In a previous post I said that I have been collecting Norfolk Southern heritage units. So far I have three; Erie, PRR and Southern. I also have a few non-heritage Norfolk Southern units, of course, because you may recall it all started out with an SD70Ace to lead J class 611.
I also have locomotives in the other Big Three American railroads (BNSF, Union Pacific, and CSX, which is TOTALLY NOT C for Chessie Systems, S for Seaboard Systems, and X for all the other railroads in the merger, oh no). I like to run them in foreign power consists because you are seeing more and more of that on the rails these days.
The two Big Canadian railroads (CP and CN) are also represented in my collection since their locomotives are also seen in foreign power consists, and because they both have mainlines running right down the middle of the US; one on the western side of the "man with chef's hat" states (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana) and one on the eastern side.
And, since the CP merged with Kansas City Southern, and because I like the KCS Southern Belle paint scheme, I had to have at least one loco with that livery. However, I ended up with two. The first one says KCS de Mexico on its markings, and I didn't catch it before I got home from the train show with it, so I had to get another one that didn't say "de Mexico" on it.
I tell you all of that so I can say this; all three of the NS heritage units and both of the KCS units are made by Fox Valley Models, and they are visually stunning, with lots of little add-on parts that I haven't bothered adding on because they are just too fiddly for me to feel comfortable messing with. They also run great, and are so easy to put DCC in that it's ridiculous; just pop the shell off, unplug the 6 pin shorting plug, insert a 6 pin decoder, and reinstall the shell.
But of course, since they are a different manufacturer with a different decoder than the rest of my modern diesels (mostly Kato, but also two ScaleTrains and one Atlas), they run at different speeds on my NCE system than they do on Digitrax. And therefore, as per my last post, I put them on the "speed match with Digitrax" program.
One thing I should probably mention, when I got the KCSdeM loco the front headlight didn't work. The vendor I bought it from at the train show said he had burned it out when putting the DCC chip in it. That should have told me something... but I just replaced the LED and moved along.
During my speed matching routine I found my PRR engine wouldn't reach the same speeds as the rest of them and the KCSdeM loco was very noisy and ran slower the longer it ran. I swapped in the shorting plug and found that the PRR engine had a bad decoder, which was easy enough to fix, but the KCSdeM loco was unchanged with the shorting plug and started emitting a strong ozone smell (but no magic smoke). So, it looks like it has a bad motor in it.
ScaleTrains bought FVM last year, so I sent them an email to see if I could send it in for warranty repair. Their response was they don't fix different branded locos so I would have to contact the manufacturer. I pointed out that since they had bought FVM they WERE the manufacturer, and they replied, "Yeah, but we didn't make THOSE locos so we're not really. So sorry."
(Come to find out they won't be making ANY FVM locos since some of the tooling was lost. Without that tooling they can't rework the locos for sound and fancy lighting, as ScaleTrains likes to do. Because of that they are just going to design and release their own line of locos with brand-new tooling. So, even though they own FVM, they don't really own FVM, if that makes any sense.)
Bottom line, if you have any Fox Valley Models N scale locomotives they are now expensive (might I even say, overpriced) pretty looking future shelf queens.
In happy news, I put out a plea for FVM motors on one of the N scale forums and I have a few replies, so it looks like I'll be able to put this one back on the rails at least. I've also been informed that the motors are very similar to, if not the same as, new Atlas motors, so that also may be a source of parts. The driveline certainly looks Atlas-like, which is no surprise really since it also looks very Kato like.
When Atlas severed ties with Rivarossi they contracted with Kato to make their chassis, and when they severed ties with Kato they sent all their tooling to China. And once you send something to China, China owns it and makes it for everyone at cut-rate prices, so that's why all modern diesels share the same design now. But I digress.
At any rate FVM joins the list of very expensive nice looking and running locomotives that have no support beyond the point of sale. Say what you want about Bachmann, at least they have a robust support system in both service and parts.
And now I'm done with my rantings. I still have locomotives to speed match.
