In December 2021 a rare opportunity presented itself and I happen to be at the right place at the right time to seize it. Some could say the stars aligned just right that afternoon. Others may call it something else. But on the 18th of December in the 2021st year of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I acquired the 2004 Limited Collector’s Edition of the Athearn John Deere N scale Train Set from a fellow Metrolina Model Railroaders club (MMRR) member. I am very grateful to him for selling me this very beautiful set to add to my model train collection. I had no idea that it existed. Below are some of the features of the train set along with lots of pictures and videos of the trains running on one of my N scale model railroad layouts known as the HJR Lonsway Pike.
Athearn released the John Deere N Scale (1/160TH) train set some time in 2004. It was NEW and SEALED in its original box with plastic wrap around it when it was first introduced to me. My fellow MMRR member mostly models HO scale items. He had just purchased a nice size lot of items in an online auction and among them was this handsome train set. He intended to sell it from the start. I just happen to be there when he opened up his big box of goodies and pulled this out. I asked him if he would be willing to part with it. He said yes. We struck a deal and now it has been added to my personal collection.
The box indicates the following preassembled contents as follows:
1 – John Deere F59 PHI DC Diesel Locomotive 2 – John Deere 85′ Bombardier Coach Cars 1 – John Deere 85′ Bombardier Control Car 1 – John Deere 53′ Flat Car With 2 7820 Tractors 1 – UL Listed Trainpak Power Supply 14-Piece Oval of Easy to Assemble Roadbed Track
After the MMRR member and I struck a deal we decided to open the train set at that time. I tore off the plastic wrap and in doing so accidentally ripped the golden 2004 collector’s medallion sticker that was affixed on top of it. I found one of the stickers still affixed in a photo of an eBay listing. I copied it and affixed it to my photo of the box in my pictures below. However, I had to find another listing on WorthPoint to be able to ascertain exactly what the sticker said. It says “1ST IN THE N GAUGE SERIES”. I would have kept the sticker that was on the one that I have if I had not ripped it into pieces when I removed the plastic. The sticker was affixed to the outside of the plastic. Both me and the seller thoroughly examined the train cars in the Athearn John Deere train set. There are a lot of minute details on each one of the train cars. The painting is very elaborate too.
I doubt that John Deere operated their own Passenger Train service. According to this Wikipedia article, the F59PHI locomotive in this train set was built for commuter service mostly in California sometime between the years 1994 and 2001 by General Motors Electro-Motive Division (EMD). Bombardier has made passenger cars and other trains in this country for quite some time and it is their line of commuter Passenger Cars represented in this model train set. In 1966 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CBQ) railroad did pull a three-quarter (3/4) mile long train of John Deere tractors and equipment as part of a Deere company marketing campaign. However, I doubt that the John Deere company paid CBQ, Bombardier, or any other railway company to have their locomotive and passenger cars painted the way these model trains are painted. I believe this train set to be yet another John Deere marketing campaign . The campaign is all about the promotion of the John Deere 7820 tractor, a 185-HP (net), 20-speed, row-crop tractor manufactured in Waterloo, Iowa between 2003 and 2006. You can see it highlighted on the model 7820 Bombardier BiLevel Coach Control passenger car as well as see two N (1/160th) scale miniatures strapped to the 53′ N scale Flat car. I believe I have other N scale 7820 tractor models in my collection [need to find and confirm] and I know I have a fleet of 8 John Deere HO scale tractors as well, 7 of which are 6420 models.
Side Note: While writing this page, I searched the Internet and found some very interesting articles about the John Deer company which appears to be called Deere & Company now or just plain Deere (click links to visit Deere.com). I also ran across the Bombardier company and really enjoyed reading about the trains, plains, and other items the Bombardier company manufacturers or manufactured in the past (Alstrom acquired Bombardier’s transportation services a year prior to me writing this article.). [My links go to different places.] As fate would have it, later that same day, I booked a flight to Massachusetts via American Airlines to attend the annual Amherst Train Show and for the first time I noticed that I will be traveling on a Bombardier manufactured commercial passenger jet airplane soon. Had I not paid attention to the type of passenger cars included in this Athearn model train set, I am absolutely certain that I wouldn’t have paid any attention whatsoever to the manufacturer of the airplane I will be flying on very soon. I’m also sure that if I happen to get on one of Bombardier’s (or Alstrom’s) manufactured trains in the future, I will be more aware of it because of this John Deere model train set.
