Model Railroading > Fox Valley GP60/GP60M report

Let me start with, I am picky, all my units are repowered with Kato motors or Athearn Genesis, and I paint and decal nearly all of my own stuff, I have started cycling through my fleet and installing LED lights on everything.  I picked up all 8 of the new Fox Valley GP60M/B and NS GP60s. I model NS in the 90s, but the Warbonnets were too cool to pass up having an ABBA set.

Pros:
LED lights, not super bright, but OK
Overall pretty decent lettering and numbering  (I'll come back to this)
The NS units the number board font is too small but that's nothing ShellScale decals can't fix 
Overall detail is good not quite as good as Athearn Genesis but on par with Intermountain.  The NS K5LA horns look a little weak to me...they will be replaced with Details West horns. 
The units run very similar to all Intermountain units.  In pulling power they're very similar to Athearn Genesis GPs..some pulled a car or two more than Athearn Genesis GPs.

Cons:
Several of the NS units had broken handrails, missing brake cylinders, missing MU hoses, missing antennas.  (I am sure a call to FV will fix this)
Two out of the 8 units have something binding up in the shell that it probably just a wire on a flywheel that's making them a little extra loud.
Might be just a little bit slower than Athearn Genesis out of the box, but adjusting speed tables and decoder pro fixed that issue.
I was really disappointed in the lettering on the NS Operation Lifesaver unit.  The frame still stripes are way too big and slanted the wrong direction.  Overall the lettering is just a little fat on that one.  I was disappointing since I emailed Fox Valley about that but they did not correct it from the inital artwork.  I guess 7140 will be a total repaint.
ATSF looks good to me.  Red seems to be a twing orange tinted.  Darker than Athearn Genesis ATSF red.  Lighter than Atlas and Kato ATSF red.  Not going to be too upset about that.  I model NS.

Sound:
Loksound.  I think the Loksound K5LA horn is pretty awful compared to Soundtraxx, hopefully this will be fixed at some point.
They units are WAY too loud out of the box..everything rattled.  Once I turned them back to a more humane level I think the horns sounded more true and nothing was rattling on the shell.

Overall really good engine at least after about two hours of run time and just staring at them out of the box for a couple hours.  Not quite an Athearn Genesis level but very close.  

Cooper
(videos and more pics uploading)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/15 11:53 by SOU3921.

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Video of the ATSF units.  Taken from iphone, sorry for the quality.

Video of the NS units.

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A couple more pics.

A comparison of FV vs. P2K  7140 (custom painted) and 7107 factory painted.

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Thanks for the report and the photos! Nice job!

KR

If you were to model the Kansas City area in the 90's, you could model both NS and ATSF GP60's on the same line. Shot by me outside of KC.

Bruce

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Thank you SOU3921 for the report and info on your new locos. Would you at sometime show some pictures of your layout and the storage cabinets on the wall...


Steve H.

Cooper, thanks for the review. Only item you did not address that is of interest to me is trucks. In the photos they look "flat" as if there is some dimensional aspect off when comparing to Athearn or even Proto units. Do you see anything obvious when comparing with your older units?

Thanks.

Jay

Posted from Android

The trucks are a little "flat".  The Athearn Blomberg is awesome.  These aren't bad, just not quite on level with Athearn, I would say they are comparable with P2ks.  The wheelsets are inside bearings, so I don't see a way to swap trucks, without essentially swapping frames, but I have not completely taken a unit apart yet.

Cooper

Can't say for sure, but the fuel tank profile looks a bit funky too.  Could just be the photo angles, but between the trucks and the fuel tank, something just looks very "off" from the fame down to the rail.

garr Wrote:
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> Cooper, thanks for the review. Only item you did
> not address that is of interest to me is trucks.
> In the photos they look "flat" as if there is some
> dimensional aspect off when comparing to Athearn
> or even Proto units. Do you see anything obvious
> when comparing with your older units?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jay
>
> Posted from Android

The fuel tank on the NS model looks to be a good bit smaller than on the prototype. 

