Were Texas Special units made in plastic or are the Hallmark brass ones the only ones? Proto 2000 did a boat load of E units 25ish years ago, but they weren't plated, I don't think. Did the Hallmark units run well? How much do the cost on average? It would be nice to have a pair (A-B or A-A--either is fine with me) and they would look good on our west Texas layout. Thanks in advance.
The Texas Special units were only made in brass as far as I know. Typical of brass, they did run very well or quietly out of the box, and the motors draw too much current for DCC decoders in general, so re-motoring is a necessity.
Yeah, I have the old Hallmark units. The do not run well, and they're noisy, so their permanent home is on a shelf. Conversely, you could use a Proto 2000 E7 and apply corrugated sides from Union Station Products (https://unionstationproducts.com/fluting/) and have a reasonably convincing model. GS
Thanks to both of you. Maybe I'll start looking for a couple of Proto 2000 (with good gears, hopefully) and think about that corrugated siding.
Short of the pickups falling off on one of my Hallmark/KMT E7s, they actually run decently. Needs a bit of grease, but they already had can motors. But yeah, otherwise you're stuck with Proto E8s or modified E7s. I do have a Model Power E8, but it's its own bucket of problems.