The HJR Lonsway Pike employs the use of some very steep grades. I modified the layout to include those grades in order to enhance the fun and appeal of that layout. My modifications were designed for trains to mostly run on the layout in a clockwise direction. This John Deere train set must be run in the counterclockwise direction on my layout in order for the John Deere F59 PHI locomotive to successfully pull the entire load successfully around my train layout and make it up the grades. You will see this in both videos. In the first video, you will see the locomotive struggle to make it up the steepest grade to go through the top of the mountain. In the second video you will watch it successfully go through the mountain and come out the other side while traveling in the counterclockwise direction. I don’t think I will even attempt to put this train set on my DeskTrain layout because I am pretty sure it will not make the grades on that layout in either direction.
Many thanks to D.O. for selling me the Athearn N scale John Deere train set.
N Kato Union Pacific GE DCCs ES44AC GEVO Diesel Engine #5400 pulling 3 Con-Cor NP&S Christmas passenger cars
N Kato Union Pacific GE DCCs ES44AC GEVO Diesel Engine #5400 pulling 3 Con-Cor NP&S Christmas passenger cars
HO Athearn RoundHouse Collector's White Pass & Yukon Route Overton Set
HO Athearn RoundHouse Collector's White Pass & Yukon Route Overton Set
Shows the 4-piece Athearn WP&YR Overton Passenger Cars inside their plastic carton. I cannot remember if I took this photo or if it was acquired from the Internet.
On this page, I am sharing with you the history of the compilation of my N scale California Zephyr Chicago, Quincy & Burlington Collection. It is mostly comprised of Kato locomotives and passenger cars. However, to complete the Kato suggested possible consists of train sets, the last 4 locomotives to be added to the set are manufactured by Broadway Limited Imports. As a result, I have renamed this page and this portion of my overall model railroad collection and have settled on its final name.
It has taken quite a few years to assemble this particular collection. The first pieces were acquired while on vacation one year. As new editions to the fleet are acquired I will provide updates. In the first quarter of 2022, what I think will be the final pieces of the motive power for this collection are being acquired. The last 4 locomotives will be Broadway Limited Paragon4 locomotives instead of Kato’s. Nonetheless, thus far, everything else is all Kato equipment.
At the end of a vacation on November 21st, 2014, I decided to see if anyone had any good deals to add to my model railroad hobby — the Greatest Hobby in the World. I found what sounded to me like a great deal. A retired gentleman named Harry living in Seminole, FL was selling his N scale Kato CB&Q EMD E5A & Silver Streak Zephyr 6 Unit set (item #106-090). The friend I was visiting on vacation was kind enough to drive me about 45 minutes out of his way to pick-up that set from Harry. It was the coolest looking train set I had seen thus far in my model railroading experience at that time. It came inside of a very nice case designed to easily be stored on a bookshelf. I don’t know of any other model railroad manufacturer that sells their rolling stock train sets in such cool and convenient storage cases. See the pictures below to see exactly what I mean.
As you may notice, the above Kato set features the CB&Q SILVER STREAK ZEPHYR which is not a California Zephyr train set. Hence the reason I renamed this collection to just my “Chicago, Burlington & Quincy N scale Collection featuring the Kato California Zephyr and Silver Streak Zephyr”. I also have a lot of CB&Q freight cars but none of those are displayed on this page.
There are a lot of write-ups about the Silver Streak Zephyr. This Wikipedia article is short and sweet and very quickly provides some insights into how the Silver Streak Zephyr was actually named after the movie that proceeded it. The Silver Streak Zephyr train was in operation from 1940 through 1959 and consist of non-articulated passenger cars, something that CB&Q did away with just about the time the Silver Streak Zephyr was created.
