ScaleTrains Kansas City Southern ET44AC

I've grown more interested in the Kansas City Southern over the years, especially as so many other railroads its size have disappeared. Now it looks as though it will be absorbed into Canadian Pacific. I figured I should get a loco in the Southern Belle scheme while I still could, especially as KCS locos are pretty common out here in Southern California, even running with other foreign power. (So far, I haven't caught one of their ET44ACs, so this shout of an ES44AC will have to do.)

Below is my ScaleTrains Rivet Counter ET44AC out of the box. Good as all their models are, they all fall short in documentation. It was only in reading the fine print about their latest runs that I discovered that the ground lights are supplied with their locos only as the prototypes had them. My last ScaleTrains loco, a BNSF ES44C4, didn't have them, and I noted in the post I put up that this must have been a glitch of some sort. No, BNSF locos apparently don't have ground lights. However, you can see from the photo below that the KCS locos have them. You can also see the side walkway light.

/Seeing tghese on ScaleTrains models makes me more aware of them when I see them on video DVDs. They have a prototype appearance.

Below is a 3/4 front view showing the improved brightness of the ditch lights, as well as a different view of the ground light. This is only on the engineer's side. As with my ES44C4, this comes on with the F8 startup along with the numberboards. This is another feature not clearly documented in the owner's manual. None of these can be turned off independently from F8.

The rear view shows that the KCS units don't have rear ditch lights. Also, following KCS practice, the front ditch lights don't flash when the horn is sounded. It would be helpful to find a single place, possibly on their web site, where all these features could be listed for the respective models.

Finally, here is KCS 5009 in consist with BNSF 4232, my ES44C4, passing West Zenith and the Downtown Overlook Hotel on my layout.