Saturday, March 16, 2019

Catching the White Whale: Amtrak ICE Trainset

Finally laid my hands on one of the reasons I started out on the Old Line Corridor in the first place: Fleischmann's N scale Amtrak ICE train set. This is a 'best of both worlds' model: an interesting European prototype that actually ran on the Northeast Corridor. It was second hand, in excellent condition, and as evident in the video, runs reasonably well.
It does have a few quirks. As noted by the encyclopedically tireless tester of all N scale locomotives, Spookshow, it has some tricky close couplings, which turn out to be simple drawbars with NEM coupler plugs and sockets.
Its early 90s production also predates 'DCC ready', so DCC installation will be either old school with lots of soldering and whatnot, or expensive, as Fleischmann's recommended DCC conversion is to remove the Amtrak ICE shells and install them on the drives for a separately offered equipped ICE loco set. That DCC-equipped ICE loco set, is, of course, even rarer than this ICE Amtrak set and usually fetches an even higher premium price. Nonetheless, glad to have this prize running on the Old Line Corridor.

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