Hi all,
Decided to pull the trigger and try out one of the latest batch of SD40s from Lionel. Can mix it in with my Chessie-era power and it goes great with the recent C&O CupolaCam caboose.
After giving it a good look over and test run, I am very pleased! Great job on the C&O colors.
No real QC issues at all that I could find. My only complaint is that the plastic shield that hides the motor in the cab doesn’t go far enough back (see my picture). Can’t recall if previous runs of the SD40 were like this? Not a biggie, though, and can easily be fixed.
This run appears to be just like previous runs of the SD40s with a few tweaks for the better I can spot so far:
- Prime mover sounds are the same sound set, but some time in the audio studio has clearly been spent to improve them. Sound much better to me.
- New multi-horn/bell feature with 5 horns and 5 different pitches of bell.
- The crew talk (button 2) is improved a little. Sounds more like they’re talking through radios at least.
- The tower com (button 7) regular dialog has been replaced by this randomized radio chit chat which I’m falling in love with. Sounds much more like what you would actually hear through the radio scanner, and there must be at least a dozen or so different recordings, as I’ve rarely gotten the same dialog sequence twice. Major kudos to Lionel for this.
- Kinematic pilot doesn’t sag like I remember older models did.
Also, another change I noticed:
- No more volume control knob. Unless I’m missing something, I can’t see a volume knob anywhere. Which isn’t really a problem as I can adjust the volume with my phone or the legacy remote. And the engine seems to recall your volume settings through power cycles, so no fear of the engine starting up at full blast volume if you don’t want it to.
I’ll edit or reply to this post if/when I notice any other things to comment on. Enjoy the videos!
