Features and Comments about these new "MU" mP54 Models:

Please Note: There was a wide variety of classes and sub-classes so our car might not match "identically" a photo you might find in a book, or on the web. In fact some of the photos we have found have been mis-identified anyway. Some cars were modified as time went by, so the way they looked one day, was not the way the same car looked a few weeks later, although the Car Number remained the same. (Although in the Pennsy records the cars' Classification number might have changed.) 

FEATURES

-- Accurate dimensioning per Pennsy Railroad plans
-- Complete Underbody Details (Many individual pieces)
-- RP-25 Metal Wheelsets
-- Working Knuckle couplers
-- Working Prototype Pennsylvania Brass Pantographs (On PRR cars only)
-- Pantographs can be made to pickup Cantenary power by sliding switch on interior PCB board
-- Rarely modeled "Grounding Switch" on roof next to Pantograph (On PRR cars only)
-- 3rd Rail Power Pickup Shoes on trucks of the Long Island version cars (non-functional)
-- Working Headlights at each end of the cars
-- Authentic Paint Schemes based on Historical Society Help
-- Built in factory lighting (Works in either DC, or DCC automatically. 
-- DCC "ready" with NMRA standard Socket set on PCB board of Powered units.
-- Two Powered Trucks per powered unit, belly mounted motor, so we can detail interiors as much as possible.
-- Both Trucks have photo etched pilots factory mounted.
-- Complete Interior details
-- Accurate paint schemes (Per Long Island Historical Society and other reference materials per time era.

Stock Numbers and Varieties of "MU" mP54 Units...
 
We understand these "MU" units usually ran in trains of 4 to 6 cars. (Yes, we know sometimes on the branch lines only 1 or 2 car trains could be found, and in heavy rush hours longer trains might have been seen. But usually the length of the trains was limited to the length of the passenger platforms available on the various routes.)

We have designed the mechanism with two power trucks. But since we also wanted to include full interiors in the passenger seating area, we opted to go with a slightly smaller motor, so we could belly mount it. This is enough on most flat layouts to pull 4 trailers in addition to the Power car.

These prototype cars had one powered truck on one end and a non-powered on other end, these trucks had different wheel bases. ( 8'-6" for powered truck and 8'-0" for non-powered truck. It was a bit tricky to design a model with two different wheel base power trucks, but they run just great. It was also unusual that the "prototype powered truck" on many of these cars was the PRR 2D-8-P1 Hyatt Roller Bearing Truck, and the "prototypenon-powered" was the 2C-P2 Plain Journal Truck. (We double checked all references with our friends at the PRR Historical Society, as it seemed odd that the PRR would mix Roller Bearing and plain bearing trucks on the same car... but turns out, that is correct.) And you can get a bit crazy going through all the PRR classes and sub-classes on these cars, which ran to almost 40 pages of print out, in a type face that is smaller than you are reading he re.

In talking with a lot of modelers at Train Shows, the majority seem to rather have the choice of buying two powered units to "MU" to run longer trains, than lose the features of interior and underbody detailing.

So for those who wish to run these cars using "DCC" , we offer two different Decoders:

• Choice # 1 is a full function Sound Decoder with a 28mm speaker. This can be mounted in any of the powered models, but if you choose to mount inside a coach, it is not possible to totally "hide" the decoder. So we would recommend putting the DCC Sound Decoder into either a powered Baggage-Mail car, or a powered Combine car where you can hide both the decoder and speaker in the "non-passenger area".
• Choice #2 is a non-sound function only decoder we also offer which you can mount inside any of the powered cars and run in "consist mode" with another powered unit that has the Sound Decoder installed, so you have effectively two powered units to pull your "MU" Train. The function only decoder is small enough to hide even in the coach car.