I picked up the Nickel Plate Berkshire from Charles Ro yesterday. I was hoping it had the Mars light and a bit disappointed that it did not. This was on feature that Dave Olson had mentioned as being particularly cool when the locomotive was running and what I remember seeing as a kid when they blasted through Hobart, Indiana. The locomotive is packed tightly in its case and "locked in" with gray blocks to keep it and the tender from moving around in the slightest. Once the locomotive was out of the box, I noticed a tiny screw and a black plastic coupler in the styrofoam tray. Because neither was in the small plastic pouch containing two spare traction tires and the scale coupler bracket, I assumed the the screw was loose and fell of the front. The screw seemed to be magnetic, which made it a bit easier to reinstall. The unpainted shiny hand rails made the locomotive and tender seem more toylike, but as Jonathan points out, they can be painted.
The tender was to get a Kadee scale coupler installed, but the screw holding the large electro-coupler was accessible only when the body of the tender was removed. Even when I removed the body, the rear tender truck would not rotate enough to see the screw . A c-clamp holds the truck shaft through the frame, and this is hard to remove while being careful not to damage the wires from the truck through the shaft to the circuit boards on the tender frame. The electro-coupler came off easily, but its plug to the circuit board is too thick to pass through the truck shaft--I had to cut the wires to completely remove the coupler and its plug.
The Kadee scale bracket comes with six screws: two for attaching the Kadee coupler to the bracket, two longer screws to attach the bracket to the body of the tender, and two shorter screws for the same attachment. The longer screws extend beyond the tender frame and are visible, so the shorter screws are the ones to use. (In my packet there was only one small screw and three long screws. Someone miscounted.) The bracket screw holes did not line up exactly with the holes in the tender. (Flyerrich's photo of the bottom of the tender shows two plugged holes that may have been a correction to a mistake in alignment. Although visible on the bottom of the tender, they do not appear on the surface.) I had to bend the bracket slightly to get it to match up with the holes on the tender.
The coal in the tender is held together and to the body with a yellowish glue. One corner of the coal load had lifted slightly from the body, but an easy push put it back in place. There were a few strands of the glue that lay across the edge of the coal pile, resting on the side of the tender. I lifted those with a tweezers to pull them off.
Once I placed the locomotive on the track, it did not respond to DC current, either forward or backward. (The Y-3 2-8-8-2 sometimes balks at DC forward but always responds to DC reverse.) Turning power on/off, forward/reverse, increasing voltage to 14 volts--nothing got any movement. I then programmed the locomotive for the Legacy format and tried the Legacy control. The locomotive responded immediately. In fact, the response was a bit faster than I expected until I set momentum to high. Slow speed operation either forward or backward was excellent. The sound level was at its maximum volume setting, so I turned it down a half rotation. Setting the train brake slider on the left of the Cab controller to make the locomotive labor more, as if pulling a heavy load, brought out laboring sounds more noticeably than any of the other American Flyer Legacy steam locomotives. The bell was that standard sound, but the whistle was marvelous--quite a bit different from the Challenger, Mikado, or Y-3 and just what I remembered as a kid when that sound alerted my brother and me to race on our bikes to see/feel/smell those Berkshires pound through the nearest rail crossing. There are brake sounds when the locomotive is brought to a halt rather quickly, but not when slowing down at a more practical rate. No more "elephant squeel" at any reduction in speed.
I put the programmed Berkshire back on the track to try DC power again, and it now responded to the controls. The Y-3 "woke up" at about 5 volts, but the Berkshire needed about 7 volts to light up and react to more voltage to move.
In the styrofoam case there is a plastic smoke fluid funnel and a metal wrench for removing drive rod screws if the traction tires ever need replacing. The explanation for this tool is on page 31 of the manual. This is a nice touch that Lionel included and should have emphasized as an additional feature.
The paint and detailing are first rate, as usual on Legacy models. The builder's plate is fully legible under a microscope, and there is added--not molded--piping everywhere across the boiler. The cab bulkhead is highly detailed and much more visible in this model than the equally detailed Challenger with its back doors closed.
I have to say I was initially disappointed with the lack of a Mars light, and then the small flaws I encountered. It's natural to compare the Legacy Berkshire to the previous Legacy steam engines and find a few deficiencies--until one reminds himself that the Berkshire is nearly half the price, is as fully detailed, and is designed to work on TMCC, Legacy, AC, DC, and DCC. It is a wonderful addition to our scale--a fully loaded steam locomotive that costs the same as a Legacy diesel! Lionel has done a great job with this one.
