I'm quite pleased, and consider this model both a jewel and a real bargain. Seems hard to believe at the price, frankly.
Mine arrived yesterday and all was good out of the box. One tiny segment of the rear antenna on the observation car was bent, but I straightened it this morning. It is a beautiful model with gleaming, bright blue paint that is gorgeous, but screams to me "I'll show every scratch, so be careful!"
It took it up to the trainroom this morning and set it up with the cars in order according to the diagram on page 40 of Ric Morgans great book, The Train of Tomorrow: observation domes forward on all cars, etc.
The only problem: the diner car has a good deal of rolling friction. I could not find my little meter to measure tugging pull, but I played with a rubber band: it requires about twice as much force to pull it as the other three cars put together. (And yes, I checked and lubed everything, of course: take care of baby. Still, the loco has more than enough pull.
It runs beautifully. I run only conventionally, and I've found some TMCC locos don't run well that way - including an ATSF steamer I got from 3rd Rail a year or two ago. But this has superb low-speed smoiothness and linearity of control. It will creep but creep smoothly and steadily, at speeds so low it would never pass by before I ran over the 100 MB video limit, so I can't show it. In the videos below it's running at around "10" on a ZW-L . These are the only 21 inch passenger cars ever to have run on my layout. With some trepidation, I ran the train around the whole mainline #1 and was surprised that it had no problems with clearance. they look strange on 72" curves, but they have no problem with the layout.
Sound is good, with nice complicated start up and shut down cycles, and enough dynamicism. I have no idea if it is prototypical. Hardly matters. I heard an E6/7/8/9/whatever a couple of times in my life - about 55-60 years ago. It sounds good, that is all that matters to me.
Lights, etc., are good. I assume the horn is, too, I forgot to try it and am now at work.
The whole train is probably worth the price just for the smoke unit, which pours smoke out of all eight of the exhaust holes in spectacular manner. Above and below, it's operating at only "10" on the ZW-L scale. I shudder to think what it would do at full throttle. Wow. Just spectacular!!!
It is pretty!
The observation domes are the best I have ever seen on a model. The framework is flush and not too thick. Interior is well enough rendered. As is often the case, even with interior I install in cars that did not have them, the figures and some of the furnishings look a bit sub-scale, to get them to fit, but its really nice.
My Train of Tomorrow has run its one and only time. I bought it for display and I do not expect it will run again. I will stay here, on display in my study (train above is my Dad's pre-war Marx set). Noice that I turned the first car in the train around so the dome is too the rear. I think the train looks far better with a long sweep of metal at locomotive-roof height from the front to the first dome. I may leave it this way, or even turn the second car around, too, or not . . . can't decide right now.
Serendipidously, it fits the shelf, built ten years ago, perfectly.
This is a splendid model of a truly iconic train. I am very glad I bought it.
