Railking Imperial Northern

I will have to let you know what I think, I just did some (Iron) Horse trading with my LTS, and have one there with my name on it. I should be able to pick it up tomorrow or Wednesday, but I wont get a chance to run it before Wednesday afternoon at the earliest. I Hope that my Nephew will let me take it home with me. My Brother-in-Law is a Fireman/Paramedic and is working Thanksgiving, so we are doing Dinner at their house Wednesday, their floor layout will probably be my engines maiden run. I have 8 year old William collecting Santa Fe, so there may be scene when I try to leave with it.

 Hopefully my DCS system will show up by Wednesday as well so I can show the new engine to it's fullest. The Santa Fe version looks really nice, I model UP and SP, It just caught my eye while I was at the shop, which is something that rarely happens, I usually have very good self control about buying strictly UP and SP power, but we all slip once in awhile....Right?

Hi, my name is Doug, and I have a Problem......

If you are talking about the ones that just came in, I LOVE IT.

Looks great, runs smooth as silk and No Tether!!

It has been posted the sound is not really crisp as the chuffing turns to a hiss pretty easily. I just reduced the chuff rate to make that less noticable.

I will note that mine runs with no cogging or lurch at 1 SMPH. No other engine I have will do that.

My Santa Fe was delivered early last week (same addiction as the post above...).   It had a tach problem on arrival, so it's in the shop as I write this.  Everything but speed control worked so I did get to play around with sounds and such.  My initial impressions are that PS3 is spotty.  Some sounds are good and some aren't - I could barely hear the engine noises at 100% with master volume also at 100%, at which level the whistle could wake the dead.  MTH has been weak on sounds for a while now so that's no shocker, but a little more balance would be nice.  I didn't get to test whether is suffers the PS3 "low signal" issue that my F-3 ABA is plagued with.  Other than that, it is what it is.  It doesn't "feel" as nice/substantial as my RK Imperial K-4 or Allegheny, but that's subjective.  Overall I get the sense that MTH kind of rushed these out the door.  There's another post here in the forums from a guy that had all kinds of issues with his.  

All that being said, I'd take it over the Amtrak set, but I'm not a huge Amtrak fan so that's not saying much.  Just make sure the LHS has a liberal return policy 

See most post from November 9th.  Reading Imperial, I love it, closest thing to a semi scale T1 yet.  I have about 20 Imperial locomotives and this is one of the nicest and runs fantastic as well.

Jim Gress

Bethlehem, PA

I may be the guy alluded to that had all kinds of problems with my new Imperial Northern, but thanks to suggestions by a forum member I managed to fix it without using the RMA MTH issued.   Pretty satisfied with it now.  Still need to figure out an intermittent squeak that sounds rotational though. :-( 

Russell, do you have or have you run the Lionel Legacy GS-4 or FEF-3.s? If so how does the Imperial Northern compare? I am Happy to hear how much you like your's. The Lionel GS-4 and FEF-3's are the best slow runners(under Legacy control) that I have, or have run. I am also waiting for a DCS system to show up, so that should help with slow speed operation.

Doug

Is this the same guy who pased up on a Premier LIKE NEW (HMMMM!!!! HMMMMMMM!!!) Chessie System SD35 for $300.00. Are you ready to eat crow boy? Better.....

Also the Railking Northern "S2" and "Timken" model made me weep. When I saw the engine yes you read the reports correctly. I stopped traffic on both directions of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge crying, "I can't believe they screwed up a Milwaukee Road S2 and Northern Pacific Timken in the SAME catalog..."

The suicide squad talked me out of jumping....

NOTE MATTHEW PANAGOS...When George ran that Chessie SD35 in Rockville last weekend that was the THIRD time it was run. THIRD TIME!! AND HE GOT A FREE CABOOSE TOO!

And you call yourself a Chessie fan!

I have a couple of the older Rail King Santa Fe Northerns and am very satisfied with them.  They are quite detailed and faithful to their real world inspiration.  That being said, they are smaller in proportion to the semi scale Lionmaster Challengers and Big Boys which are massive engines with nearly scale size.

I have Rail King Santa Fe Northerns nos. 2926 and 2927 with no. 2929 due to arrive after Thanksgiving.  No. 2926 was the first offering and has protosounds.  I bought it about 13 years ago and it is my most operated O scale steam locomotive.  You can see how well it still smokes (it is the locomotive furthest to the right side of the screen) in the below video created earlier this year (I have given it nothing other than routine maintenance, oil and grease):

Here are some additional videos of no. 2927 (with PS 2.0) in action.  MTH improved the appearance of the original issue northern by adding tender chains and separately applied marker lights as well as darkening the handrails.  I love the 2927!

And finally, 2927 pulling the Chief with 7 Rail King cars!

Thanks all for the input. We test ran it at the store on a short straight test track and it ran very well. Nice engine. I remember when they came out with it as an Imperial PS2 piece and liked it a lot. 

JB - As for the squeak, I heard a quick one test running the one in the store. I think it is built into the sound set to simulate a squeak in the drive rods. Maybe it just needed some oil! . Glad to hear you got yours running OK.

Bonner - Already have 2 Chessie engines. Don't need a third. And that was the fourth time it ran...it ran at my house the weekend before with an inoperable smoke unit. I think the engine was a dud and the seller a bit shady as well.

Anyone else have these? Apparently they are pretty hot sellers. 

Now that I think of it, for those with the Imperial Northern, what is the overhang like on curves? Anything crazy or is it not that bad? How has the drawbar held up, especially on rough, uneven track, other than being too long in some cases? My track is far from perfect but on the main line, the Ross switch as well as the track leading to and from it is a bit uneven especially. 

I am curious about the overhang as well.  I plan on buying the Railking UP FEF when it is released next year and run it on my O36 loop.

The third video above shows the Northern on an O72 RealTrax curve.  If there is any overhang, it is more on the rear end where the cab meets the tender than on the front end.  Rail King and Lionmaster locomotives look great on O72!!!

TPR...Thanks. After looking at it better, it doesn't look like cab swing (my main concern) is a big issue. 

My big question for those with the drawbar is how it has held up, especially on rough, uneven track. 

I opted to pass on the Northern. Instead, I called Catoctin Mountain Trains and asked Paul to get me an Imperial PRR S2 Turbine (PS3 with wireless drawbar). MTH still has them in stock and I've been wanting one for a long time. Looking forward to getting it. 

I have the MTH PS3 Union Pacifcic RTR set and its great. The drawbar has given me no problem on O-31 realtrax and O-27 Lionel and Marx tubular track (Nowhere near even and very rough on my old layout) I've run it on O-82 and O-31 both great. The PS3 sounds are top notch the whistle, bell, brakes, and PFA are fine. The chuff is also pretty nice. You will be happy with your S2. Good luck and let us how your S2 works.