Just picked up a LL GP38-2 that was on sale @ Walthers. It seems to have pickup issues on a few spots on the layout that my 3 other locos do not (Atlas, Bachmann, Proto N). Does anyone know how to improve the pickup on a GP38-2 from LL?
My Intermountain FT & F7 units are whisper quiet and smooth as silk... they beat my Atlas Kato stuff all day long on the smooth rails! LOVE them dearly.
Well since I converted almost my entire inventory of rolling stock to FVM or other metal wheels, the noise of the cars tells me where the trains are. Even drown out the sound from an Athearn Challenger. So it is not that I strive for whisper quiet, but that is what I seem to get. I do not mind a little sound, but I do not like really noisy locomotives, like a leaf blower sort of thing, that tells me something is wrong with the locomotive and needs addressing. I am all for smooth running and good traction, the rest is incidental. As they say, beauty is only shell deep, but ugly goes clear to the frames. So any good running locomotive is a good running locomotive regardless of the manufacturer.
Is this loco the new Life Like with the split metal frame like Atlas and Kato? If it is I own a C424 that had problems, I finally tracked it down to the truck's bearing/pickup, I bent the bearing/pickup in just a tad, so there was almost no side play in the axle. Wow, want a difference, it now runs perfect.
Real engine are not whisper quiet I tell real engines in my backyard to be whisper quiet. they don`t to mind.
My noisiest engine is by far an Atlas GP7/9 mechanism I have a LL GP20 high nose shell on. The GP20 mechanism, being used for a low nose GP7, is MUCH quieter. My LL GP60 is much better than a couple of my Atlas GP40s and exponentially better runner and quieter than my two Kato GP38s. Those two I can barely keep running and sound horrible. I've gotten them to quiet down a little but still don't run very well.
I need to check if it is a split-frame. This is a brand new unit from Walthers. Thanks for the advice.
If it has Rapidos on the trucks it's an old spring drive. If it has a full pilot (regardless of couplers) it's a split-frame. The fuel tanks were brass on the old, plastic on the new.
In my honest opinion and from MY experience, they exist in this order.... KATO, new ATLAS, ATHEARN, BLI, INTERMOUNTAIN, MICRO TRAINS, anything else is in a lower class of its own. When I open up a Life Like, its a stone age piece, PROTO is a great attempt to better Life Likes reputation. Bachmann, not bad design put very bad quality, the two don't mix. PLUS & SPECTRUM is a great attempt to recover BACHMANN's reputation. Again, this is from MY experience. There may be other brands I do not have experience with.
The Barrel/Worm gears on the Plus units seem to skip on the primary drive gear in the truck. This could be cured with a brass worm. Reason I dont buy the Bachmann Spectrum F7's, fear of this jumping & skipping.
I have all these brand names and the thing with the Atlas and Katos is you have to run them for awhile to get them to quiet down. The thing with Life Like if they are noisy from the beginning then they will not quiet down unless you do some work on them. I never had to make any major adjustment to my Katos and Atlas. Now on some of my Life Like PA's I had to remove some drive bushings to make them quiet down.
