the early westside(red box) locos were built much like the us hobbies with the diecast gearbox. when they started using Korean builders(red and white boxes) the gearboxes were light duty, the brass was thinner but had more detail that you usually found in the bottom of the box. i was dealer back then and received 100's of locos from psc ,westside, custom brass, overland and oriental. several of the importers voiced that they were not interested in the quality of the drives as they stated very few owners actually ran their locomotives. this opened a great opportunity for people like jerry white, stu kleinschmidt, soufue, cockerham and others.
at the youngstown model railroad association layout a pair of 3rd rail nyc hudsons pulling an 8 car empire state express spun their drivers going up hill a single us hobbies hudson pulled the same train with no spinning drivers . all 3 were completely stock with no modifications and this was on steel rail. 3rd rail makes beautiful locomotives but heavy trains and grades put them to the test.
