Model Railroading > BLI HO Scale GE ES44AC's

I haven't seen much discussion here or elsewhere on the actual finished product from BLI. They seemed to have snuck in under the cover of darkness. I received a box from my preferred pusher the other day and I popped two of the 7 I ordered out just to take a look at. I pulled an undec and NS #8114 the old NS Heritage unit.

BLI did two UP road numbers and two for the std. NS Horsehead scheme, as well as the all of the Heritage GE's except for the Monongahela unit. The model is based on post Jan 2012 GE production as they have the flat faced water site glass under the radiator wing and the fat stanchions. The Mon. Unit was built in 2010 so it has a few different details. Prototypical NS road units would be 8093 to 8150's and UP would cover 7930 up unto the mid 8100's and include the PTC platforms. This model would also work for CSX's 3000's with a pair of radial trucks and a window in the nose door, which can be done with some after market parts from Details West.

The model is fairly well detailed and weighs a ton. The radiator grills and the twin fans in front of the radiator have PE grills, as are the windshield wipers. Cab has full interior including crew. All of the grabs are separate wire and appear to be dimensionally correct. Also factory applied are the sunshades, wind deflectors and mirrors.

The roller blade side frames apear to be from their AC6000CW's, which are nice, but don't have the cast mounting plates for the C4 equipment that was standard from GE post Jan 2012.

I don’t have my work bench set up yet since the move, so I can't say how well they run, what the light look like or, well we'll ignore the smoke unit. I can tell you from the undec, which is a good kit to build, as there are a good 35-40 separate parts to install, the lights are LED's as the ditch light led's are hanging out above the walkway without the DL housing. The sound system does have its twin speakers facing downward out of the bottom of the fuel tank.

The fuel tank is die cast and is screw mounted to the chassis, also from the bottom, so if there is an issue with debris in the speaker housing ou can drop the tank without removing the shell. The cross section of the fuel tank measures out to match what I have measured off the prototype, including the side angles.

Paint is really well done, crisp and opaque on NS 8114, and all of the data stickers are in place as well. Couplers appear to be plastic typed Kadee #5 knock-offs and are easy to replace as the coupler box is a standard design.

One glaring detail to me is the plow is incorrect for post Jan 2012 GE's. BLI used an old standard UP design plow. Hopefully someone like Details West will release a correct version.

Detail wise I would line this up with an Intermountain, so below the ScaleTrains Rivet Counter / Athearn Genesis lines and above the ScaleTrains Operator / Athearn RTR lines.

I'll post a few more images from on top of my desk.

Any Q's feel free to ask.

Regards
Russ Goodwin
Oakwood, GA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/17 09:48 by NSTopHat.

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Forgot to mention, rear ditchlights are non functioning and the brake wheel is incorrect.

A couple of shots of the undec NS version will follow.

Russ

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A couple from around the undec.

Russ

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Here's a few of the UP #8104. Yellow seems a touch dark to me. The yellow sill stripe is quite the contrast.

Russ

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One more from under the radiator wing....

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UP look nice.........

Thanks for the post. They are very late to the game but all are welcome LOL. Buying 7 sight unseen was a ballsy move. I think the detailing on them is a bit on the chunky side in my IMHO. The show stopper for me is the Paragon 3 sound. Poor quality and poor running ability in my opinion. They should offer DCC ready models as I have no interest in their proprietary sound system and do not want to pay for it. I have some CSX AC6000W's with Paragon 2 sound. Got them for a dime. After a few months, I just could not take the sound anymore and finally put Tsunami 2's in them recently. What a difference and they run so smooth now also.

I will give BLI one kudos, their engines are very heavy and pull very well.

Enjoy.

Bruce

Note the red strip on the upper part of the U.P. model appears to be too narrow.