Greg Davis
St Pete, FL

I picked up my 8 today.  As a 1990's era ATSF modeler I have longed for a quality model of the GP60M and 60B.  Straight outta the box I was impressed.  Truck detail was pretty good, comparable with Atlas.  Paint is great.  Lettering is spot on.  Handrails are nicely done, look a little more robust than the Athearn stuff.  

As as for how they run...I'm afraid I can't tell you.  I despise sound locomotives because they make my hearing aids go crazy, so I ordered all of mine without sound/DCC.  I had already ordered 8 Digitrax DH126 and the power extenders for these locos and had them waiting for a few months.  Problem is...the 60's don't have a 8pin or 9pin socket.  They have that new 21pin socket that nobody else is really using yet.  So now I gotta find who makes a decent 21pin decoder and order a pile of them.

So...now I'm a little frustrated and I wish that Fox Valley had published this info ahead of time.  Kinda frustrating to not be able to run an ABBA lash up across the Emporia Sub.

Eric

I think the fuel tank is great.  They are the appriopriate sizes.


Here's a link back to my display cases.  Sadly, they went out of business.
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,3392562,3393049#msg-3393049

TCS makes a 9 pin to 21 pin adapter cable for your Digitrax 126 decoders.

http://tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Products/Harnesses/European_Harnesses/harnesses.html

If I remember when I had one hooked up this harness only gives 4 of the 6 lighting functions. The dh126 decoders only have the headlight functions so these harnesses will allow all the functions available to you.

Here is a link to the TCS 21 pin plug in decoders. Since the decoder functions are not exactly the same protocols as the mother board is set up for two of the four aux light functions are unavailable. It may be possible to remap the decoder to bring these out but I never got that far with the TCS decoders I installed. Out of the decoder package you can get headlights f & r plus two other lights such as number boards and ditchlights or beacon. You will have to decipher which controller Fn key is connected to which motherboard AUX output for these new functions. The Fn 1 for bell and Fn 2 for horn on the non sound TCS decoders seem to control a couple of the AUX outputs. Fn2 only stays on when you hold it so you need to program something like Fn6 to control that aux so the button acts like a toggle

http://tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Products/Decoders/HO-Scale/EU-Series/EU621/EU621.html

ESU makes 2 LokPilot decoders with 21 pin connections for these units. One is the ESU 53614 which is a V3 decoder. The other is a V4 which I am unfamiliar with.


Posted from Windows Phone OS 7



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/15 21:00 by fbe.

Not wanting to hi-jack the thread but it occurs to me that if a GP60B unit can be produced, can the DD35A&B unit be around the corner? Two popular roads had the cabless B unit.

Rick

SOU3921 Wrote:
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> I think the fuel tank is great.  They are the
> appriopriate sizes.
>
>
> Here's a link back to my display cases.  Sadly,
> they went out of business.
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,3
> 392562,3393049#msg-3393049


Thank you for the link... Steve H...

Here's the first disassembled unit.

Not to bad to take apart, handrails where tricky, light bars for LEDs.  

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gdaltondavis Wrote:
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> The fuel tank on the NS model looks to be a good
> bit smaller than on the prototype. 

Greg is correct.  Here is a close-up photo showing the 4,000 gallon tank on the NS GP60's:

NS GP60 fuel tank close-up pic


Chris Toth
NSDash9.com

I hate to say it but those fixed windows on the Santa Fe cab are way out of proportion, to wide and the radius is too tight. The silver is too bright and the red is not Red enough. Otherwise a nice start for Fox Valley.

Ed

On the decoder I noticed that there is some mistakes in the settings.  Appears that Fox Valley did not specify some settings.
CV48 should be a value of 17.  I found that it was set to 5 which is Leslie S-2B and EMD 12-710
These values are added:
1 for K3 horn
16 for EMD 16-710 
0 for slow bell tyype
0 brake squeal #1
 

Jeff Smith
Lakewood, CA
RailMaster Hobbies

Any chance you could post a close up pic of the door latches and shot looking down on the fans?
These are two area's I've heard complaints on and would like to judge it myself. 

Kris