Walthers GP-38-2…..Good or Bad

I have a friend who is switching from LIRR to another road and era and has a few locos to sell off. I'm interested in four Walthers GP-38's he has in the LIRR wave paint scheme, NIB. How are these locos in running long term compared to Atlas locos, any info much appreciated.

 

Depends...................Are you running DC or DCC? If just straight DC, you are fine. These are comparable to Atlas, but a little noisier. If you are DCC, these locos need alot of mods to put in a decoder. Also one other benefit that Atlas has over LL is that parts availability is superior. Life Like/Walthers parts?????? What you mean they need to sell parts? Good luck! Their parts availability or lack there of is non existant.

just my $0.02 on it
Ryan

 

Not a simple question since there have been a couple of radically different versions - http://www.spookshow.net/llgp38.html

Cheers,
-Mark

 

I got mine when they first came out several years ago now and I've been quite happy with them. I got a couple of the Atlas offerings of this same loco and they run about the same. The shells are NOT interchangeable.

In regards to DCC, none of the DCC manufacturers made a decoder board for this model but it's not that difficult to install any of today's small wired decoders and the frame does not need to be modified. I used a TCS M1, but the Z2, DZ125, Lenz Silver Mini, for Zimo MX621 would work too. I have a post on my DCC blog showing how I did mine.

http://n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/search/label/Loco: Walthers GP38-2


Brad

 

Spook is correct. Be careful that you know what you are buying.

Having said that, I'm reasonably sure the LIRR wave paint scheme was on the good version.

How good is it?

Runs: Excellent
DCC: Others have commented on the DCC issue.
Looks: Hmmmm. Mixed.

Overall, good.
Love the see through steps. Don't know many (or maybe any) other locos that do that.
Handrails very fine
It is a later phase that I think no one else makes.

Buuuuutttttttt. Shell is good typical styrene--- but they made the fans out of a slippery different plastic (like the handrails). So they look odd slightly.
But worse (for me), even though this is somewhat minor, they left guide/mounting holes on the OUTSIDE of the shell for mounting the winterization hatch. Huh? These should have been on the INSIDE and the modeler would just drill them out. Spookshow calls these minor difficulties-- and in a way they are--- but I'm one of those for whom it matters.

So IMHO it is a pretty good model with some amateurish mistakes.
I have two that are good enough quality for excellent kitbashing.

I for one wish they would correct the mistakes and re-release it.

So as you can guess, this is a loco that has some variation of opinion.

If you can get it pretty cheap (or free) you can't go wrong.

 

It's a fine running loco, one of the best. I have 2 in LIRR Wave. But, they glued a lot of it together.

 

I forgot to mention this in my original post. And WHY oh WHY would LL glue together an undecorated model is beyone me? Do they think us modelers are going to run a fully grey loco on our layouts?

I have one that for the life of me I CAN NOT get the nose to seperate from the sill. Try masking that off sometime. A REAL P.I.T.A.

For that one reason, I wont buy another LL for a custom project even though it is more accurate for what I model than the Atlas version.

 

Back when I was doing this D&H unit with LL GP-38-2, folks on Atlas forum said to try soaking shell in hot tap water. Conversely, was also told to freeze shell.
Alas, my memory does not serve to tell me which worked best. But, I might have used both.

 

Thanks for all the responses, much appreciated. I plan to use them for a few small book shelf modules.