I have one of the new MTH Berks and the detail is on par or better than my Blueline M1a.
Springfield PA
locoi1sa rjake4454blue line J1a today for $380 If I remember correctly my J1 cost less than $200 from MB Kliens. It is a Blueline also. I have 5 Blueline steamers and paid less than $200 each. The price you paid is above MSRP. These frequently come on Ebay for less. Pete
rjake4454blue line J1a today for $380
If I remember correctly my J1 cost less than $200 from MB Kliens. It is a Blueline also. I have 5 Blueline steamers and paid less than $200 each. The price you paid is above MSRP. These frequently come on Ebay for less.
Pete
Yeah, the shop I went to today, listed the J1 at $320 last month, a few days ago, I looked at it in the display case and the price tag had white out on it, with the new price of $350 (tax not included of course) written in, and again, this is not DCC equipped so how one would set the price $50 over MSRP is beyond me . It was the only Blue Line J1 to be found, there have been none on ebay for several months. I paid $400 for the blue line T1, not including tax, but I guess that is the MSRP...but still so high for a DC loco.
Broadways engines do have near brass detail but the price is actually rather high for all of the blue line electronic problems.
I don't buy MTH engines mainly because of crude detail, extremely high prices, and of course DCS.. However MTH has the best lighting system. If only MTH could drop the DCS business and spend most of their time trying to match up to BLI and Bachmann Spectrum's level of detail, rather than focus their energy on station announcements, crew chatter and smoke.
I had their Class J and Empire State Express last year, the headlights were amazingly bright, no flickering, and of course you never had to worry about the tether plug, because there wasn't one. Why can't Broadway make their headlights like this I wonder? BLI is a great company and I will always stand by them, but something seriously needs to be done in the QC department.
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Thanks guys, I will definately look into the feeder issue. On my last layout I don't remember how many I had, but that the table was 9 x 12 ft at my brother's house, and I don't remember there being that many feeders, maybe that was the problem. We were just starting out, and our track work was fairly poor, and our wiring probably somewhat inadequate.
Back then I actually did primarly use the MRC Prodigy Express with Train Control Systems decoders in both the T1 and J1, I don't recall the locos having the same sound problems, however the J1's had lights flickering even with decoders installed, running on DCC, so perhaps it was indeed a feeder issue, or dirty rail joints.
I still have the MRC Express Squared, but haven't used it in a while, I'm not too happy with it for various reasons. After testing out NCE at a 2 rail O scale club in my area, I'm considering going with that because its just as user friendly and seems to have less bugs than the MRC system. Its a nice system.
The funny thing is about the DC Blue Lines is now they are just as expensive as the Paragons and Paragon II's. I saved up for a few months and bought a blue line J1a today for $380 at the hobby store. Isn't that just a little high for a DC locomotive? The reason I went for these is because of the superior sound system to the old QSI in these particular models. Still, I think its kind of a rip off. They are beautiful locos all the same.
I agree. The OP has another thread going with a different set of problems that I just commented might be dirty track/connection issues. The power pack issue might apply there as well. All I say is next time you want a new loco. Get a NCE power cab or Digitraxx Zephyr instead and put some cheap decoders in those nice loco's you have.
That would be the culprit. IFRC they put out pulses of DC instead of a straight line DC. The sound decoder is picking it up as switching back and forth which will blow the whistle. Is there a switch for momentum or pulse? If so turn it off.
locoi1sa Does the DC power pack have some sort of pulse or momentum like my old MRC pack? That would confuse a sound decoder for sure. Put a cheap decoder in it and run it on DCC. Pete
Does the DC power pack have some sort of pulse or momentum like my old MRC pack? That would confuse a sound decoder for sure. Put a cheap decoder in it and run it on DCC.
I'm not sure, thats possible though, because my blue line J1 I bought today is doing the exact same thing when running it on DC.
My power pack is labeled MRC Tech II Railpower 1400, I don't know much about the model, but this thing is an ancient relic, I hadn't used it for running trains since I was about 12 years old and that was waaayyy back in 96.
Interesting, my Q2 never has this problem on the test track, of course I only run that on DCC, if that makes any difference.
Well, I'll try to solder the joiners, thanks for the suggestion.
Definitely check that it is clean. Also solder the joiners if possible. If that doesn't change things I'd call tech support if the loco is new.
Dirty track or a bad rail joiner. With sound decoders if the power falters then it will restart where it left off.
I have a blue line T1 duplex, I run it on DC, and occasionally after a few seconds of running in reverse, the whistle automatically goes off and then the entire engines goes into and remains in mute. Then I press the volume button and the whistle plays where is left off, then everything goes back to normal.
Any ideas on what the problem could be and why it occurs very randomly in a completely unpredictable pattern? I run it back and forth on an 8 ft long test track. Its two pieces of flex connected at the middle, and I could be wrong, but it does seem to happen more often when backing up over the rail joints, but again, only in reverse, never in forward direction.