Included in this “return to the hobby” set is a pretty fair representation of a Pennsylvania K4-class Pacific locomotive. Not quite a scale detailed model, but a very nice rendering with a unique external feature: the engine has a prototypical (but uncommon on the Pennsy) set of smoke defectors.
The die-cast metal locomotive doe not have TrainMaster Command Control, but it does feature a basic RailSounds system with a nice package of steam sounds and the additional crew and tower chat messages (you can enhance the locomotive with upgrade kits nos. 22963 for RailSounds and 22960 for TMCC).
Rolling stock is all Pennsylvania Railroad and includes a covered gondola, double-door boxcar, coal hopper, and porthole-window caboose.
All of the cars are well made, and the crisp graphics do justice to the Pennsy’s keystone logo.
In a break from tradition, this outfit features O gauge track with O-31 curve sections instead of the usual O-27 track. The power is supplied by an 80-watt transformer.
The transformer will do fine with this rig, but expand the size of your layout and you may need more power. While we didn’t have any trouble “floor running,” we used a similar transformer on our Halloween layout (CTT, October 2002) and noticed that when running trains at a set speed for hours at a time, the vibration caused by the train tended to nudge the orange throttle handle forward, making the train speed up.
Our temporary, stop-gap solution was a piece of masking tape.
The locomotive’s unique elephant ears get two thumbs up from me. The level of detail is more than satisfactory for a set locomotive and comparable to the RailKing version of the same Pennsy locomotive.
A feature I really liked was the firebox glow. This stood out even in a brightly lit room.
Generally, the locomotive gave us very good performance in the mid- to upper speed ranges. After a fair amount of operation, however, I was a wee bit surprised at the rough running and inconsistent speeds at the lower end of the spectrum. The voltages required to move the engine through the loop of track at a slow speed bounced from 6.3 to 7.7. In the end, we recorded an average slow speed of 18.6 scale mph. Our high-end average was 101.6 scale mph.
Drawbar pull for the 7 pound steamer was 1 pound, 7 ounces, or equal to roughly 70 free-rolling cars.
All things considered, this set would be just right for that spousal “20th Anniversary” gift, or a quality rig to run around the Christmas tree, whether or not you’re a three-rail newbie.