There are 2 train sets running in this video. The Silver Streak Zephyr is the one running on the inside loop and the S-curve overpass. It is the one you see at the start of this video. The train set is an Amtrak train set by Kato.
Kato CB&Q EMD E5-A Silver Streak Zephyr 6 Unit train running on HJR Lonsway Pike
I have some additional pictures and videos of the Silver Streak Zephyr running on the HJR Lonsway Pike prior to 2021 which I will incorporate into this page eventually. I also have close-up still shots of each car in the Silver Streak Zephyr line which I will post here as well. For now, the next paragraph quickly skips ahead from 2014 to 2021.
On June 1st, 2021 a huge addition to my Chicago, Burlington and Quincy N scale collection was added by a friend and client. Here is where I will start to introduce TRAVELING as a hobby on ShowMyHobby.com and provide a segue between these two great hobbies of mine. You may have already noticed a slight combination of the two. I will be more specific in the travel section but for now, notice that while on vacation in 2014, I didn’t leave Florida before checking to see if I could find something interesting to add to my model railroad hobby. I pretty much do this all the time now. In June of 2021, the entire theme of the vacation was all around REAL trains (Wait until you read the travel story — you’ll see what I mean.). The adventure was spectacular for me. And on June 1st, 2021, after getting off of the Amtrak Texas Eagle, picking up a rental car, and heading to my hotel, I had about 3 hours before I could check into the hotel. So, I asked Google Maps to route me to the nearest Train Store. Google found Model Train Crossing located at 1113 W Pipeline Rd Ste 125, Hurst, TX 76053. There website address is: https://model-train-crossing.business.site/. While I was specifically looking for something in that store, I saw a ton of great items. Among them was this fascinating 11-piece Kato California Zephyr train set. Although I looked at it briefly in a glass case that had 2 Kato BNSF locomotives that I was really checking out very hard, the store owner and salesman walked up to me and asked me what I was interested in. We talked a little bit about the diesel engines and then I asked him about the California Zephyr set. All he could remember about it is that it had been purchased at an estate sale. I asked him if I could examine it closer. He went and grabbed the keys to the display case. He retrieved the set from the bottom of the case and handed it to me. At that very moment, my friend/client called me from Boston, MA. He asked me what I was doing. I quickly told him I had arrived safely in the Dallas, Texas area and was then at a train store somewhere near Arlington, TX, killing time before I checked into my hotel. I told him that I was opening up a very beautiful 11-piece train set that I was probably going to buy. I talked with him as I walked to the counter, placed the set on it, reviewed the outside of the box, and then opened it up and slid out the tray holding the passenger cars. He asked me what I thought. As I examined the cars closer looking to see if everything was intact, I told him, “Yes, I was going to buy it because it appeared to be practically new, opened, but none of the cars showed any signs of use or damage.” He asked me to hand my phone to the cashier. I did. When the cashier handed the phone back to me, he asked me if I wanted the receipt printed or emailed. My friend said, “Happy Birthday!” And the set was then all mine. The travel story will provide more details, but for now the story is told in the video. I previously said that I would write more down about this, and I just did. In the videos, I might say a little bit more or a little bit less. Regardless, I appreciate my friend and client very much for the gift. It was a huge gesture. It has served as inspiration and of course has led to me striving to complete the suggested train sets mentioned on the back of the California Zephyr 11-piece box.
While trying to locate and gather the locomotives suggested by Kato that pulled the California Zephyr from Chicago to California and back, I found, bought, and received 2 E5-A locomotives that were supposed to be in great shape and very good running condition. At first, they did not run at all for me. So this post started on my website as a means to document my first attempts to operate the 2 consisted locomotives on my HJR Lonsway Pike layout and to provide an easy method for the seller to see what was happening when I tried to run the locomotives he sold me. The next 2 videos show the seller what I experienced the first and second times I tied to get the locomotives to run.
