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DD35 finally arrived - comments no one else made.

LW Lee WillisOGR Forum Member
I picked up my DD35 at my LHS today.

1) Nothing was broken, everything works. So, excepting one repair I did myself, I am 13 good ones out of 15 recent Lionel purchases: one bad one (Mogul) out of the box and one that died (U-Boat) after 41 minutes.

2) I was disappointed when I first set it up and looked at it. Yes, its BIG! But it did not seem as impressively detailed as the new U-boat I got earlier this year. But I put them side by side :same level of detailed casting, applied parts, cab detailed, crisp paint, truck detailing, etc. I have no idea why it does not turn me on - other than being big, this is not a pretty loco. Does anyone else think this is basically an ugly locomotive? But maybe its the "gullwings" over the windows on the U-boat that do it for me - I love them and it does something for the U-baot's looks. Anyway . . .

3) Smoke is really, really good from both stacks. That's fun. But others said that.

4) Sound is good, too - as good as the U-boat's but different. Others said that. But in particular it has a nice long and complicated start up cycle when first put in neutral.

5) INCREDIBLE runner. I didn't read anyone else stressing this enough!!! Lionel over-delivered on its promise of "Refined Conventional Transformer Control Mode with lower starting speeds." This thing is uncanny - much better than the U-boat (which also promised the same and was quite good while it ran). In conventional (all I run) the DD35 creeps along at speeds I've never seen without digital control, all while pulling 15 scale PFE reefers up a 2.5% grade. This is the new slow speed champ on my layout.

Not prototypical, maybe, but it gets gullwings tomorrow. Maybe I'll warm to its look then.
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LW Lee WillisOGR Forum Member
Yes, I've heard the sunshades called gullwings somewhere. Nice name for them.

I just photoshopped the U-boat without them and the DD35 with them and they add a bit of character. But that was not the reason I did not like the look.

The real reason is, photoshop showed me, the gray paint on the top of the DD35 wraps around from the top and comes down the side a scale 2 feet further -- the red line separateing the top dark gray from the armor yellow sides passes through mid-window level on the DD35, whereas it stays above the windows on the U-boat (if you don't have them you can see them in the 2011 catalog - they are depicted correctly as they were delivered). That difference is what changes the look for me. It would be a task to re-paint the DD-35 -- I know my limits and I could not do a good re-paint, so I will leave it as is and just hope I warm to its looks.
LW Lee WillisOGR Forum Member
By the way: I was holding the DD35 up to a Veranda Turbine and noted it is longer than the Veranda (when it is without its tender).
And how, I wondered, did I miss this? I have bashed 17 BEEPS into all manner of other things including the "Porch Turbine" (a tiny Veranda body scratch built on a BEEP). See below, top.

But it never occurred to be to make a BEEP-BEEP - a double BEEP, as the DD35 is a double-diesel.

Stay tuned . . .

HW Hot WaterOGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBER
quote:
The real reason is, photoshop showed me, the gray paint on the top of the DD35 wraps around from the top and comes down the side a scale 2 feet further -- the red line separateing the top dark gray from the armor yellow sides passes through mid-window level on the DD35, whereas it stays above the windows on the U-boat

Sure don't know what "U boat" you are comparing the Lionel DD35A unit to, but the gray SHOULD come down to the top 1/3 of the cab sides, if you look at color photos of the real DD35A units. Besides, the DD35A was an EMD product whereas any "U boat" would have been a GE product, and quite a bit different.
LW Lee WillisOGR Forum Member
Yes, probably you are right, MichRR714. and that is the appeal to me to some extent, a gloriously big, brawny loco, even if "efficiently industrial" looking (I once heard something that was veyr uglly referred to like this).

I was examining the DD35 and the U-Boat side by side again this morning. The U-boat has, cast into the top or roof or whatever you call the upper side of its shell, lines representing the seams between sections of the loco body. The DD35 has nothing like this - the entire top has some details (smoke stacks, etc) but otherwise it is just one expanse of plastic, with no interruptions for lines between panels, weld seams, etc. Was the real DD-35 like this? Hard to imagine that GE didn't build it out of sections, too. I think this contributes a lot to what I see as a somewhat "toylike" appearance of mine.
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