@brianel_k-lineguy: Fair enough, maybe it's not really appropriate to call it "junk". Maybe "low-end toy"?
I get it, but even as an "entry-level" toy product, the build quality on these was pretty cheap. The "rolling chuffer" that had beads rolling around in the tender rarely made any real noise, and the engine had a hard time pulling the small, light cars that it came with on the included 027 tracks. When running in DC off the little transformer, I often had to slow down or stop, regain traction, and then slowly start pulling again. This was with the traction tire in place. What was funny is that, because of the way the resulting loads would work when the motor was applying torque and the single-sided traction tire, the engine would have less difficulty going one direction around the loop versus the other. Other small details were also not very well controlled...The screws that mounted the front truck to the underside of the loco body were so off-center that they were pushing material slightly to the inside of the post mounts in the shell resulting in the telltale "whitening" of the green plastic.
However, all that being said, the actual level of detail in the molds is pretty good for such a low-end piece. You're correct that some paint highlights and some strategic decoration really bring it out. So that's definitely a positive. As for adding electronics like the PS1 board...I did it because I wanted to learn how that stuff went together. I have a bunch of functioning PS1 boards that I got for a song, and I didn't mind screwing up a loco and possibly a board tinkering around with it. I know the PS1 stories, but so far I've been able to avoid the worst of them.
I suppose I called it "junk" because I got it as a freebie with a transformer and I've conducted all sorts of unspeakable acts of torture on it since I got it. It's barely a shell of its former self anymore.
BTW, did you manage to cram a smoke unit into your 7938 pictured above, or is that just dramatic effect for the photo?
