I am excited to say that I finally won an ebay auction for a switching locomotive that i have needed (wanted) for awhile. Initially, I wanted to buy a kato NW2 to pull switching duty in my rail yard. I heard some rumors that the Life-Like SW9/1200 is a top notch performer. At $20.00, I figured I had to give it a shot. So I found one in the ATSF paint scheme in keeping with my growing fleet of Santa Fe locos. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemVersion&item=350299875831&view=all&tid=0 My question is: Did I make a good decision? I realize I will know when it gets here next week but what can I say...I am anxious to hear about its performance and faults. Is there anything I should look out for with this engine. Also are there any upgrades to the drive train that are recommend and etc. Your input, as always, is greatly appreciated. :beer:
I have a couple......one I bought undecorated and painted for MRL, the second is Milwaukee Road. Both are great runners in low speed operation and have good pulling power for their size. Mine both came with Rapidos, but conversion was simple to MT couplers. My only "issue" is the one direction only headlight, but that's minor compared to all the pluses. I'd buy more if I had a need for additional switchers.
If you find it is noisy, you just need to change out the worms for Kato brass worms. Great little switcher. And if you paid $20, you got a good price. They often go for $30.
Like everyone has said great deal for 20.00 only thing I don't like is to install DCC the decoder has to go into the cab. And the flanges are huge.
I used the new Z2 decoders from TCS and placed the decoder on top of the light board. I wanted to keep the cab weight for max pulling power.
