Good afternoon all:
I am considering adding to the roster in the next month or so, and I think a commuter MU set is next. MTH makes a nice MP54 set which, while a RailKing item, seems well-scaled and reasonably detailed. The problem is the pantographs are not really catenary-ready. The heads are rounded off, and the structure itself moves around way too much. They do not seem made for use with catenary. A similar, more stable design was used on MTH E33s, but those pan heads are obnoxiously too big. I'm not really a rivet counter, but geez.
There are other options of the reasonably scaled GG1-style 4-stage pans. My question for you live-wire guys (Marty in particular) is which ones seem to work well and do you have a supplier for them. Lionel has very nice looking pans from their GG1s and B1 switchers, and I have a potential supplier for them, but I cannot get my hands on any ahead of time. Are they metal? Do they track the wire well? Are they well-sprung? K-Line also made some nice pans for their scale EP5, and they are made for wire, but I have no supplier for them. MTH also made some better looking pans on their P5 boxcab, but I can't find them anywhere either. There is a guy on ebay that has some, but I have no idea if they are any good for catenary, and I am not interested in $70/pan.
NOTE, as the forum choice suggests, I am looking for scale (or-close) pans only. Thank you for any input.