The seller called me back and provided me contact information to the person that programmed his locomotives. That person was able to give me the correct code programmed into these 2 locomotives. I was able to operate the locomotives as seen in the following video.
After getting the 2 new-to-me DCC Equipped Kato CB&Q locomotives working using the information provided by the seller’s friend, the seller also shared with me some videos of the 2 locomotives in operation on his layout. For several months those videos were posted here. However, as of February, 2022, I noticed those videos are no longer available. I unembedded them from this page.
In January, 2022, I stumbled across a Kato 4-piece add-on set of passenger cars. While doing research to identify the history of the newly received 4-pack of passenger cars, I ran across numerous webpages by Fred Klein, who apparently has been updating some of his pages for over 20 years with information about the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy California Zephyr train cars and train sets with lots of focus on the Kato N scale models. I wanted to take this time to include links to his very informative and very helpful web pages. I may be excerpting, quoting and/or paraphrasing some of his content in the future. If you wish to read about the real prototypes of the Kato N scale corrugated passenger cars, then Fred Klein’s documentation appears to me to be a very good place to start. He covers models by other brands as well.
Security Notes: Mr. Klein has not yet made his website use Secure Socket Layer protocols. I may have to remove the following links as they may cause my website’s SSL protection to appear to be vulnerable. As mentioned, I visited his site, read all the content a couple times on all of the following linked pages, and found nothing harmful there. Upon clicking these links, your browser may provide you with a warning message indicating that Mr. Klein’s site is not secure. Proceed at your own risk. I feel his pages are safe. However, you agree to hold me and mine harmless should your experience differ from mine.
On January, 26th, 2022, four (4) simulated stainless steel corrugated passenger cars arrived. These cars are supposed to be Kato’s 106-1606 Corrugated Passenger Car Set B of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy. I opened those on February 17th, 2022 and cataloged them. To my surprise, the 4 cars received are not exactly the 4 cars that are supposed to be in the set. I ordered the set on eBay and I have concluded that the seller must have had multiple Kato CB&Q sets and mixed up the cars that he put in the set that he sold me. I’m not that bothered by this because thus far only 1 of the cars he included duplicated a car that I previously have already. One day I think I will actually list every car in my CB&Q roster. For now, as you can see on the side of the box in the following picture and at the beginning of one of the videos below, there is supposed to be a Baggage car, Coach car, Dome car, and Sleeper Car in the Kato 106-1606 set. I received 1 Baggage, 2 Dome, and 1 Sleeper cars.
Before the Kato 106-1606 set arrived, I placed a pre-order with Factory Direct Hobbies for a combination pack of 2 Broadway Limited locomotives, item #BLI-6862. This combination pack consist of 1 powered A-unit locomotive and 1 dummy B-unit locomotive pair. I previously mentioned that once these arrive, I would take more photos and videos of them running. I would also turn on my Broadway Limited Rolling Thunder so that I can share with you the enormous sound that it pretends to give to model railroad locomotives.
Well, the Broadway Limited Imports BLI-6862 Denver and Rio Grande Western F7-A and F7-B Paragon4 equipped locomotives arrived near the end of February, 2022. The following videos demonstrate my experience with this duo and its operation on my HJR Lonsway Pike layout.
N scale Broadway Limited Imports Denver & Rio Grande Western (DRGW) #BLI-6862 Paragon4 DCC-Sound Equipped F7-A and Dummy F7-B set
Attempts to get the brand new BLI-6862 DRGW locomotive set to pull the Kato 106-1606 4-piece passenger car set.
As mentioned in the above video, my thoughts were to see if I could get away with just buying 1 Broadway Limited Imports #6862 F7-A&B locomotive set. If that set ran successfully on my layout and was able to pull all 19 passenger cars or even half of them, like 10 or 11 of the passenger cars, then I would have been satisfied. Perhaps I would have bought another A&B set just to complete the collection and feel as if I had accomplished compiling the suggested array of train sets on the back of the Kato 106-055B 11-piece passenger car set box. But the BLI locomotive pair couldn’t even pull 4 Kato passenger cars up any of the grades on my layout. So, I managed to pull off getting an order in over at ModelTrainStuff.com for 2 individually packaged Paragon4 powered Broadway Limited Imports D&RGW F7-A & F7-B units on special before they ran out.
