yesterday my train buddy brought a few of his new rapido n-scale gmd-1 units. this is the first n-scale engine made by rapido trains. they even come with factory installed sound decoders. played around with them for a while. despite their tiny size they have about the same pulling power than an atlas p38. but they run a lot smoother. slow speed performance is amazing. smooth as silk. sound is ok, as good as it can be with n-scale. body details are superb. razor sharp painting and printing. i'm extremely picky if it comes to running performance but i have to admit these gmd-1 units are almost on par with kato ! rapido did a great job with their first n-scale unit. kudos ! hopefully they bring out other canadian engines in n-scale. such as a correct f40ph...
i then took out my kato rs2 and hooked it up to the same train. buzzzzzz. wtf ? turned out i had to file down the led of the decoder since the shell pushed the decoder down and caused a short. anyways, the small kato rs2 has more pulling power than an atlas gp38. after adding a second rs2 to the train i let it run for a while. 5-6 hours to be exact. it was indeed running for almost 6 hours without stalling, uncoupling or derailing.
in the meantime i reattached a servo which powers a turnout. also two sd40 have been disassembled and sandblasted. they will become mrl units. most likely. also two sd45 have been disassembled , sandblasted, converted to high-nose, painted black. finally i added the decals to these two units. cab numbers and numberboards are missing yet. have to print them first. then these two nw sd45 highnose 1740 and 1790 will be offered on ebay.
weekly work report..........02/01/2015
Posted - 02/01/2015 : 08:14:33
