Well some of you know my saga with the stupid shay. I wanted a climax, but that has the same issues. Well one of the sellers on ebay started selling these with DCC onboard (no sound) and I picked one up. Mind you my layout curves are 18" so it is really tight, and all my switches are #4. The loco found every single issue in my track laying. (I need to get better) These were all resolved in short order and that little loco is pretty cool....slows down going up.....goes faster going down. In fact, I like it so much I bought another last nite and one of the two I am going to bash and remove the coal bunker and make a tender so I negotiate my 16" curve portion. So, no little gears to split on the shafts. Still out to lunch on the DCC, but have not programmed any CVs yet.