On March 8th, 2022, the 2 individually boxed and powered BLI DRGW F7-A and F7-B arrived. They both look similar to the F3 units suggested on the back of the Kato 106-055B 11-piece passenger car set box. There is very little difference between an F7 and an F3 unit. This now gives me the suggested 4 locomotives which I can put on the tracks in an A-B-B-A arrangement as suggested on the box. One of the F7-B units is unpowered.
BLI Individually Powered N scale Paragon4 Denver & Rio Grande Western F7-A #5644 (item 6873) and F7-B #5643 (item 6874) locomotives
In the video that follows [after 3 paragraphs], I test the 2 newly received BLI F7-A & F7-B units, BLI-6873 #5644 and BLI -6874 #5643, respectively. After testing them I add them to the F7-A and F7-B pair (item number BLI-6862) road numbers: #5641 and #5642, respectively. I run the 4-unit locomotive consist as 5641 (pf) + 5642 (df) + 5643 (pr) + 5644 (pr), where pf = powered running forward, df = dummy running forward, and pr = powered running in reverse, to create the desired F7 ABBA arrangement. These 4 locomotives consisted together are very handsome, highly detailed, and very loud compared to the average N scale locomotive with an add-on sound decoder. They definitely have bigger sound than the other Sound Equipped Kato locomotives that I have in the CB&Q collection. They run very smooth over most of my Atlas code 55 tracks. But the true test would be to see “could this 4-locomotive Broadway Limited Imports consist with 3 powered units pull my 19 Kato Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger car set?” I endeavored to find out.
Originally, this video was about 53 minutes long. However, when I uploaded it to my YouTube channel there was a 1.5 to 2 minute segment where I sat my phone down without pausing the recording while I put more passenger cars on the tracks, and in the background music by Depeche Mode was playing on my TV which could faintly be heard. Even though the music could hardly be heard at all in the video, Google/YouTube felt it was loud enough to warrant flagging my video for copyright infringement. So, I edited the video and had Google cut-out that segment where the music could be heard plus additional time where only a blurry view of foliage could be seen for a total of about 13 minutes removed. I mention this because the BLI locomotives only begin to pull all 19 cars successfully near the end of this video and then right when I was just about to give up trying to get the trains to all stay together, they finally make at least 2 full loops around my layout and then something happens.
At first, it appears to be a short-circuit which typically means that one of the train cars with metal wheels derailed on the tracks and bridged a connection between the 2 rails thus causing the short. You will see that I ended the video to turn the power to the trains off, resolve the short-circuit issue, and then go to bed. After I ended the video and investigated, I wasn’t able to go to bed because I wanted to get to the heart of the problem. I discovered that nothing was wrong on the tracks or with any of the passenger cars. The problem turned out to be something went wrong with the 4th locomotive, #5644 (BLI-6873). Apparently that locomotive shorted inside of itself. Every attempt to get it to operate after the video ends results in an immediate short-circuit indication from my MRC Prodigy Advance command station. I took each powered locomotive off the tracks and then put them back on individually, powered up the transformer and immediately received a short only when DRGW #5644 was on the tracks. So, this resulted in me returning that locomotive for replacement. I mailed it on Friday, March 11th. MB Klein, owners and operators of ModelTrainStuff.com asked me to describe what happened. In that description, I let them know that I also happen to be filming the locomotives when the problem occurred and I gave them a reference point within the video that they can watch on this page if they choose to. However, since I wrote that, the video has been cut short by at least 13 minutes so the timestamp I gave them to look at is not present in the video. [For the ModelTrainStuff.com technicians, the best way to see the problem as it occurs is to skip to the last 3 minutes of the video.]
