USA Trains diesel engines used to be said that they were power hogs. I believe that came from running them on straight DC with too small of power supplies ( from smaller scales). As I got deeper into G scale, I wondered how the Aristo Dash 9 engines used 4 motors that appeared to be like the 2 that are in the USA Trains diesels. As I learned more about G scale and getting enough power to the track, new decoders kept coming out that claimed to handle higher amps.
I met a man named Ray Manley (online), and asked him how the MTH decoders handled the higher draws like the USA Trains were said to have. I remember he seemed surprised by my question and said they will handle them very well. Years later I realized that the USA Trains, and other brands, run normally under command with actually low power draw. I was told you couldn't run very many engines unless you had really big power.
I say all this because way back, I had one USA Trains SD40-2 that did not get run. It seemed to be a power hog and I had many MTH models that ran under command. So this engine sat there until I had it upgraded to MTH command. The engine had many other issues but it served as a tool to teach me about power on my growing layout. If it ran good, every other engine I had would be fine. So it became my standard to set acceptable power throughout the layout.
To this day I find every topic about power distribution very interesting and I read every engine issue that pops up. I try and apply what I've learned, and stay open minded about learning new things too. I find that putting power on a much bigger layout in G scale, is no harder than doing it in O.
Anyways this is the only reason I chimed into this post. I don't have the OP's engine and have never worked on them. I do my own installs on many brands in different scales and try to learn all I can.
