AZL January New Releases Part 2 - E8s Are Here!

Exactly, what's the reason why the new unit's designers didn't follow this practice? Complaints from operators running their units on tight curves?

Dom

Getting back to the E8s.

Marklin has what they call a pilot skirt for the A units. Is that part of the AZL release?

Hans,

I'm not a strong supporter of a Daylight E8B: the visual difference of the grilles and port holes is just too different from the E7Bs for my taste. But you know that SP also ran PAs and PBs behind the E8/9s (hint). I haven't found a good reference for SP running E units A-A in Daylight paint.

Mark

Anyone get theirs yet? Still waiting on mine. Would love to see a review

The E8 is a good runner. It pulled twelve of my heavyweights without problems and with no wheel slippage. I could do a slow start to full speed, and its relatively quiet, and its not a coffee grinder. Its not a true six axle loco. The center is a pony axle just like the MTL SD40.

The shell is well detail and the moldings are crisp. Its good or better then anything MTL ever made. I think that has been one thing that AZL lags behind before. The fans are really nice, and so are the hatches. They must be photo etch to get it that detailed. Once caution, the pilot its not attach to the shell, but its loosely attach to the chassis. The pressure from the shell keeps it from falling out, so watch out when you are taking the shell off. The fuel tanks come off by pulling it down. Just like the SD40.


I used the TCS AZL4 decoder. I think its the first truly dcc decoder in the z scale market. After taking off the shell, all you have to do is take off the old board out and replace it with the AZL4 decoder. The only complain I have with the E8 is the motor tabs. They are not parallel to each other, and are bend out at a angle. It didn't seem to create a problem, so no blood, no foul.

Can't wait for the SP and UP units... Just posted the wife's spare shoes and purses on Craigslist... (she probably won't miss 'em LOL)

There has been a little chatter about this, so I thought I would share some of the development story regarding the center axle:

1) The first design called for the center axle to have flanges, just like our other 6 wheel trucks. In fact I have samples of the E8A and E8B that have flanges on the center axles. These were the samples that were shown at NTS last summer.

2) This is the first loco we have produced in partnership with Märklin. While our AZL designs are based on a minimum radius of 195mm, Märklin prefers a minimum track radius of 145mm to match their tightest radius track. Note that we do not recommend track radius less than 195mm, but Märklin did their own testing of the E8 and may have come to the conclusion that it is OK down to 145mm.

3) After extensive testing we determined that while the E8 runs well with the flanges on the center wheels, it runs even better with the flanges removed, especially on curved turnouts, which are known to be difficult for all locomotives.

4) If you prefer to have flanges on your E8A, I have good news (I think) I have not confirmed this but I believe we ship the E8A with all the parts you need to convert your unit so it has flanges on all the wheels. Remember that we ship each E8A with an extra truck! That extra truck has axles in it that have flanged wheels. You will need to rebuild your trucks, but you could recycle the two flanged wheels from the extra truck into the center positions of the trucks you are using. The truck tooling was originally built to accept flanged wheels in the middle position, and I do not believe it was changed when we changed the spec of the middle axle. The traction tire on one of the extra flanged axle may be a bit of an issue, but a little creativity is required if you're going to be an expert at Z scale! (also True of all other scales, and everything else in life)

Good luck!