Getting 4 BLI DRGW Locomotives to pull 19 Kato CB&Q Passenger Cars
On March 13th, I took the following still shots of all four Denver and Rio Grande Western locomotives on my tracks.
When locomotive DRGW #5644 returns, I will make another video of the 4 BLI locomotives pulling the 19 train passenger cars that I have and during that video I will turn on the Rolling Thunder to see if it will work. It should be noted that the BLI F7 ABB consist headed-up by locomotives: 5641+5642+5643 do not have enough power to pull the 19 passenger cars 1 millimeter on my HJR Lonsway Pike layout. The following picture shows this portion of my CB&Q train collection waiting for DRGW #5644 to return. I know that I could add 1 Kato E5-A to the front of this consist and it would pull all of it. The BLI locomotives look great and sound great but they are much less powerful than the Kato locomotives.
In the meantime while we are waiting for the BLI DRGW #5644 locomotive to return, I will attempt to catch up on a few other videos as well as speed match the 3 Kato Western Pacific locomotives. I may even attempt to get them to pull the 19 train cars. One question is where do I have enough room to speed-test the 3 Kato WP locomotives? Will I have enough room on the HJR Lonsway Pike or will I have to use another layout that I am making specifically for resale once it is finished and has been evaluated for NMRA Achievement Award points?
MODEL RAILROADERS UNITE — START THE PRESSES! BROADWAY LIMITED IMPORTS N SCALE PARAGON4 HAS SOME MAJOR MALFUNCTIONING ISSUES!
March 3rd, 2022
On March 18th, 2022, the replacement BLI DRGW #5644 locomotive arrived. I took it out of the box and discovered that the front coupler operating hinge pin on the Micro-Trains coupler was bent out of position and there seemed to be a little bit of a gap between the 2 horizontal halves of the coupler. I turned the coupler pin back to its normal position, but this looked as if it might pose a problem later. Additionally, I wanted to see if this particular F7-A unit was going to clear my tracks. The previous A-Unit that was returned apparently didn’t always clear my track. So, I put the locomotive on my tracks and hand pushed it to see if the nose grill would hit the top of my code 55 rails while coming off of the steepest grade on my HJR Lonsway Pike layout. Sure enough, the bottom of the nose did hit the top of the Points on the tracks. At first, I thought I might have to trim some of the plastic from underneath the nose to keep it from hitting. But when I lifted the locomotive off the track, I noticed that there was about 1/16th or 3/32nd of an inch play in the way the shell fits on the locomotive. If the shell was lifted to the highest point of that play, then the bottom of the shell wouldn’t hit my track. So before attempting to run the locomotive, I removed the shell to see what could be done.
BLI DRGW #5644 with Shell RemovedBLI DRGW #5644 with Shell Off and 1 layer of tapeBLI DRGW #5644 with 3 layers of tapeBLI DRGW #5644 with 2 Layers of Tape – Final
I ended up putting 2 layers of Gorilla tape on top of the interior nose piece that the shell almost rests on when it is on the locomotive. I took some pictures and maybe even a video to document that. After some trials and additional test fittings, this worked out. However, in the end, the coupler hinge pin came out of the Micro-Trains front coupler. I had already snipped the couplers length a little bit because it looked as if it might cause a short or derailment if it were to hit the top of my rails while the locomotive was traveling at a decent rate of speed. In the past, I have noticed that Micro-Trains couplers do not work very reliably without the coupler hinge pin installed so because it slipped completely out, I turned it upside down and just laid it inside the hole made for it. That would work sufficiently without allowing the coupler pin to slip completely through the hole while the train was running until such time that I can look and see if I already have a Micro-Trains coupler that I can use or if I have to order some.
Second Broadway Limited Imports Denver & Rio Grande Western gets a Shell Lift. Also, test Rolling Thunder with Paragon4 and it fails.
