Are they available yet? I just saw someone post the phase IV set on ebay, included was a picture of the loco's and the statemeht that they had only been test run. The starting bid was 180.00 dollars.
They are out and I have seen them at Kato USA on Monday. They are the best looking locomotives I have seen. Dealers started to get them about 4-1. I would look other places before buying of ebay.
I got my P42 in NEC colors today.(See "Devil Made Me Do It" thread in this forum to see how I got it) It is beautiful! The first thing that I noticed was that it comes packaged with a little "pouch" containing detail parts (such as MU hoses) which you can either assemble or not. It has incredible "idle" speed and took just a feather touch on the throttle to get running (Yes, even on my filthy track!) Full throttle yielded a scale "notch 8" of approximately 70 miles an hour very smooth and quiet. The only anomoly that I noticed staright out of the box was a small wheel wobble in the rear wheel set. This went away once it broke in however and leaves me to believe that it was probably just some stuck break-in lube. I think that the Genesis and my Bachmann Consolidation are going to be my 2 best buys for 2002! Happy railroading! <img src=http://www.trainboard.com/sigbreak.gif> Russ
I picked up my first P42 yesterday and I was wondering if anybody knew which MT's would fit this great model.
I couldn't see any reference to the P42 on the microtrains site, I checked the database and no mention there either.
I guess I'm curious, as these come with Kato's fully automaic knuckle coupler, do the Kato units not work as well as the MT's. Inquiring minds want to know [ 12 April 2002, 16:39: Message edited by: Chesapeakenscaler ]
I've gotton two in Phase 3. Looked long and hard the Phase IV, but the Phase 3 just stands out much better. The new Kato coupler works very well, especially with MT's. I've even taken the longer shank coupler and put it on the front of an E8. This has worked better than the MT replacement coupler for running with the unit in ABA style and not pulling the trailing car off the track on the tighter radius. [ 05 April 2002, 14:17: Message edited by: rjs01 ]
I hadn't reserved a set, but bought them yesterday. Mine had more running noise than is typical for Kato, and the hobby shop said that most units were not the "silent types" How does every one elses sound?
BTW, the Kato P42 takes a 2004-1 MT coupler. I needed a longer shank to accomodate some of my sharper turns and I'm just no good with puuting little parts like Katos new coupler together. I tried and it was a disaster and a lesson in frustration. It's nice that Kato includes a longer coupler with their model but I wish it was an assembled one. With the MT 2004-1, it is a little longer than the coupler that comes on the P42 a little shorter than Kato's extended coupler.
WOW!!!! I just received mine and they look awesome. Does anyone know if there is a plug-n-play decoder on the market for these?
The decoder is not out yet, but Digitrax has it on the way. I believe they said it would be the end of the month or beginnning of May before it's out. I forgot the number for it though. Brian
well these things slide right into the pine sol just great. nice to see that mopac blue will cover over that awful amtrak paint easily!!! [ 10 April 2002, 21:29: Message edited by: Mopac3092 ]
This is what I am waiting for from Kato. Aperantly it was too late for the factory to paint them up, because VIA was so secretive about the paint sceme.
I just ordered a 2-car phase III set from BLW. I was going to let them go, but then I pulled mt Kato smooth-sides out of the closet and ran them behind C44-9W ATSF 950. They looked great. Does AMTRAK still rub the "Heritage cars" behind the P42s? I have a retired AMTRAK conductor and his active conductor daughter in one of my churches, but forgot to ask this morning. Jerry
