@Peter Lagus 091618 posted:I am in the same boat as GG14877, i.e. no layout yet. Has anyone spoken with Scott at Sunset about this issue? If so, what was his response? For this kind of money I am concerned about the apparent lack of QA.
There is no lack of QA at Sunset. Scott is very diligent with numerous trips to the factory (prior to COVID) as well as a lot of communication directly with the in-country engineering team which have been working on behalf of Sunset for many years. Scott's project manager at the factory goes back to the days when 3rd rail / Sunset was still made in Korea. They are a talented group of people when given clear direction and they do ask questions when needed.
I have a total of 37 3rd Rail plastic diesels from 2012 on and I have yet to have to experience any issues. This includes 1st / 2nd / 3rd run E7s, FL9s, FP7s, F7s, FTs, SD7/SD9, E8s, PAs, E6s, E5s and the F3. The only issue I am aware of that was more common was the universals on the 1st run units and Scott made replacements available once that was discovered.
While 15 are 2 rail and I have not tested them, the rest have been run at my 3 rail club and have performed flawlessly for long stretches of time. In many cases I have both a 2 rail and 3 rail version of several of these locomotives. The only one that had a minor issue, was a 3 rail ATSF E8a that got confused on the TMCC signal due to the challenges my club has with getting good signal strength on a 32'x40' layout. It just needs a reset. I don't see that as a design flaw.
As was mentioned by Chris, the biggest issue with the 2 rail versions is getting the programming fine tuned on the QSI boards for optimal performance. The upcoming GP7/9s in 2 rail and future projects will have Loksound so the QSI issue will be no longer.
In short, I expect this to be an isolated issue.
