswick Canada (next to Maine USA) and continue to be impressed and influenced by your videos to make my budget tight layout into something wouldn't expect as a budget tight layout.. your operation and scenery tips have again been very inspiring and helpful.. thank you and I look forward to more of your videos.
Thanks for the review. BLI has to upgrade their sounds. These just don't cut it anymore. It gets old having to gut their electronics to put in a better decoder, and then you lose the smoke unit.
Jonathan, thanks for the feedback. I would be nice if all decoder manufactures made theirs where they could be updated with new sound files and software after purchase. ESU Loksound decoders can be updated like that, but so far they are the only ones. Hopefully everyone else will follow suit in the future. Cheers, Kevin
Also, just an interesting thought, I got the Paraon(QSI) verison. Some noticeable differences include: 1. darker "Brunswick green" 2. Paragon 3 sound 3. Real coal load 4. Blackend drive rods 5. smoke 6. 2 holes in the drawbar instead of 1 7. larger wire plug with more wires(for smoke unit) 8. LED headlight Clearly they've made some improvements in their models, although I'd like to see more separately applied piping instead of the modeled on piping. I only paid $98 for my model though, well worth it!
Kevin, very nice camera work! You really got in there on the details. Your run-by shots were very nice also. I'm not a Pennsy guy, but this looks like a nice loco.
That was nice Kevin! BLI sure does have some nice models. I hope the repair is going well on your layout. I have been missing the scenery and the ops/history lesson. Cheers, Dan
Dan, thanks for the compliment on the video and layout. On the layout, I ended up repairing the track so I could run trains a few more times before starting on the larger changes. Still working out the final design so I haven't started yet. Probably going to make some larger changes than what I showed in the last video update. Stay tuned. Cheers, Kevin
Great video. Beautiful locomotive. Also Thanks for the history lesson. I'm fascinated by the steam era and my plan is to model that steam to Diesel transition era.
Thanks for the compliments on the video and engine. Transition era layouts offer a lot of variety of locomotives and rolling stock and there's lots of iconic structures from that era. Should make for a great layout. Cheers, Kevin
Agreed. Scale sound is a very personal thing and what one person likes another might not. However, I agree with you that this engine sound really good. Cheers, Kevin
This is not good accurate sound. BLI needs to do a better job with their sounds. They have fallen behind the industry leaders. Just compare this to a LokSound steam file with Full Throttle. Not even close to that quality.
Wow, great review! Quick question, I have the BLI L1s in Paragon 3 sound. I notice that in higher speeds, the chuffs sound kinda messed up. At higher speeds, you hear 3 chuffs per rev(then a skip) than 4. Is that the case with yours too? I personally prefer paragon 2 sound.
I have not noticed that with my Paragon 3 engines, but I generally run them at slower speeds. I haven't really tried to listen to the differences between Paragon 2 and Paragon 3. Maybe that will be a future video. Cheers, Kevin.
At 13:23 in the video you can see the 2 middle wheels out of the 4 big wheels don't even hit the track. Just for show i guess the outside 2 big wheels only make contact with the track!
Al, good eye. I hadn't noticed that. The two middle drive wheels don't have flanges which allows the engine to operate on tighter curves than it would otherwise. In addition all of the wheels have a small amount of vertical and horizontal movement which allows them to negotiate less than perfect track without binding. Not sure why the wheels lifted up a bit at that spot. Maybe my track isn't as level as I thought right there. Cheers, Kevin.
Wow, very nice layout and thats a very nice steam engine. I like the SD40-2 diesel locomotives in the Southern Pacific livery, do you use them on your railroad and if you do can you make a video with them?
Thanks for the compliment on my layout. Southern Pacific didn't have any straight SD40-2s, but did have SD40-2Ts and SD40 and SD45 rebuilds. Not sure which model you're referring too, but yes I run all my SP engines. In my primary time frame of 90-95, SP and D&RGW had already merged so SP jointly owned the Joint Line along with Santa Fe. If you watch any of my operations videos set in that era you'll see lots of SP power. Cheers, Kevin
John, normally I use a Digitrax Radio Dulpex Super Chief. I also use my NCE PowerCab and ESU CabControler sometimes. All are great systems. You just have to find the one that is the most intuitive to you. Cheers, Kevin.
