Does anyone have experience with Broadway Limited's SW7 or NW2 with the paragon 4 decoder? I have a few of these with paragon 3 and have had the same sad experience with each one - they quickly became shelf queens. Nevertheless, I guess since as they say "one is born every minute", I am tempted on one of these with the paragon 4 decoder. Does anyone have experience with these/able to comment if the paragon 4 models run better than the paragon 3? Is it worth trying one of these? Or would I be better off just driving down the road throwing $20 bills out the car window?
No experience or comment for the Broadway/Paragon locos, but let me know when/where/what you plan to drive, throwing money out the window!
I have read the Paragon 4 is a vast improvement over the 3. Me being a non-sound guy... I say better off just driving down the road throwing $20 bills out the car window?
I have a couple paragon 3 locomotives and they do not run very good. I received a paragon 4 and it is night and day. They have a storage capacitor and the trucks are hard wired. This greatly improved the performance with very little hesitation or sound loss over turnouts.
Most sound equipped locomotives do not like the slightest dirt on the track. This is particularly true with short wheelbase N scale models. Unfortunately it will happen with Atlas S2 gold and Bachmann S4 and NW2 as well. Keep Alive Capacitors will help but are not a solution when track maintenance is poor. Worst of all is that using Brite Boys actually pits the rails making conductivity worse over time.
My NW2 is the first BLI locomotive I’ve owned and thus far I have been pleasantly surprised with the performance, as it’s greatly exceeded my (low) expectations which were based on working with some other BLI locomotives local to me. I tend to leave the sound off, though.
Oh wow, the Broadway Limited NW2 (paragon4) is a super sore spot for me. Mine is sitting in it's box, hidden in a drawer and I hate looking at it. So the issue I have is not at all with the decoder; I own an N scale mikado and an HO scale Consolidation from Broadway limited, and those work very well. Yes the decoders don't run as well as a ESU LokSound, but no complaints for me there. The issue I have with my NW2 is mechanical. Something is binding or out of true, not sure exactly, but it grinds and sounds terrible when running, neither smooth nor silent. I've taken it apart more times than I can count trying to track down the problem, which is a real chore with the wired trucks. Finally, I documented everything I could and sent it in for repairs. I got it back after a long time (two months? more? I can't remember, but it was a long time). The slip of paper they included with the repair simply said they had changed the motor and changed the decoder to an upgraded version. I happily put it on the track, and.... no change at all, still the same surging behaviour and all. I stuck in the box, PO'd. Broadway limited support is really nice though, I don't really have any complaints, other than they didn't actually fix the problem I was describing (maybe I didn't describe it well enough? who knows, but the support people you talk with are not the ones that do the repairs). They even sent me replacement trucks to attempt the repair myself before I sent it in. But after the several month wait for repairs, I was just sick of this loco and don't want to deal with it anymore. If you can try before you buy at a local store, I would strongly suggest you do! I had talked about this when I was painting the NW2, documented here: Broadway Limited NW2 painting
Thanks for the feedback! I am leaning against this now. Stephane's experience is a red flag for me. It just sounds too similiar to other things I've read about other BLI locos. And with the bad experience I have had with the paragon 3 models - I can't have a repeat. It's too bad - N scale switcher's with sound are definitely viable. The Atlas S-2 is fantastic, I love the ones I own.
I know BLI locos get a bad rap from a lot of people but I've had good luck with all of mine.......I had one early E6 fry a decoder, but I was running it on DC at the club, and currently BLI is recommending 16V max on DC so may have been my fault. BLI replaced it under warranty anyway. I have 2 E6s, 2 E7s, 2 Pacifics, a Mikado, 2 P5s and an NW2. Only other issue I've had is the 2 Pacifics have forgotten their programing one time each.......after reprogramming they run fine again, so just an annoyance, not a true problem.........I've been told if I lock the decoders it will solve that problem, but I'm still working on the settings I want, so I haven't tried it. My NW2 runs smooth, and the sound is good......I haven't had any running issues, even running on the club NTRAK layout.......NTRAK is notorious for not having the best trackwork, due to multiple builders, and constantly changing configurations (at least on ours). The keep alive definitely helps, but it only works on DCC, so if you run on DC, don't expect any improvement. BLI had some issues similar to Stephanes with their early F7 releases, and the issue was some of the pins holding gears in the trucks would back out and let the gears shift, From spookshow: Depending on when a given model was made, performance can vary considerably. I (and others) had a lot of problems with models from the first production run, the worst of which relates to the secondary (non-axle) truck gears. The problem here is that the metal shafts that hold these gears are very loosely seated in the sides of the gearbox and can actually slide out of their little holes (thus allowing the gear to spin eccentrically). The net result of this is reduced pulling power and a lot of noise when things inevitably get out of whack. I've even had the top gears (the ones turned by the worms) lose gear mesh, thus transforming entire trucks into useless lumps of plastic (this is reportedly caused by the plastic lids that clip to the tops of the worm gear boxes popping loose).
Thanks for the 'heads-up' on the F unit gear issues. I have many of the F3A, F3B, F7A and F7B units to check on. Were the E A/B units and PA PB unit also affected in this manner?
Not that I'm aware of, and later run F units were fine, but I believe the NWs and the F7s came out about the same time, so it's something to check
Some stores will allow you to run the loco on their test track - so I'd suggest trying that, because it is a nice little loco. I think it's possible to get lemons on most brands, and mine might just be that. It was also an undecorated, which might have made it worse. As I mentioned, out of three BLI locos, this was the lemon. This thread has me thinking I may just take it out of the box and try working on it again, I just need to track down where the mechanical problem is located.
