I ordered two RMT GG1s way back when - long story about when and why but anyway. Apparently they just arrived. I had forgotten about them and bought a used scale Williams model to meet some photography needs I had of the GG1, when they arrived today.
Here they are, their neat little spring-loaded pantographs up, waving to you guys.
And in comparison to a scale GG1 (sans pantographs here).
Comment:
Overall these are very nice looking locos, although they are so much shorter than scale that they look like another class of loco entirely, a related class by the same designed, but smaller. Maybe a BB1? - If letters designate size in a family series B would be smaller than D would be smaller than G? The BB1 would be for inner-city rail maybe?
Pluses:
They are very heavy, to the extent at first I thought they had metal bodies, too, but I think the bodies are just very heavy, thick ABS. They appear well built, and generally good looking. Paint and the five stripes are good. Yes, they are way shorter than scale, but they have lots of wheels, two pantographs that spring up if desired, and look good anyway. They seem able to pull a lot. BEEPS may be their cousins, but I imagine one of these could pull a chain of six BEEPs backwards without breaking a sweat. I had one on the layout pulling twenty two scale reefers. It did not seem to be working hard. The horn is loud - very loud. The price: they are among the lowest cost locos I know of.
The minuses: Keep in mind I an used to locos that cost closer to three times what one of these costs, and rather spoiled by conparison. But anyway: they have no (engine sound, etc., other than the horn, which is, well, a loud electronic sound, sort of horn like.
They have only two center pickups - four would be better.
I have a lot of trouble learning to drive these smoothly. They jackrabbit as badly as anything I have run in the past several years, worse than a WBB diesel that has its motors still wired in parallel. I push the throttle on my ZW-L forward and the GG1 will sit there and at just past 6 on the scale, start moving. I leared to move the throttle to 6.25 and leave it there and then nudge it up .5 position at a time and it is okay, but woe the person who just swings the thrttle to 8 right off. Backing off the throttle art form too, and as you cross 6 volts toward 5.5, bamm! - it stops - right now. No flywheel effect at all. Anyway, with practice I imagine a person could learn to run them well, particularly if you look at the numbers of the power supply, not the loco, and work to keep it just so . . .although they are not going to run nearly as slow at the low end as say, Legacy or Premier will run in conventional. I did not try them above about 11 volts, because they were already going close to light speed there . . .
I had trouble consistently cycling the e-units in each, but again, maybe a person could learn. Both GG1s start out in forward and go through an F-N-R cycle as conventional locos do. But I learned with these I have to listen for an audible sound, sort of a combination of "clunk" and "clock" that the e-unit makes, otherwise it has not changed position. Both locos make the same sound with their e-units, so i think they are supposed to make that sound. Anyway I am glad they do, because they are fussy about how long and fast you drop the power to cycle them. Again, its probably something you can learn. In both loco's cases, something happened to the e-units once in a while, they seem to hang up or whatever and the loco acts like it is dead. Picking it up and shaking it seems to awaken it - or maybe its just taking it off the track and putting it back down. Whatever . . . I tried to run the two together, but their e-units soon got out of sync.
I'm not sure what I will do with these. Certainly wire the motors in series of something to slow them down if I run them at all.
Stil,l one has to keep in mind the price. Not much else is going to cost less and have a motor and e-unit, and they seem well made, they will handle tight curved track, and they are very heavy and capable of pulling 30+ cars.
