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In this In-Depth video review, Dana Kawala puts a new Broadway Limited HO scale Erie USRA K5 Heavy Pacific through its paces. Along the way, Dana discusses many of the spotting features of these big passenger steam locomotives.
Think it was a manufacturing decision to use the light Pacific chassis. They already had one. This also happened with their Pennsy H6b chassis; different boilers and paint schemes for different road, forgetting that only the Pennsy had class/marker lights on the pilot deck. Again, a manufacturing decision.
I just added Video Plus to my magazine subscription and this is the first clip I've sampled. I was a bit skeptical signing up, but if this review by Dana Kawala is representative of what I will be seeing, I'm very excited. I especially appreciate the use of highlighted prototype photos and the thorough, patient pace of the presentation. I'm not a big fan of the "short attention span theater" trend in many of the articles in recent years, and this video begins to get back to the kind of detail and depth that I'd like to see more of. Nice job, thank you.
Dana, I love your locomotive reviews. They are very methodical and complete, and unfold in a logical way. You are also unafraid to highlight product deficiencies as well as strengths. On the BLI Heavy Pacific I noticed that the wheels in the leading truck seem to have a shiny silver finish. I recently purchased a BLI PRR K4s Pacific (pre war version) and it also has the shiny silver wheels on its leading truck. This strikes me as being toylike and un-prototypical; and the wheels appear blackened in BLI's promotional literature. The model is otherwise very nice and I don't know why BLI would do this. Since I am new to steam locomotives I may be wrong about the un-blackened wheels. I would very much like to hear your thoughts about this since you didn't mention it in the video. Hopefully you monitor these comments. Thanks again for your good work!
I'm enjoying these reviews because, even though none of the models are appropriate for my layout and period, the models are interesting and so is the history of the prototypes. Looking forward to many more.