Now, with the coupler operational and the nose of the newly replaced BLI DRGW #5644 sitting up high enough to make it all the way around my track without causing any issues, I put the locomotive back on the track and started testing it. I ran it around the tracks solo a couple of times. Then, I wanted to see if this locomotive alone would work with my BLI Rolling Thunder. So, I turned on the Rolling Thunder module. NOTHING. Not a thing. The receiver didn’t recognize the locomotive. So to be sure that my Rolling Thunder was working okay, I pulled out an HO scale BLI Paragon3 locomotive and put it on my HO scale Libraryville layout which is about 2 feet from the N scale HJR Lonsway Pike layout. The Rolling Thunder recognized the locomotive and started providing sound for it. I managed to catch this as part of the above video. [My apologies for my really horrible camera views. I am holding a cell phone while trying to work on or operate the trains so I am rarely looking at the phone to be sure what I am talking about is actually in view. Additionally, in the above video I mention that I think the coupler was screwed to the shell in the first DRGW #5644 that I received. That may not be true. I also removed the shells on several of the Kato locomotives within the 10 days that the locomotive was being exchanged. The Kato’s due have the front coupler attached to the shell and not the frame so I may have remembered incorrectly about the BLI shell and coupler.]
To further determine if there is something wrong with the Paragon4 or N scale not being compatible with my Rolling Thunder, I retrieved a brand new, in the box, Paragon3 N scale locomotive from its storage location and put it on my N scale layout. That locomotive is an undecorated ES44AC that I will eventually paint to match the scheme of one of my companies. It was purchased on March 22, 2020 and has never been operated. I put it on the tracks closest 2 my Rolling Thunder receiver (about 2 feet away) and turned it on. To my dismay, Rolling Thunder did not pick it up. But even worse, the locomotive would not run. It provided a good light show as the cab light-up completely and all the sounds operated, but the locomotive didn’t move 1 millimeter when I turned the throttle. Here again Broadway Limited Imports has let me down by providing expensive crap that doesn’t work as expected when it comes time for it to do so. You can see this occurring in the following video.
When Paragon4 fails to connect to Rolling Thunder, I test it with a NEW Paragon3 locomotive. It fails to connect as well and fails to move!
As if the new Paragon4 and Paragon3 locomotives right out of the box not working with Roller Thunder wasn’t devastating enough, you won’t believe what happens next. After getting all 4 of the BLI DRGW locomotives working together again, I wanted to get a picture and some video of all of my N scale Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger car collection on the HJR Lonsway Pike layout at the same time and if at all possible, have all of the locomotives running at the same time too. As I positioned additional locomotives on the tracks while the 4 DRGW locomotives were idling on the tracks, the A-Unit that was part of the A&B unit dual locomotive set #6862 shorted, and stopped working. THIS pissed me off. However, that action occurred while a video recording was on hold so it didn’t happen on camera. I decided to mention what happened in a video so I could present it to the seller or Broadway Limited Imports, and low and behold, the newly received A-Unit shorted while the trains were just sitting there idling and now it too doesn’t work anymore either. That is 2 of the 3 powered Broadway Limited Imports F7 Diesels with Paragon4 are not working with less than 2 hours of runtime. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT! The expensive Broadway Limited Imports CRAP is JUNK — Pretty, Handsome, Beautifully Sounding Electronic Waste! That is a kind way of calling them SHIT! You can see the replacement A-Unit stop working in the following video.
2 Broadway Limited Imports N scale Paragon4 Denver & Rio Grande Western F7-A diesel locomotives STOP WORKING by shorting themselves out.
