I have a VO1000 in Frisco black & yellow that runs quite nicely, especially in slow speeds and switching operations. If you find one, you will have made a good choice, IMO.
I have an Atlas MP-15DC with factory equipped decoder. Its the CP Rail #1442. Im sure it's a fine model per se but mine is not. I found it quite noisy and erratic in performance. It died on me soon after a call for help I made on this forum. I sent it back to Atlas. Apparently, the decoder had a "bad driver". It came back damaged (a broken detail part and a miss-fitted shell that damaged the cab's lightning conduit thing). Now, the annoying noise is gone but the performance has worsened. It behave like a lazy dot-matrix printer, it stall over #7 non-powered frog and is unable to get 6 50' box cars up a 2% grade. That's it for this little guy. I got a lemon alright.laugh: Im gonna do... things... to it. Trying out weathering and stuff. Im eyeing the Kato NW-2 but that is low priority right now.
Thanks for that tidbit. I did this to a GP30 but for some reason it never came to me to modify the VO.
OK. I did the bearing block modification where I removed the inner block and the buzzing has almost gone completely away. Its only noisy when the shell is ON, but I have been in and out of it so much I need to glue the cab back onto the walkways. I think thats the minute noise I now hear. Thanks again for throwing that solution out there. By the way someone mentioned pulling 6 cars up a 2% grade with a VO1000 and I think that may be asking to much. I limit my yard operators to 5 cars on level track so the loco is less likely to fail. Just my thoughts.
