Although I grew up not far from NYC's Collinwood Yard and the NKP NE Ohio mainline and used to go to sleep as a boy listening to steam whistles, I never had much affinity for steam locomotives.
I remember buying an N scale Bachmann 4-8-4 circa 1979. The price was low and so were my expectations. It was a dog.
A while back, I decided to buy a BLI Y6B because it highly discounted on BLI's outlet page. I examined it when it arrived amd was impressed at its looks buy it ended up in a storage box.
Yesterday, I pulled it out and put it on the track. What a joy. It ran smoothly, unlike that Bachmann which needed fingers to get it going -- and to keep it going.
I had to fiddle with CVs since the volume was too high but the Paragon 4 produced credible sound to my naive ear. The chuff etc might be off (I'm still a diesel guy) and I would not know. Letting it run brought back childhood memories of lying in bed listening to the locomotives working in the distance. So, it was worth the price...
