I recently received the new MTH Milwaukee Road F7 set with Proto 3. Here are some comments and photos.
First, it's a handsome looking set. Paint is excellent and the orange is better than previous MTH efforts. The black pinstripe separating the colors is well done and distinguishes the MTH model from the old K-Line one, which didn't have the pinstripe. The cab is nicely detailed. The one thing I don't care for on the paint is that the aluminum on the cab steps is too bright. It should be a dull metallic color. Even photos of brand-new units delivered from the factory show a duller color. No big deal, I can touch it up when I get around to it.
Connecting the tethers was the usual MTH hassle. The cables for the plugs are very stiff and it's hard to get them into place. The best thing is to lay the units on their side, connect the tethers, and then flip the whole thing up onto the rails, but that takes two people with an ABBA set. Once the tethers were connected, the four-unit set ran flawlessly. Sound was good, but MTH really should use bigger speakers to catch up with Lionel in this department. Slow running was excellent; it was a bit jerky at 2 smph but nice and smooth at 3 and above. This will likely improve with break-in. Smoke output was typical MTH, i.e. enormous. Changing the smoke volume from "Max" to "Min" produced a nice thin stream of smoke suitable for my small layout; I'll reserve the Max setting for the large layout at the toy train museum.
Here are a the pictures:
Now for the downside - there were a few problems.
First, one side grille on each of the B-units was bowed out from the side. This appeared to be an engineering flaw - the grille was slightly too long for the recess in the plastic. The solution was to pry up the end (very carefully) with an Xacto knife so that it wasn't pushing against the end of the recess. MTH should make the grilles just a little shorter. The elegant solution would have been to remove the grille and file off a little bit at the end, but the tabs holding it in place at the end are buried behind the column for the body screw and would have been quite difficult to bend up and then bend back into place. Here's a photo of how the grille looked out of the box.
And finally, the wiring to the tether sockets is perilously close to the centering spring for the dummy coupler. MTH didn't used to use self-centering couplers between units; the couplers just swiveled freely. This was actually better - the self-centering couplers don't work in practice anyway because they tend to hang up at full deflection. Of course, it doesn't matter at all when the train is connected. I solved this issue by making some shims out of .040x1/4" styrene strips to fit between the socket boards and the mounting studs. This added enough clearance to eliminate the risk of a wire rubbing against the centering spring and shorting out. Here are photos.
Before: Comparison of the F7 with self-centering coupler and an older MTH unit with plain swiveling coupler. As you can see, there is plenty of room for wiring on the older style.
Here's the same unit with the shims in place. Just enough difference to get the wires out of harm's way.
Despite the problems, I'm glad I got this set. It's definitely a step up from my old K-Line units, and better value for money that the Lionel set that came out at the same time. That set would run $200 more for an equivalent ABBA set. It's a nice set too, but I don't see the improvement in sound with Legacy over PS/3 as being worth 200 bucks. And nothing in my recent experience with Lionel suggests that their set would be any more trouble free than the MTH. So, I'm happy with my new diesels.
