First let me say I've been waiting for these to be released and was happy to obtain one. My LHS tested it for me on his display track before I left the store and it ran well, but that was a simple 10' level straight track. After getting it home and running it on my layout, problems came to light everywhere. So I decided to take some photos and videos to show others what I found and see if anyone else is experiencing the same.
My layout consists of Ross switches and Gargraves track on two levels. Over the years I've run MTH, Lionel, K-Line, AtlasO and others with never the problems I've encountered with this new MTH Proto 3 Consolidation. The first photo shows my yard area with several Gargraves uncoupling tracks, just as you would find in any yard on a layout, nothing special, nothing out of ordinary, quite level area. Then comes the video of the WM approaching one of the sections and it just stops dead, shorts out the Z4000 and powers down. So I took the engine to the bench and discovered the gap between the top of the rollers while in motion and the screws for the grease holes is very minimum. I removed the rollers and placed tape over the screws in the chassis (used clear tape so it would show up in photo) replaced the rollers, took the second video of the WM coming into the same track in the yard, bingo! As you see, no shorting due to the tape while traveling over the slightly raised uncoupling section. Apparently when these were manufactured, there is a very thin space above the moving roller that if it rises just a little (as when going over an uncoupling track) it will short to the underbody. Now for the other problems with this engine I noticed. Any slight uneven track area and the short out happens even if the tape is in place, and this showed another interesting find. The engine stops dead so quickly the cars pulled behind it slam into each other. There is no drifting to a stop, just a dead halt as if there was no flywheel coast action. Does this motor have a flywheel? Last item: when a consist pulling 6 AtlasO diecast hoppers started up a grade, the engine could barely pull it and slowed to a stop obviously in trouble, making unusual noise from the gearbox. Now I've pulled this same consist up the same grade many times over and over with other engines having no problems at all. In fact, I have a 10 year old K-Line 0-6-0 switcher which pulls the same consist up the same grade, “without breaking a sweat”. Question is, are the motors in these new models of less quality than previous ones? Should a little 0-6-0 out pull a 2-8-0? Anyway, look at the photos and video, let me know your thoughts, ideas and experiences with the same model if you should have one.
As always, thanks for looking.