Hey how about a review? Tina just had a birthday this past week and she usally gets her share of trains. This year she was lucky enough to get a bunch of Z and a new O three rail for her town of Westfield layout. Lets have a look. This is the Atlantic Coast Line Railking Scale GP7. It has just arrived and was in the MTH first 2006 catalog. It features scale proportions but not all the fragile details that come with the Premiere locomotives. Like the other modern MTH engines, it comes complete with the MTH DCS Proto 2.0. My first impression out of the box was a wow. MTH did a good job making certain details look good while leaving the smaller fragile details molded within the body. It looks to me the body and frame are based on the old MTH Proto 1 Premiere GP7. A quick look at my B&M Premeire GP 7 I got in 2000, all but confirmed this. The only difference I saw was the Premiere had operational marker lights and see through fans, where as the new Railking did not. The catalog also says the numberboards are operational, but so far I have not found the button that confirms that. Yes the color was accurate to my paint samples, not that it really matters but something MTH has had a rather good track record with. All the paint and printing was sharp, right down to the builders plate. Setting up the loco is a piece of cake. I set it down on the track and turned on my track power. With the MTH DCS controller in my hand, I selected menu, add new engine, add then MTH engine. The system searched for the engine and soon my screen on my handheld said, "Engine found" ACL_122 added. Cool! Pressing the start button on my controller awoke the prime mover beast within with great sound. Soon all the noise associated with an engine like this was heard, air compressor, preasure relief and even the crew! You can select buttons to have the crew talk with phrases like "Dispatch, how much longer?" "Ray, check that compressor, how is it?" Cool! With a push of the light button and a push of the signal to proceed forward, I heard the distinctive blat style horn honk twice and I was moving forward. The number one thing that drew me to the MTH system was the fact I can have these locomotives crawl. Unlike other three rail loco's that start at jackrabbit speeds, the MTH system can have your loco travel at 1 scale mile per hour, move up to 15, 25, 45 and maintain that speed whatever the grade! That means I can actually switch cars on this layout like my N scale layout. A few clicks of the wheel on my controller and the Geep moved out complete with the notch sound associated with the prime mover. This locomotive also features smoke, and smoke it does! Out of both stacks, smoke comes out and to sweeten the deal, you can control the amount of smoke that comes out by remote! Three levels of smoke out put can be programed from the controller and as an added bonus, you can set it up for labored smoke. It is cool to see it set at the station with just a small amount of smoke coming from its exhaust stacks, then see it pour out when you move it out. Anothe nice feature of this loco is the ability to adjust the volume of not only the whole sound, but the individual horn, engine, bell and crew. Nice. The loco also features remote couplers that make switching a breeze. The loco retails for $299.99 and is a great value. For a small layout like Tina's, the Railking Geep 7 is a great compremise on traditional toy train fun and scale operations. The scale outline of the locomotive allows the user to run traditional 027 or 1/48 scale cars, both look nice with this engine. The play value of the DCS system takes toy trains from the round and round we go, to prototypical operating. This Geep comes in many road names, in fact MTH announced in their 2006 second catalog a CB&Q Blackbird. Might see Westfields heritage real soon!
Nice review on the MTH Scale King GP7. I’ve always like MTH’s GP7 better than Lionel’s. The front of the cab looks better and the hand railing is much better also. It looks like they have a more scale sized fuel tank too. Greg Elems
That is a beautiful unit in any scale. Brings back fond memories of watching one or two of these beauties (the prototype) work from 1 to 10 cars (and caboose) down the Croghan's branch every morning, down at 9-10 am, back between 11-12 am. Those were wonderful summer vacations.
Three rail was a hobby I picked up in 1996 as a break from my detailed N scale hobby. With N scale I'm Mr. Prototype, right details, right era, yadda yadda yadda. Three rail allows me to make believe. Last night I set up the ACL Geep with two 027 Maine Central boxcars, a State Of Maine potatoe boxcar, a Domino Sugar tank car and a B&M TOFC. All were 027. The Train ran smooth at 30 scale MPH and settled its sound into a clickty clack. It is relaxing after laying code 55 N scale track:teeth:
