ScaleTrains BNSF ES44C4

I got one of the new ScxaleTrains ES44s. I was especially interested in the new lighting feature that incorporates both ground lights and walkway lights. These turn out to be a bit of a gimmick, especially since they're normally visible only at night or in low light, while most model railroad operations take place with the room lights on. Here's the full loco:

ScaleTrains didn't update its user documentation to cover the new lightong feature. It turns out that, with the numberboards, the walkway and ground lights turn on automatically with the engine startup function, F8, and you can't turn them off unless you mute the engine, also with F8. Having the numberboards always on is less than optimal, as by at least some railroads' rules, the numberboards should be lit only on the control loco in the consist. To turn off the numberboards in this loco, you need to mute the sound.

I got into a discussion on a Facebook group, and one professional railroader said he'd been trained to leave the walkway lights on permanently, since crews change any time of day or night, and if you're boarding the loco at 10 PM, it's good to have the walkway lights on. But the walkway lights aren't normally visible in daylight anyhow. Here are shots of the walkway lights on the model:

There is also a walkway light above the step on the ngineer's side walkway, which is visible lit in the top photo in this post.

As far as I can tell, the ground lights don't work on my model. Frankly, this is mostly a gimmick, and it's not worth risking shipping damage by returning the loco to ScaleTrains.

ScaleTrains implements by default an annoying ESU feature, "delay on start". This keeps the loco from moving on speed step 1 until the engine revs up. No other sound decoders do this, and it makes consissting and speed matching difficult. You can disable this feature by setting CV 124 to 16.

I had to get this from a Facebook group. ScaleTrains support still hasn't answered my question about it. So there are some minor glitches with these locos, but the basic model looks like a BNSF ES44, which are common as dirt around here.