Bachmann GP-7

Micromark has been advertising a Bachmann GP-7 for almost 50% off retail. Now I'll admit, I was intrigue. They had it lettered for the Pennsy, it looked very nice in the photo and amazingly came ready for DCC. I did manage to add a DCC controller to my S-1 and F-3A but I'm still not confortable soldering a $20 electrical card! I mentioned the GP-7 to Lisa enough times that she finaly said, "Why don't you buy it already?"

Well, I was not really angling for permission but it was my way of debating with myself. Would it be worth $45? Would it run poorly and I would forever be disappointed? And while I was a locomotive roster and stage through trains for my locals to skirt around, was now the right time to start building the collection? Well, I took the plunge.

And wished I had bought two! I took it out of the box, dropped it on the track and it ran immediately on address 03. I did not even have to replace the couplers with Kadee #5s (my coupler standard) - just back it up to a string of cars, CLICK and pull forward. Sweet! Smooth, very smooth. Took me a while to work though the Digitrax manual on how to program the address to the locomotive number (8805) but then I was good to go.

In fact, it runs better than the S-1 ... a lot better. The S-1 is irritating me. I wonder if I bouched the CVs? Hmmm. Time to go back downstairs.