Well, it finally arrived at the office. First, a little bit of background.
I've visited Big Boy #4014 on several occasions at the LA County Fairgrounds. When the rumor began circulating that Union Pacific wanted to restore a Big Boy, I figured that #4014 was a prime candidate as in my discussions with the Rail Giants Museum people I found out they had done some key things to aid in preserving the locomotive -- removing the asbestos from the boiler jacket, removing the pistons from the cylinders and keeping the would-be souvenirs securely stored. Apparently UP thought so and approached Rail Giants about it. I later confirmed with them at Fullerton Rail Days that UP was buying it an providing trade-in equipment. That led me to E-mail Midge at MTH regarding producing the "as-restored" #4014 since they had all of the requisite tooling. When they announced it in the 2015V1 catalog, I had to buy one and because of the significance of this particular locomotive (and the ability to run on my planned 42" minimum radius) meant scale wheels were in order. MTH refers to it as oil-fired in their catalog, though I prefer "as restored" since the plan (per the UP and Rail Giants people) is to oil fire the locomotive like the Challenger.
To start with, the locomotive is nicely detailed (lack of a tail beam aside). Lettering is clear and sharp including markings for the high-pressure water testing on 6-15-2015, There's a deck plate between the cab and tender (I left it down for the testing). The whistle supposedly smokes but I didn't test that feature. Slow speed running is great and it ran along at 2 scale miles per hour right out of the box without stuttering.
The Good:
- Nice detail
- Great sound
- Smooth running
- Negotiates sharper curves than it really should provided there's nothing for the boiler to hit (the unit did kiss a tunnel portal on the way back to the staging yard).
- Smokes like crazy.
- 2-rail/3-rail compatibility. Ran it in 2-rail mode on the test track before putting on the rollers and testing it on the layout.
- DCS/DCC compatibility. It will probably do some track time with the Orange County O Scalers modular group under DCC.
The Bad:
- Without cleaning up our track work and removing every kink, dip and rise, it won't see a lot of track time at AGHR, but it will make an appearance this weekend.
- It's heavy and a bit tricky to handle. I'm thinking about making a roll-in/roll-out transport case for it.
- Most expensive locomotive I've purchased -- the train slush fund took a major hit with this one. Interestingly enough, I've seen two two-rail units listed in the secondary market already above MSRP.
The Ugly:
- Yellow LED classification lights. Should be white or green. I may change them out after the warranty expires.
The Pictures:
lighter, cheaper, not big and heavy like wood. 
