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Charles Ro is shipping them to people who preordered them, and other vendors are showing them in-stock.
Willims GE 70-ton Diesel Locomotive—They're Here!
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First Impressions
My WBB Rutland GE 70-tonner finally arrived. First impressions:
The detail is fantastic, compared to the Williams/WBB made from postwar molds. The paint scheme is lacking the yellow striping on the pilots and the front of the hood, but based on the early photos, that is not a surprise. Like the WBB scale 44-tonner, the handle rails are plastic. Handle with care. Otherwise, with it's diecast chassis gives it a nice heft for a small locomotive. The fixed pilots are nice.
Like most if not all Williams/WBB locomotives, it's geared to far too high. Rewiring the motors from parallel to series was easy. (Use care when removing the shell to avoid breaking the plastic handrails.)
The True Blast Plus sounds are nice, and the set volume is just about right, though the bell is a little hard to hear over the prime mover. (I forgot to look for a volume pot when I removed the shell to wire in-series.) It would be nice if the TBP had a battery or capacitor back-up to sustain the sounds of direction changes, maybe that's an upgrade for True Blast Plus II.
WBB rates it for O-27, however, when coupled to a consist, it failed to make the first curve without derailing the first car. Wheel slippage was audible. At first I thought that the fixed pilot was preventing the coupler from swinging far enough, however with upon inspection it turned out that it was the post on the coupler arm that engages the centering spring was preventing the coupler from traveling the full range of the hole in the pilot. It turns out that the groove in the chassis that this post travels in was the limiting factor. Solving the problem required a minor modification to the chassis—lengthening the groove. A Dremel tool would be ideal, a drill press would be nice, but careful work with a hand-held drill worked for me. A small piece of separately-applied detail, perhaps a handle of some type, that is on one side of the pilot opening had to be removed, too. These modifications were necessary to both the front and rear pilot.
With series wiring and the pilot modifications made, it pulls my small Northeast consist nicely.
It would have been great if the modifications weren't necessary, but overall it seems to be a terrific conventional locomotive. I'm delighted to have it running on my layout at long last.
![Scale model Crane Vehicle Swing bridge Bridge]()
(I'll try to get some close-ups up in the near future.)
My WBB Rutland GE 70-tonner finally arrived. First impressions:
The detail is fantastic, compared to the Williams/WBB made from postwar molds. The paint scheme is lacking the yellow striping on the pilots and the front of the hood, but based on the early photos, that is not a surprise. Like the WBB scale 44-tonner, the handle rails are plastic. Handle with care. Otherwise, with it's diecast chassis gives it a nice heft for a small locomotive. The fixed pilots are nice.
Like most if not all Williams/WBB locomotives, it's geared to far too high. Rewiring the motors from parallel to series was easy. (Use care when removing the shell to avoid breaking the plastic handrails.)
The True Blast Plus sounds are nice, and the set volume is just about right, though the bell is a little hard to hear over the prime mover. (I forgot to look for a volume pot when I removed the shell to wire in-series.) It would be nice if the TBP had a battery or capacitor back-up to sustain the sounds of direction changes, maybe that's an upgrade for True Blast Plus II.
WBB rates it for O-27, however, when coupled to a consist, it failed to make the first curve without derailing the first car. Wheel slippage was audible. At first I thought that the fixed pilot was preventing the coupler from swinging far enough, however with upon inspection it turned out that it was the post on the coupler arm that engages the centering spring was preventing the coupler from traveling the full range of the hole in the pilot. It turns out that the groove in the chassis that this post travels in was the limiting factor. Solving the problem required a minor modification to the chassis—lengthening the groove. A Dremel tool would be ideal, a drill press would be nice, but careful work with a hand-held drill worked for me. A small piece of separately-applied detail, perhaps a handle of some type, that is on one side of the pilot opening had to be removed, too. These modifications were necessary to both the front and rear pilot.
With series wiring and the pilot modifications made, it pulls my small Northeast consist nicely.
It would have been great if the modifications weren't necessary, but overall it seems to be a terrific conventional locomotive. I'm delighted to have it running on my layout at long last.
(I'll try to get some close-ups up in the near future.)
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When you wired the motors in series, you created an electrical version of a regular differential between the front and rear truck.
Mona Lisa Vito : The '64 Skylark had a regular differential, which, anyone who's been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing.
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I tried to find out if any of our local roads or industries had 70 tonners but only found the NYC had a few. Trouble is they were early versions with center cabs and the superstructure was quite different from the end cabs. Otherwise I would have tried to splice a couple of these together to make one.
![Transport Locomotive Railway Train Vehicle]()
Pete
Pete
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Pete, that's an odd-looking, but cool duck.
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I do that to all my WBB two-motor locos and it makes a big difference - they run much better. Electrically it really is not that much more "differential" than with the motors as originally wired, and certainly not as bad as a standard 1960s mechanilcal car differential was, with that much bias to one side. I've never had any traction issues that way and its the only way I will run a two-motor WBB loco now.
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Does this one have the flimsy plastic handrails that were featured on the 44-Ton model? That is my major complaint with that one, it's almost impossible to remove the handrails to open it up without breaking at least one or two.
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I would love to see a version of this with the side rod trucks. Nice industrial look to it....
Tom
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You'd be looking for a GE 45 ton (some upgraded to 50 tons) locomotive if you wanted side rods. I don't believe any of their larger switchers ever had side rods.
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I'm not sure. The handrails are plastic, but they are somewhat flexible, not brittle. I was able to bend them enough to open it up without breaking them.
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The problem with the 44-ton model is you have to extract them from the holes in the frame and shell to get the shell off, that's when the breakage occurs.
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That is also the case with the 70-tonner. The railings on my 70-tonner were flexible enough to not break, which isn't to say that they won't in the future. Then again, maybe they heard the complaints and used a more pliable plastic this time around.
If someone's order arrives while they're away and the box sits outside all day, I would wait until the loco has warmed up to room temperature before attempting to take the shell off.
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