Product Review: Walthers Proto GP35 Gulf Mobile & Ohio (GM&O), March 2024
Vložit
- čas přidán 24. 03. 2024
- This is a product review of the Walther's Proto GP35 in GM&O colors. This is a re-release of a version from 2018 with new road numbers. I did review this locomotive back in 2018 so you can review my timeline for that video.
Prototype photos:
Photo 1 (with GP30 and 38-2) - Rick Morgan
www.rrpicturear...
Photo 2 (rear facing) - J. Fischer
www.rrpicturear...
Photo 3 (VMV) - Alan Gaines
www.rrpicturear...
Link to ESU sound file: projects.esu.e... - Zábava
Great review. Thank you for sharing.
great presentation. very interesting.
perhaps 2526 is on paper only, never made it into reality. did you verify the existence of a 2525 and a 2527? about the model itself, it seems the trucks are a bit too "squat". look at your prototype photos and compare. maybe it's only the angle of the model's photo that makes it look that way. the other thing is the numberboards seem too bright, I think they should be more yellowish.
doing a photo comparison between model and prototype is a great idea.
did walthers retool the shell for this run? the detail looks finer than their earlier models.
Thank you, yes ICG 2526 did exist. IC(G) followed the practice of renumbering their newly acquired GM&O locomotives in succession. For example GM&O GP35 #629 was renumbered ICG 2527 and was repainted ICG orange and white (photo evidence here: www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4731625). That just deepens this mystery :)
The deal with the trucks is that is 100% a result of the camera angle. I had the camera higher than the plane of the trucks. As far as the number boards, what you see in person is different than how it translates to video. They do have a yellowish appearance and to the naked eye, they are not super bright. With that being said, if they are too bright, you can adjust CVs to get them to your liking.
I didn't show it on video, but I did compare the new unit to the 2018 Walthers' model. Absolutely no retooling occurred. The biggest change is with the decoder. I plan to upgrade my 2018 model to a Loksound 5 so I can run them together!
Nice! Do you install an ESU power pack on your locos?
Thank you, yes I do have auxiliary power packs on some of my locomotives (some were factory installed and some I installed). Mostly I have them on slow moving switchers. When I constructed my layout I worked diligently to wire it properly to eliminate dead spots and I also spent the time and money putting Tortoise Slow Motion Switch Machines on each turnout and wired them to power route the frog. If you don't power route your turnout frogs, you have a dead section that can create havoc for some shorter wheelbase locomotives. But, installing power packs is the tradeoff so there is no right or wrong answer!
@@ck7813 Yes they are a must on small switchers. I look forward to Rapido's 44 tonner that has a capacitor built in. One of the reasons I like ScaleTrains locos is because they have capacitors.
My guess would be the renumbering to #2526 was almost on paper. It was numbered by ICG standards but never made it to the paint booth. Thats what happened with CNW 8701 and 8646. UP renumbered units early after the CNW takeover by UP, but they remained in CNW paint without any patches, and their original road numbers still pressent until their repainting in 2018ish. Thats what im guessing what happened between 628 and the ICG renumbering process
Why don't you just contact Walthers?👍
Thank you for your comment. I want to stress, none of this is directed at you, but your comment struck a nerve for me. I work in education and, in my opinion, students and more and more people in society as a whole have zero ability to critically think for themselves and it is a contributing factor to the downfall of our country. When something is amiss or they face adversity, they ask someone else what to do or how to solve for their problem and people losing their ability to do things on their own.
Related to the Walthers situation, they did a horrible job of producing accurate documentation for this locomotive with the Loksound 5 decoder. I could have contacted them but I am willing to bet that whoever would have fielded my question knows less about DCC programming/functions than I do. I had a problem (inadequate documentation) and I used the resources I had (my knowledge of ESU and the information they publish on their site) to solve for my problem! That is much more gratifying then having to have someone tell me. Rant over!
I was merely giving you another Avenue to find the Gap time frame for the road number😂
@@mikeberthold1593 sorry, I thought you were referring to the poor instructions about the functions. I really need an IC/ICG historian to look into this. I have several IC/ICG/GM&O books in my collection and the locomotive rosters list this on the ICG roster, but there is no photo evidence. I started going through looking at the photos but it is a time-consuming process. Eventually someone will figure this out!
@@ck7813 The ICG didn't repaint or renumber most of the GM&O units. GM&O painted units were quite common in Chicago thru out the 1970s and 80s. The numbers may have been assigned but most were not used the exceptions being units that were wreck repairs and rebuilds such as the 2 GP-26 rebuilds.