(Preparing to return all 4 BLI locos)
March 24, 2022 at 3:50 PM. I called Broadway Limited Imports to see what can be done about these failing locomotives. I managed to get a technician on the line. I explained to him what is happening and what is going on. I ask him is this is a known problem and if other people are experiencing these issues. He doesn’t seem to have received a report from anyone else that this is occurring, but he neither confirmed or denied it. He said that they could take a look at them. I mentioned to him that the almost 2-year old locomotive always failed. He said that one seemed like the motor crapped out on it. I mentioned to him that I cannot keep buying faulting locomotives or locomotives that keep failing after being on the shelf for 1 or 2 years. I let him know that yesterday (March 23, 2022), their billing department sent me an invoice for $99.00 for an HO scale Paragon3 that was acting exactly like the almost 2-year old undecorated new-in-the-box never-before-run ES44AC. He told me that he felt he might be able to get the 4 DRGW locomotives looked at by expediating a return to them. I asked him if they were going to charge me for that. He said he felt they could do it, but he would run it by his manager to be sure. Then asked about the 2-year old and before he could say anything, the line went dead. I looked at the time as I quickly called back. It was exactly 4:01 PM. I believe this has happened before and I believe that BLI’s phone system terminates all calls exactly at 4 PM. When I called back, I only received a message indicating that I need to call between the hours of 10 AM and 4 PM. So, it is 4:14 PM as I write this line. One of my concerns is that if I send the 4 DRGW to BLI, the companies I bought them from won’t be able to refund my money if BLI replaces them or send them back modified. So, I think I’m done with Broadway Limited Imports. This is just too many failures occurring with their products. So, I’m going to call ModelTrainStuff.com and FactoryDirectHobbies.com and see if I can return these and get my money back. I just don’t have any confidence in Broadway Limited Import’s ability to produce consistent quality products that work reliably over long periods of time.
Okay, I calmed down a little bit. I called Broadway Limited Back the next morning and was able to speak with the same technician that was helping me when were disconnected the afternoon before. He had spoken with his manager and transferred me to him. We spoke at length about what has happened and about my concerns. Arrangements were made to send the 5 locomotives to Broadway Limited Imports for repair. That has been done. They will evaluate the locomotives and see if they can repair them. We discussed options in case they cannot be repaired or replaced as I won’t be able to returned them to the sellers and get my money back since I sent them to the manufacturer instead. I have a lot of BLI locomotives and I would like for them to run good and reliably. Hopefully this can be achieved.
In the correspondence, as per my conversation with the BLI Tech Manager, this page was provided along with a lot of information regarding how the locomotives ran, my layout, and MRC command station. I stated I would upload a lot of the videos that I took showing the performance and failures of the BLI locomotives. It has taken me much longer to do so than I anticipated. As I write this line it is 3:43 AM on April 1st, 2022. The locomotives were delivered to BLI on March 29th around 4:30 pm according to tracking. So they have had them for a couple of days now. I just invested the past 4 hours updating this page and tried to get as many of the videos and photos posted as I could. There are others not embedded in this page yet. That might be okay though because it may take several weeks for BLI to get to my locomotives. I didn’t check yet to see if the support website shows that they received them yet. I haven’t received an email indicating that they have.
Meanwhile, the HO Paragon3 locomotive that was in their shop was delivered on March 31st. I haven’t opened it yet. I need to get up in 5 hours and have a full day planned for today followed by a Train Club meeting tomorrow so it may be 16 hours to 3 days before I get a chance to resume updating this page or unpacking and of the returned HO Paragon3 locomotive.
Here is an interesting video that didn’t go as planned with just the Kato locomotives and passenger cars.
On March 26, 2022 just before completing the packaging of sending DRGW locomotives to Broadway Limited Imports, I decided to try to test the last working locomotive, an F7-B unit to see if it would connect with my Rolling Thunder module. It would not.
Having removed the DRGWs from my layout and prepared them to be sent to BLI, I split the 20 passenger cars up. I think I had most of them on the tracks, about 10 or 11 cars were pulled by 2 sound-equipped CB&Q E5-A’s while 3 WP F3’s pulled 7 to 9 cars around the tracks in the opposite direction. This worked good for the most part. However, I discovered that something was happening in the tunnel underneath my mountain. The tracks there were not very secure and may have had a small flexible hump in them. As the 2 heavy E5-A units went over the tracks, the tracks lowered and then raised again causing occasional derailments. Discovering this caused me to glue down the roadbed and track a little more and just before doing that I decided to clean all the track that I could reach with a brite-boy. I haven’t removed the pins holding down the tracks yet so I haven’t taken any other videos since or test run the trains again after gluing them down.
