Gathering accurate information about brass locomotives for my N Scale Locomotive Encyclopedia requires that I actually purchase and test out said locomotives. However, not being Bill Gates, I will also need to turn around and sell said locomotives (and not take a financial bath in the process).
So, what I will be offering here are the brass locomotives that I've purchased off of eBay (or wherever). What I will be asking for them is exactly what I paid for them. What I will give you is a totally honest, unspun description of said models- IE, absolutely no surprises. Further, should you purchase one of my brass locos and be unhappy with it for any reason, I will (upon return of said loco) refund your money - no questions asked.
I will ship worldwide. Shipping anywhere covered by UPS (IE, the USA) will be free. Shipping overseas will be a flat $20. For payment, I will require a cashier's check, a money order, or money transfer via PayPal (and PayPal only for non-USA buyers).
So, that's the deal. Bookmark this page if you're interested in honest brass. Unlike eBay, you won't get shilled or otherwise screwed here.
- Price: $209
- Road: CSX #201
- Manufactured: 1999
- Purchased: Used (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box (box shows some wear)
- Description: Micro-Trains couplers, directional lighting, window glass, dual flywheels, 3-pole motor, all-wheel pickup,
no traction tires. Excellent looking model, and a very good performer. Smooth runner, good pick-up and excellent slow speed performance.
Definitely runs much better than my SD45T-2, although it does have
problems derailing on sharp (9.75" radius or narrower) curves. Definitely suited for layouts with broad curves (or, as always, the collector shelf).
- Price: $145
- Road: Southern Pacific (factory-supplied number decals have never been applied)
- Manufactured: 1985
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box, appears to have never been used
- Description: Rapido couplers, no lighting, no window glass, 5-pole motor, 11-wheel pickup,
1 traction tire (replacement wheelsets included).
Excellent looking model, and a great performer. Smooth runner, nice pick-up, excellent slow speed performance, strong puller, no
problems on narrow radius curves. Original wholesale receipt (dated 12/84) included.
- Price: $147
- Road: Conrail #5024 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1992
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box, appears to have never been used
- Description: No couplers, directional lighting, no window glass, 3-pole motor (presumably), 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires.
Excellent looking model with a disappontingly primitive mechanism- metal gears, wheel-top wipers and wires running all over the place.
Yeah, it runs around in circles just fine, but it's very loud and
performance is a bit uneven overall. Very similar to what one might expect from a 1970s-era Bachmann trainset locomotive.
- Price: $147
- Road: Conrail #2916 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1985
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box, appears to have never been used
- Description: Micro-Trains couplers, no window glass, no lighting, 5-pole motor, 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires.
Excellent looking model and a very respectable performer to boot. Super smooth runner, but just a tad loud by modern standards (probably
due to the all-metal gears). This model has tiny little reflective "jewels" in the various head and tail light holes. I don't know if
it came from the factory that way or not, but I've certainly never seen that particular feature on any other brass locomotive.
- Price: $147
- Road: Penn Central, no number (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1985
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box, appears to have never been used
- Description: No couplers, no window glass, no lighting, 5-pole motor, 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires.
Excellent looking model and a pretty decent runner. I have noticed occasional bits of balkiness while test-running this locomotive,
but I'm assuming that's simply due to creeping crud on the wheels. Worst case,
one or more of the wheel wipers might need a bit of cleaning or adjustment.
- Price: $109
- Road: Union Pacific #9393 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1993
- Purchased: Used (eBay)
- Condition: Very nice condition, but this model has definitely seen some use. There are a number of small nicks in
the paint here and there - only noticeable under close examination, but definitely there. In original box.
- Description: Knuckle couplers, directional lighting, no window glass, 3-pole motor (presumably), 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires.
Excellent looking model with a disappontingly primitive mechanism- metal gears, wheel-top wipers and wires running all over the place.
Yeah, it runs around in circles just fine, but it's very loud and
performance is a bit uneven overall. Very similar to what one might expect from a 1970s-era Bachmann trainset locomotive.
- Price: $116
- Road: Santa Fe "Class 565" #574 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1990
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box, appears to have never been used
- Description: No couplers, rear lighting only (no headlight), no window glass, 3-pole motor (presumably), 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires.
