The Kato mechanism arrived yesterday and all I can say about it is "wow." It is everything that I have been led to believe and more.
I have been contemplating building a pulse throttle of
this type, and with this mechanism all the flaws of the old throttle are apparent. The throttle that I have is an old rheostat model that jumps from 0v to about 2v without any transitions, and the mechanism jumps into life as soon as it sees that voltage.
My old train set locomotives behave just fine on this throttle, but the Kato is such a beauty that it deserves something better. There isn't any way I can make it creep, even with the throttle turned to pulse power. My remotored Northerns act the same way, but I was willing to live with it for the train-set Northerns. Now I've decided that I need a throttle that will allow the locomotives to perform at their best.
Other than that the mechanism is smooth, even over my less than perfect trackwork, and it is dead quiet. The low profile wheels means it won't have any problems on code 55 track, and with the pewter shell it should be a strong puller.
Now I need to get
this kit and put everything together. It looks like the Pennsy will soon have a Mikado to use at the SR&W interchange.
