Union Pacific UP GP38-2 Diesel Locomotive #315 DCC Ready **HO Scale – MTH

PROTOTYPE INFORMATION:

Produced from 1972 to 1986, the GP38-2 helped inaugurate Electro-Motive’s “Dash-2” series of locomotives and became one of EMD’s all-time best sellers. With over 2200 engines sold throughout North America, rare was the railroad that did not roster these reliable, second-generation EMD workhorses.

Building on the success of the GP38 introduced in 1966, the Dash-2 model looked almost identical on the outside but incorporated a host of internal upgrades that lowered exhaust emissions and improved reliability, ease of maintenance, and tractive effort. Most significant was the replacement of the maze of hard-wired circuits, switches, interlocks, and relays – which had characterized first-generation diesels and had been the source of many of their service issues – with modular, solid-state electronics. Other improvements toughened the pistons, rings, and bearings of the 2000-horsepower, non-turbocharged model 645 prime mover.

The result was an engine so hard working and dependable that it became as common on American railroads as the F-unit was in the 1950s and ’60s. Trains magazine recognized this in 1982 by designating B&O GP38 #3802 (a pre-Dash-2 model) as the All American Diesel; the engine resides today in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum, repainted in its 1982 Chessie System colors. Many GP38-2s have soldiered on for more than three decades and remain in service today on short lines and regional railroads.

New for 2014, this accurately modeled GP38-2 joins our economically priced Ready2Rail lineup in eight prototypical paint schemes. While Ready2Rail locomotives have fewer added-on details than standard M.T.H. motive power their bright LED lighting; smooth performance from our powerful 12-volt, 5-pole flywheel equipped motor; and a built-in NMRA 8-pin plug for DCC decoders, our DCC-Ready models are more fun to operate than any other dcc-ready HO locomotives.

FEATURES:

• Intricately Detailed ABS Body
• Metal Chassis
• Authentic Paint Scheme
• Metal Wheels and Axles
• RP25 Metal Wheels
• (2) #158 Scale Kadee Whisker Couplers
• Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting
• Directionally Controlled Constant Voltage LED Headlight
• Powerful 5-Pole Precision Flywheel Equipped Skew-Wound Balanced Motor
• Operates On Code 70, 83 and 100 Track
• 1:87 Scale Proportions
• Unit Measures:8″ x 1 3/8″ x 2.5″
• Operates On 18″ Radius Curves

**Westside Trains, Inc highly recommends only running DCC on DCC systems and DC on DC systems, regardless of ‘Dual-Mode’ capability. This gives optimum performance and safeguards the unit from possible damage from running on a different system than originally intended and from any inexperienced operator errors.