Walthers Proto Wabash Passenger GP9

Not long ago, I finally found a Walthers Proto Wabash passenger GP9 with sound and DCC on the web. These came out last year and seem to have disappeared very quickly.

I came to appreciate the Wabash late in my modeling career, primarily via the Emery Gulash Green Frog DVD, but the Norfolk & Western has always been one of my "majors". The Chris Wehman Green Frog DVDs on Norfolk Southern cover the former Wabash route from Detroit to Decatur, IL, which also is very informative on the Wabash. I'm slowly gathering some Wabash models that I can run either in pure sets or in post-merger consists with N&W units.

The features of the model are very similar to the Walthers Proto Penn Central Phase III GP9 that I covered last month. A feature carried over is that the number boards are separately lit with F6. In railroad rule books, the number boards are typically lit only on the control unit in the consist, but it looks like most prototype engineers forget to set this either on or off.

On this model, the oscillating warning light is lit with F5. On the prototype, the whole light housing is motorized to move in a figure-8 pattern. On the model, this is simulated by a slow blinking of the LED. In addition, on a number of roads, the top lens is red and lights only when the brakes go into emergency, sometimes called a "dump light". The bottom lens is clear and is used in normal operation. This is the case with the Wabash prototype, and only the lower clear lens on the warning light is lit. I don't believe the model is set up to operate a red upper lens, as this wouldn't be a normal event on the prototype.

The ESU sound decoder with the Proto version has the LokSound 5 prime mover delay at start feature. This means that when you throttle up, it takes the loco a fairly long time to begin to move, reproducing the prototype spool-up time. Setting CV 124=16 will turn this off; CV124=20 will put it back. As a longtime DC operator, I've never gotten used to features like this. I also set CVs 3 and 4, acceleration and deceleration momentum, to 0. These features are maybe more suited to large club-type layouts, but each to his own!

The horn comes from the factory with the single-trumpet "blat" sound.