After reading this thread, I decided to go out and buy my own IHC 4-6-2. Got it in the Erie scheme.
From what I've been reading on here, it's relatively smooth running, pulls pretty well, and despite the detail, is an excellent deal. Not for me!
I can live with the lack of details, so long as it looks good from a distance, I'm fine with it. But what I will not compromise on is running quality.
My IHC Pacific runs pretty smoothly, down to a scale 15-20 mph or so. Not bad, since I wanted to pull mixed locals at about 40 mph.
My only problem with this loco is probably the biggest. I couldn't get it to pull more than 3 or 4 Athearn Blue-Boxes (Mixed hooper and boxcar) up my 2.5 percent grade. I was aiming for a loco that could do 10.
Before you call me crazy for expecting that insane amount of pulling power from any loco, hear me out. I was expecting this amount of power from an IHC pacific because the IHC MOGUL could do all of the above, AND MORE!
I was expecting the same quality from IHC on this 4-6-2 as on their 2-6-0. My IHC 2-6-0 can handle a 10-car consist up a a 2.5 percent grade, can run smoothly at 5 scale mph, and the level of detail buries the IHC pacific, as an added bonus.
I know not all of the IHC 4-6-2's are like mine, but I guess you can't win them all. Really a shame since I spent $75 on mine, quite a some for a teenager like me. I'll be returning it tommorrow.
Thanks for putting up with my rant, just fuming a bit after my let-down.
-S. Connor
EDIT: Both IHC locomotives I am refering to in this post were made for IHC by Mehano.
Last year I purchased a used IHC 4-6-2 pacific $15 and modified it for DCC sound and fell in love with the ease of modifications, smooth pulling power, great slow speed motion, etc.
I recently purchased a used IHC Premier 4-6-2 with DCC Tsunami sound $71 and more greatly impressed, I'm buying as many of this series I can find- just won another Premier 4-6-2 pacific on ebay $48 to upgrade to DCC sound. They pull 8 Rivarossi heavyweight passenger cars (even with lighting pickups dragging) or over 20+ free-wheeling freight cars with ease.
I'm keeping my 3 best runners and favorite road names, and will upgrade, tuneup, lube, and sell the others I run across.
The Bachmann 4-8-2 with Soundtraxx is also a great runner but a little noisy.
My Opinion of IHC Premier - great pulling power, smooth at low and high speeds, quiet, great detailing, easy to maintain and upgrade, and looks fabulous on my layout.