This is one of Lionel's better kept secrets. It's based on the Southern RR Mikado they released in the early 90s but has a DC motor, Odysessy, and wireless tether and was released in 2000. It only somewhat resembles a NYC engine, possibly an H5 class. What I find most desirable is not only only is the motor DC buts its a 9434 Pittman, one of the largest and torquiest motor used in any O scale engine. The boiler casting is also very heavy which means its likely capable of pulling over 40 freight cars, maybe more with ease. Try that with your Legacy Mikes.
Where it fell short was having only a two lobe cam and puffer smoke unit which gave 1 puff per rev. That was addressed by replacing the cam with a 4 lobe and the smoke unit with a fan unit used in most current Lionchief engines. Details added included a scale front coupler from Precision Scale that actually operates prototypically. Also replacing the red class LEDs with green and adding clear lenses. Finally my usual mods of cab curtains and deck plate and in this case shortening the drawbar.
I usually leave Odyssey alone if its working but this engine had an odd stutter that I first thought was mechanical binding but turned out to be the Odyssey board. A Cruise M fixed that but as they usually do it killed serial data so a 3 wire IR emitter in the drawbar replaced the 2 wire. In a 2 wire setup the R2LC has to power the LED directly. A 3 wire buffers that signal with a transistor relieving current draw from the rado board.
Anyway, here is a pic of the cam and video of the result. Hopefully Rich won’t pull the thread for posting in portrait mode but it was the only way I could get this angle with my iPad.
. Is that 6 axle tender accurate for anything or is that just what lionel used time?
