Milwaukee Road GP9: N scale Mfd., by Atlas Model Railroad Co., 378 Florence Ave., Hillside, NJ 07205;
www.atlasrr.com. If you have ever traveled across America by car there is a good chance you have bumped into an EMD GP7 or GP9. When they were built by EMD in the mid to late 1950’s their solid design and performance made them extreme- ly popular with nearly all railroads. Around 4,000 units were built for the U.S. and Canada. Today, many still ex- ist on shortlines doing what they were built to do over 50 years ago. That kind of longevity and mechanical simplicity has made these engines a favorite across the country.
Atlas has released their EMD N scale GP9 in a new batch of road names with some upgrades. The model reviewed is painted for the Milwaukee Road and is number 240. A quick check online of prototype photos shows the Atlas model is a great representation. The paint colors match the photos well and all of the lettering and numbers are correctly placed. The Milwaukee Road units had their horns placed on either side of the cab on the roof. The Atlas model represents this nicely. There is also a little meat left on the bone for detail nuts like me. Items like a winterization hatch can be added to superdetail the model. I am a real big fan of adding details so it is nice to
have a little work that I can do to set my model apart from others. One of the most outstanding fea- tures of the Atlas GP9 locomotive is its mechanism. This engine runs flawless- ly, as you would expect it to. My model started pulling forward around the 1.0 s.m.p.h. thanks to the scale speed mo- tor and was smooth in execution throughout its entire speed range. The GP9’s mechanism is DCC ready, meaning that there is no need for cut- ting or milling the frame to accept a generic decoder. The TCS ASD4, NCE N12A2 and Digitrax DN163A2 all fit in the GP9 frame without any modifica- tions of any kind. I tested my locomo- tives with the TCS decoder and the en- gine really showed me what it was capable of. I was able to get the speed range matched perfectly to the proto- types and I was really able to dial in the performance.
I couldn’t accurately measure the starting speed but it was below 1 s.m.p.h. The engine negotiated my “worst-case scenario” test track con- sisting of dirty, poorly assembled easy- track without derailing or faltering even slightly. The engine even took 9″ radius curves without any trouble of any kind. The engine is a great runner with or without DCC, and that is what has made Atlas so popular throughout the years. There are a few paint details on this model which have become standard for Atlas. These are items such as printed number board numbers and builders plates. I used to go nuts trying to get the numbers in the numberboards. It is bad enough to have to do it once but each engine usually had four number- boards so that just quadrupled my frustration. Atlas has taken care of that for me and I appreciate it. I al- ways added builder’s plates to all of my models as well. Again, Atlas has done that for me. The small lettering related to the fuel filler is also present. Little details like this make the engine really stand out. The model is equipped with AccuMate couplers which work well and are compatible with all brands of knuckle coupler on the market. The At- las GP9 is one of those models that can
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