In early February, Kato released their version of the famous Southern Pacific GS-4 Daylight Locomotive #4449. I picked mine up on the 19th, sent it off to TopHobbyTrains of Staten Island, New York on the 22nd, and had it back on the 28th. It is now equipped with a Micro-Tsunami sound decoder and it sounds great. It also runs great. I put it through its paces on my layout to see just how it performed. I was a little apprehensive, having read quite a number of "tales of failures" from a couple of internet sites. With all of those in the back of my mind, I sent it off on my uphill, down dale layout with its many grades, tunnels and curves. I'm happy to report that I had not one problem of any kind. The traction tire problem did not rear its ugly head, nor did the uncoupling problem I had heard reported. The locomotive stepped right out and pulled the 10-car set of the Morning Daylight consist as though they were not even there. This trend continued when I added the four articulated chair cars that came as addon sets. In total, my Morning Daylight is over nine-feet in length. Admittedly my layout has grades of no more than 2%, but the way the loco strutted its stuff, grades of up to 4% should be no problem.
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