Excellent looking model with a disappontingly primitive mechanism- metal gears, wheel-top wipers and wires running all over the place.
Yeah, it runs around in circles just fine, but it's very loud and
performance is a bit uneven overall. No headlight is provided due to lazy Korean design (go read the review).
Overall, very similar to what one might expect from a 1970s-era Bachmann trainset locomotive. But overall performance rivals
modern Atlas/Kato standards (pretty amazing given the age of these models).
- Price: $207
- Road: Southern Pacific #6141 and #8041 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1984
- Purchased: Used (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box (box has wear).
- Description: Stock Rapido-coupler on the rear of the B unit has been replaced with a Micro-Trains coupler. All the rest of the
couplers are the stock knuckle couplers. Working headlight. Window glass. 5-pole motor, 6-wheel pickup (with traction tires),
non-traction replacement wheelsets included. Original numberboard decals included (IE, not yet installed).
Excellent looking and running model. Smooth, quiet and with great performance at all throttle levels. The traction tires do make
turnouts difficult to navigate at slow speeds, and if I were to run these I'd go ahead and install the non-TT wheelsets.
- Price: $177
- Road: Norfolk Southern #4639 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 2000
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws, in original box (box shows some wear)
- Description: Micro-Trains couplers, directional lighting, window glass, dual flywheels, 3-pole motor, all-wheel pickup,
no traction tires. Excellent looking model, and a very good performer to boot. Smooth runner, relatively quiet (particularly for brass),
good pick-up and excellent slow speed performance.
- Price: $228
- Road: Illinois Central #1039 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 1998
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws
- Description: Micro-Trains couplers, directional lighting, window glass, dual flywheels, 3-pole motor, 8-wheel pickup,
no traction tires. Excellent looking model, and a very good performer. Smooth runner, relatively quiet,
good pick-up and excellent slow speed performance.
It does have problems derailing on sharp (9.75" radius or narrower) curves.
Definitely suited for layouts with broad curves (or, as always, the collector shelf). The wheel gauging may need a bit of tweaking,
but I'll leave that to the next owner to worry about.
- Price: $95
- Road: Undecorated
- Manufactured: 1983
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws
- Description: No couplers, no lighting, no window glass, 3-pole motor, 12-wheel pickup, 8-wheel drive, brass gears,
no traction tires. Excellent looking model, but not much of a runner. These Kumata Alco diesels have a very
bad reputation and this one is no exception. Yes, it runs. Unfortunately, the chassis was poorly designed (bendy/warpy), resulting in a lot of
excess friction. Couple that with a cheap/weak 3-pole motor and what you get is a locomotive that has zero slow speed performance
and is going to spend its life looking
very nice gathering dust in your display case. Note- should you buy this and actually
run it, the occasional whiff of smoke
is not the locomotive about to burn up - the guy I purchased this from spent a lot of time tuning/adjusting it
(seriously, it actually used to run worse) and a bit of oil found its way into the motor in the process. No big deal, though.
It'll eventually go away (or not - since there's not really much point in actually trying to run this thing).
- Price: $133
- Road: Undecorated
- Manufactured: 1983
- Purchased: NOS/Unused (eBay)
- Condition: Excellent condition, no visible flaws
- Description: No couplers, no lighting, no window glass, 3-pole motor, 8-wheel pickup, 8-wheel drive, brass gears,
no traction tires. Excellent looking model, and a good runner to boot. I replaced the old cracked plastic gears with new ones from
NWSL and now this thing runs like new. Very smooth, good slow speed creep, reasonable top-end, nice pickup. Kind of loud
(especially at higher speeds), but that's pretty typical with these older brass locos.
- Price: $295 for the pair ($148 for one)
- Road: Milwaukee Road #16 and #17 (factory paint)
- Manufactured: 2005
- Purchased: New/TRO (eBay)
- Condition: Perfect condition, no visible flaws
- Description: Microtrains couplers, directional lighting, window glass, 3-pole motor,
heavy-metal/split-frame chassis, all-wheel pickup, all-wheel drive, plastic gears,
no traction tires. Excellent looking models, and pretty much the best-running brass locos I've yet encountered.
With their modern chassis design, these are pretty much the first brass locomotives I've encountered where I'd
be comfortable running and maintaining them. Definitely a high water mark for N scale brass.
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