Proto 2000 E-8 Locomotives

Price? There are currently 2 listed on E-Bay, each with 6 days left in the auction. One in IL is offered at $39.99 (no bids) and the other, in PA is currently bid at $1.95. These are doubtless subject to change given the time remaining.

George

 

Charlie, they are great engines. I have five (three renumbered from the 2016-Citation, and 2020-Big Red). They are improved dramatically after having the Tsunami double 567 decoder installed. I am having Keith bring all of mine up to this level, and am very happy with the results. There was another run of two numbers that I will have to defer to some one else to comment on, except to say that the discussion that has been here seems to tend towards these earlier mentioned ones as the better run of the two runs. I am not saying the other run was bad, but only that these two seem to be closer to the prototype. They are on ebay a lot, so you can pick one up if you just watch the HO frisco ebay page. I can't comment on the price as I don't follow the auction to conclusion as I don't need any, but wouldn't think you would have to pay over $100 for one.

Terry Jankowski

 

From my experience, $100 would be on the high side. I think a more realistic price would be fifty bucks or so. In either event, these are good locomotives, although the do occasionally suffer from the dreaded "ka-thunk" disorder. This occurs when the plastic axles into which the wheels are pressed split and the axle then slips, causing the above mentioned noice. It is annoying but easily remedied by replacing the broken part with a corresponding Athearn part.

GS

 

Charlie,

I will tell from the experience of a frustrated bidder that any time I tried buying one it went for over $100 (personally I think they are worth only $50 as Greg said.). Not sure if just bad luck or what but when I see them they go for that much. I don't think I've seen one go as low as $50. May be something were you find one and get lucky.

Ethan

EDIT
Here are the links to 3 E8's on ebay. They are all from different sellers, but oddly they all have about 6 days left, and they are all the same road number, 2020. They are in order of soonest ending to last. The one in the middle needs some work so you may want to avoid that one but I'll throw it out there.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LIFE-LIKE-P...ED-/130857425367?ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HO-SCALE-FR...00-/190803284095?ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Life-Like-P...HO-/230935446818?ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

 

I was lucky enough to find mine here in Union sitting on a shelf in a modeler's basement. He had switched from HO to O scale a few years ago and being an extremely nice man, he let it go for $20.00. He set the price, but I felt like a thief for a moment or two

I have no other engines comparible to it. Nothing looks as good, runs as smooth, or pulls quite like it does and it wil negotiate 18" curves and no. 4 turnouts if needed. Like Ethan said, I have never found one online for $50.00. Big River Trains in Hannibal had a couple for $75.00 each about a year ago, but I'm not sure if they have them still or not.

Pat Moreland
Union Mo.

 

I would imagine that you could run these in an A-A configuration with no problems at all. They are so smooth and the gearing so precise that they should be able to work in tandem in standard DC with no trouble. The rear gear boxes are body mounted, but will swing side to side to allow them to take a train through a tight curve if necessary.

I hope you find one soon. You won't be disappointed if you do.

Pat Moreland
Union Mo.

 

Charlie, I would imagine you could run them together on DC. It would probably still work if you had one from different runs, but it might not. That's an advantage of DCC is you can speed match locomotives. But for the operation your talking about it's probably not worth the expense.

Ethan

 

They will run together as multiple units, no problem. Modern (and I include these in the definition) HO locomotives do not draw a lot of current, so you will not have any problems. I have only passenger trains on my railroad and have about 30 E7 and E8 units, most running in pairs. The earlier runs can be converted to DCC, but you have to do a fair amount of soldering. Not difficult, just takes time, and you will need to discard the factory circuit board. I use NCE and the instructions that come with the decoder are very easy to follow, so be brave!

GS

 

You know, I thought that same thing, and resisted changing over to DCC for a very long time. Finally, however, I decided to take the plunge, primarily because I wanted to invote others over to operate the layout, and it was much too complicated to manage all the blocks to do switching. Also, with DC, staging space is artificially limited because there can only be one train on a given staging track. So, after much angst, I got started. It too a couple of months to convert all the locomotives, as I limited myself to two or three conversions a week. Now that the job is complete, I am sorry I waited as long as I did (people say the same thing about knee replacements, BTW). Get yourself a good pair of magnifying glasses, steel yourself and give it a try. You will be delighted with the results.

Greg

 

Layout would be a good place to start.

GS