Does yours really say Proto-2000 Heritage. I thought mine just said Proto-Heritage.
I have two of those 2-8-8-2s and five of the 0-8-0 from the Proto-Heritage line of locomotives. I even have two of the matching Proto display cases (where one of the 0-8-0s lives).
I found the 0-8-0s to be highly unreliable because of power pick up problems (which they fixed with the 0-6-0 and I was just getting ready to order the parts to apply that fix to the 0-8-0s when Walther's took over and "lost" - their word not mine - all those parts).
A 2-8-8-2 was taken to an operating session at a friends house. As wobblinwheel says it ran flawlessly, but I was unable to make it get 20 reefer cars up a straight 1.5% grade. I had to back it down to the yard and lessen the load to 12(?) cars. sigh. After that I wasn't too much interested in it. It has been in its box so long I do not remember if it had traction tires that I could have installed or not. Now, I might have to scare one of them up and give it another try.
wobblinwheelI bought this jewel when it first came out (I'm thinking around 1996?).
I don't even think Life-Like's Proto 2000 line came out until the late 90s/early 2000s. Seems to me that the Y3 were released in the mid-2000s?
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Las t night, I pulled out of "mothballs" my original-issue Proto 2000 "Heritage" N&W (HO) Y3 2-8-8-2. I had shelved it several years ago, in favor of several sound-equipped locos that took my attention. After rolling this one out of it's dust-covered corner staging track, I began to realize the quality, detail, and FLAWLESS running characteristics of this marvelous engine! I bought this jewel when it first came out (I'm thinking around 1996?). I have developed a new-found appreciation for it's "AUSTRIAN workmanship"! (yes, Austria). This thing was as near "perfect" as I had ever seen at the time, and I realize now that IT STILL IS! The unique design (at the time?) of it's tender drawbar that "extends" in curves works flawlessly, and it allows this loco to "snake" it's way thru the tightest turns and switches with ease, and looks good doing it, with no exceesive overhang, and keeping the tender visually "close-coupled" at all times. While some of my original Paragon (Korea) BLI locomotives are "close" in quality and performance, but seemingly "not quite". I believe this engine may have been the "standard" of high-quality in it's day that others aspired to, or SHOULD'VE. Do any of you, who were "fortunate" enough to get one of these "originals", feel the same way? Has CHINESE manufacture pretty much "thrown a wrench" into the expectation of "really high quality"?
Mike C.