Lionel "baby berkshire" mini review

[mpzpw3]

I recently purchased the Lionel J.C. Penneys Baltimore and Ohio berkshire locomotive at the special price. I will attempt to give a review, which should also include the other "baby berks" , except for paint. CTT did a review of this engine recently, and that review was pretty much right on. I will try and divide the review up into the following catagories: Shipping and boxing, overall appearance, and operation. For some reason I can't paragragh here, so bear with me.
When the engine arrived, it was packaged with a display case, and the contents were well protected. The box was the usual curragated version. The display case was well protected, and the engine was in it's own curragated box, also well protected. After opening the main shipping box, and opening the seperate display case box, and opening the engine box, I was greeted with the familar orange and creme Lionel box containing the engine. The engine is also contained in the famaliar styrofoam mold. Lionel was smart enough to give some blue ribbon "pull straps" to remove the engine. If they hadn't, the engine would have been very hard to remove from the styrofoam. A+++ on shipping containers!! Very well protected!
Apperance: This engine is done in the blue and silver B&O color scheme. The color seems just a little bit heavily applied, but overall a beautiful engine. All details are easily seen, and the casting is remarkable. From a distance of 4 to 5 feet, the piping and extras seem to be added on, but they are cast, except for the handrails, with GREAT stanchions (much better than the postwar cotterpins), and a swinging bell on the front, done in gold. The drivers are also blue, with silver rims, and spoked. The tender, a perfect match for my postwar 2466WX tender, only with wire handrails, and in die-cast metal, is also blue, and detailing in the letters is crisp, and no flaws can be noted. The coal pile looks like real coal, so I can only say that the painting of the coal load is suburb.
Overall painting is great, and I would give it an A-, simply because the silver on the engine looks a little heavy. On a black engine, which I prefer, this would probably not be noticed. For a mid-level steam engine, I would have to say the appearance and details are well done, and would be a delight on Christmas morning. Much better than the "scout" lookalikes, and the modern version of the 2036 Pacifics. The engine is definetly O-27, with great detailing. Traditional sized cars (6464 series, 9400 series, and 9700 series, along with all short and 16 inch passenger cars) look right with this engine.
Operation. The engine runs great! With the railsound off, it is wisper quiet. The railsounds are generic, but very fun to work with, if you are new to railsounds. I am sure some "old hands" would say that the railsound are not very good (chuff-rate, and cab chatter), but, again, for a mid-level steamer (this is not a $1000.00 steam engine, it is a $170.00 engine, with free shipping!), it is great. A 9 volt battery is needed to keep the railsound from cutting out while shifting through the forward-neutral-reverse sequence, which is fairly easy to install. Remove 4 screws from the bottm of the tender, and install the battery. In my opinion, the battery installation is easy, and the die-cast tender will make it possible to replace batteries many times, without stripping the threads. Probably because of the 2 traction tires, my engine will pull anything I can give it. My disclaimer is, my layout is fairly small, so here are my results: This engine will walk away with 4 aluminum postwar passenger cars, without any wheel spin. It will also walk
off with an 11 car freight (all modern-era Lionel, Industrial Rail, and MTH cars.), with no hesitation. For fun I hooked up my aluminum passenger car, my 11 car freight consist, and 4 Williams madison cars, and, although chasing its tail, pulled them all, even at a good clip. I personally don't measure low and high speeds, because I feel they are inaccurate due to load consists. Remember folks, there were a lot of light bulbs in this consist, and the engine still managed to pull it. I am using a transformer with no rating on it (Trollier, from the early 80's) , so cannot give specific amperage-voltage draw. After about 80 loops the transfoormer was getting warm. I would say this engine is a good hauler, and for those of you who bought the train set versions, you can add quite a few cars without any problem.Unfortunately, there was one bad point. There is little to no smoke. I can smell the smoke, but can't see it. After reading the included instruction manual, which states to include 5-6 drops of fluid,no smoke was produced. I ran the engine a short time just to see if the smoke would work, and it didn't. I then went with the other tried and true method of adding about 30 drops of smoke, to keep the wik from burning out. A few wisps have been all I seen. I have to give operation a B-, just because of the smoke issue. I have postwar steam locos that will pull the same consist, although at a much higher voltage, and with a lot more slipping, that will fill the room with smoke. Some people don't like smoke, I understand that, but if a manufacture advertises an engine with smoke, it should smoke.
In conclusion, this is a great entry-level engine. I am not an entry-level hobbyist, and I like the engine, so for those of you operating new train sets or those who like to run traditional sized equipment, this is a great engine. I do realize that I haven't added much to the CTT review, but it is a real-life review of the engine.

[Lafondue]

Thanks for the review.....not so a mini one.

well I still wait for my baby Berks included in the Santa Fe Super Freight set, it had been 2 month and counting...[:(].

Glad you like the engine as for the smoke issue it seem it's a Lionel problem, based on other forum threads none of their steamer, even high end one produce a lot of it.

[Anonymous]

Mpzpw3,

I gave my boy the new Korean Lionel baby Pacific, and it looks like the same stuff as the baby Berkshire. In order to get heavy smoke out of that thing I have to hold the Smoke Boost Key on the Cab-1 for quite a while. I don’t know how it works in conventional mode, but I assume that the smoke unit has two TMCC settings. One for indoor use, and the other for club layout use? All and all, it’s a great engine for the price, and larger looking than I expected. I was surprised when I put that engine on the track for the first time. However, compared with some of the highly detailed engines, it’s a Plain Jane.

Richard