I recently got a Model Power USRA 4-6-2 Pacific ( US Army ) and it ran awsome out of the box. It's slow speed was nearly equal to my BL E6 DCC and I expect it to run even better once broke in . Maybe I got lucky .. no?
I wouldn't say the Life-Like 0-8-0 is currently available - they are pretty hard to find, although Walthers says they are going to re-run them.
If you only had to buy one in order to get one that runs well, you got lucky (IMHO). Which is not to say that they are bad models, but rather that Ajin's QC is not what it could/should be. I know that some people (the ones who blindly adhere to my grading system) get put off by the "C" grades I've assigned to the entire Model Power/Ajin line of steamers; which is a bit of a shame because they're all at least potentially decent runners (and even better with different tender trucks). OK, no, even if Ajin had zero QC issues, I wouldn't give any of them an "A" rating (my opinion re those axle wipers on the tender being well documented), but they would certainly rate a "B". The "C" knock-down is mainly due to the fact that you usually have to buy more than one before you find one that runs acceptably well out of the box (or at least that's been my experience with them). Cheers, -Mark
