MTH RK Imperial Turbine Pics on MTH Facebook Page!!!

If they do, I'll be happy I waited. An S2 has been on my "get" list but to this point I just haven't pulled the trigger. RU sure this is RK Imperial and not Premier? I'd be even happier if it were Premier...

 

Gilly

MTH put out a news release that several Railking steam engines will be in the new catalog. Apparently MTH has secured production capacity to enable this. And yes, the S2 is a railking imperial. And all the engines- several 4-8-4's and 4-6-4's will be PS3. what amused me was the pictures of the engines-- no tether-- not even the wireless one. They must have retouched the photo's, as the engines appear to be on Realtrax.

 

Does RK Imperial imply scale size? This is a fuzzy area. Or is only RK Scale, full scale?

It looks great, I'm tempted.

Hi Dave, the Rail King Imperial is very close to scale size but not to the degree that the Premer models are.

With Rail King Scale offerings the trains are scale, but only because the prototype was rather small in size. Thus they can run on O-31 turns even though they are scale, such as most switchers.

The Imperial model will have most of the bells and whistles, as well as detail as the Premier product but it will negotiate O-31 turns. I doubt if anyone could produce a scale turbine that can take O-31 turns.

 

So to be Imperial is not necessarily to be scale, but it will have the detail of a scale piece. It is made for people like me who like the traditional size trains but also wont the detail that comes with scale.

I guess Imperial could go as high as an O-42 turn limit, if that is what MTH felt was needed to get the look they are after.

 

I hope I was of some help.

I think you could compare the Imperial series to the Lionel Lionmaster locomotives.  Small enough to handle tight curves, but with most of the detail and just about all of the features of the full scale engines.

That RK Imperial does look good.  I wondered if the connection between the engine and tender was accomplished with one of their A/B/A diesel type connection.  Rather the pre-production sample shown probably does not have its electronics installed and the connection is just a basic draw-bar setup.

 

As for the soundset with a turbine type "woosh"; didn't the non-bantam sized proto-1 version have the "woosh" turbine sound?

 

What I'd really like to see is MTH change the design of the Railking steam's inoperable front dummy coupler.  It would be preferable to have an operating coupler (even if it was non-powered) or make the current non-functioning coupler easily removable and replaceable with some form of working coupler.  The coupler change would make double heading a possibility instead of being relegated to only end of train pusher type help.

If you look very carefully, you can see that there appears to be black tape around the drawbar and each end is attached to a white plug on the loco and tender.

I like the look of the S2 but I was not a fan of the sounds MTH put in the starter set versions back in 2002, I think they recorded sounds from a vacuum cleaner for those!

That S2 looks good. I have the much older version with PS1 not so much detail but a nice big well proportioned unit - one of my favourites

 

MIKE

I have the original PS version as well. I remember waiting almost 2 years for it to come out. The story supposedly was that MTH sent a sample of the Lionel model as an example to the Korean builder, the intention was to extend it and make it bigger, however, they made it the size of the Lionel instead. When the shot samples arrived, they had to start over. It was then that MTH decided to finish the shorter tooling as well and create  the Bantam series. I ended up getting both, getting the small version in a very well priced Locosound set, which chuffed instead of whooshed.

The larger engine is still about 20 scale feet short of true scale, it actually looks small compared to the sacle version that Mike built for Lionel in the 1990’s.

It still is a great engine and one of my favourites.

　

There is a great article about the real S2 in the spring 2012 edition of Classic Trains.

 

One thing that would have been a nice edition to the Imperial version would have been smoke lifters, as was done on the prototype.

I also have the proto 1 version and it does have the whoosh sound, no chuffing. It's a really nice locomotive, runs well, pulls well and looks great.