Model Review | Atlas - FM H24-66 "Train Master"

Hello again folks, and welcome to another model review!

Today we’re looking at the Master – no, not the Master of Puppets, but the “Train Master”. And appropriately enough, this model is part of Atlas’ “Master Line” of models.

This is an unusual prototype, which is something I always enjoy, so let’s see if this model measures up…

FM H24-66 History: The H24-66, commonly known as the “Train Master”, was built by Fairbanks-Morse from April of 1953 to June of 1957, with a fairly modest 127 built.

Marketed by FM as “the most useful locomotive in the world”, the H24-66 ran on C-C trucks, which were powered by 6 Westinghouse 370DE2 DC traction motors or 6 GE 752 DC traction motors. The prime mover was an FM design, a very unusual opposed piston setup, which put out 2,400HP, which was very impressive at the time.

In fact, it was the most powerful diesel-electric in the world at the time, and the pulling power and acceleration were extremely impressive.

Unfortunately, this also caused some issues, as some railroads thought the locomotive was too powerful – which seems nonsense, but is possible; there were issues as locomotives became more and more powerful of rolling stock not being up to the strain of longer trains and faster acceleration. This caused cases of broken couplers and drawbars, among other issues.

But some railroads found the big units useful, but not for very long in most cases. The unusual opposed piston engine was difficult to maintain, the electrical system was subpar, and they consumed greater than average amounts of cooling water.

In all, the 127 units would be purchased by 10 railroads, though 20 of the total were built by Canadian Locomotive Company, an affiliate of FM, for Canadian Pacific.

Most railroads would retire their FM’s by the late 60’s, though CP and Southern Pacific would keep some of their units around into the mid-70’s.

At least a small part of this relatively early retirement was due to an interesting bit of business crookedness – General Electric and GM (EMD), which were both busily building locomotives and fighting for dominance in the market, threatened to stop shipping with railroads still using FM locomotives. This resulted in most FM’s being retired and an anti-trust suit against GE and GM.

The H24-66 was mostly a freight unit, though they also found success at passenger duty, particularly on SP, where they performed excellently on their California “commute” services.

As impressive as the Train Masters were and are, and among all the railroads that rostered them, only CP would preserve one unit, a CLC built example. All others were scrapped.

CP 8911: To preface, I found almost no info on this particular locomotive, but this is what I have.

CP 8911 was built in 1956 by CLC, and was equipped with GE electrical equipment. Under CP nomenclature it was a “DRS-24”. It would pull freight around the CP system until probably sometime in the late 60’s. I could find no exact date for retirement, nor records of its service. It would be scrapped, most likely by the early 70’s.

And now, on with the review!

Box info…

The offset bell looks a little odd.

To be perfectly honest, after seeing it up close, I'm not really a fan of this paint scheme - mostly the colors. That burgundy/brown is fairly dumpy...

This gives a good view of the exhaust ports, which I'll comment on below.

Ratings~

Good: This is one of those models that is, in general, good. Not great, but good, with no major issues, but several small ones – but I’ll go over them later. Overall, the paint is applied very nicely, which is impressive, considering the striping and such – though with seemingly most models. The small details are manufactured to a very good standard, and are installed perfectly. Operationally it’s very good – it runs almost perfectly, though with a bit of a hesitation before moving, and the DCC controls work as they should,

The sounds are really nice, as well, and the lights (headlights and numberboards) look great, too.

It handles trackwork with no issues whatsoever – curves and switches, forward and backwards, loaded and light power.

Also, it came in at 1.72 lbs, which is a very solid weight.

Bad: As I said above, it does have several small issues, mostly down to missing features the prototype had.

I’ll cover manufacturing issues first – the paint is pretty matte, which makes it look either old or cheap, or both, but it is neither. The exhaust ports on the top are just surface molded, with no depth beyond the carbody, and no effort to even paint the inside black to suggest depth.

If you look at the photos here, you’ll notice red rectangles on the pilots, just above the MU hoses – it took me a little digging to figure out what these were – they are supposed to be signs reading “Employees are warned not to get on footboard when engine is approaching”. They’re also not supposed to be transparent, as they are on the model (you can see the stripes underneath). This is two fairly obvious lapses In quality – they absolutely could’ve had the text on there, and painted it properly to not be transparent.

Another instance of lacking prototype details is that it’s missing the winterization hatch between the fans and exhaust, which would be a very obvious bulge in the carbody.

And the final major issue in this area I found was the lack of the extended handrails for moving between locomotives in a consist.

Overall: I had actually preordered this one some time back, and was looking forward to having a Train Master. And overall, I’m glad I bought it – it looks good enough, and operates well. Several of the detail issues combine to make it underwhelming to some extent, however. Operating well, and having good construction quality are the most important to me, and this model has those... for the most part. But it falls short on the details – the matte paint and the pilot signs being so wrong are definite negatives, and missing so many obvious prototype details is a real let down. Also, the exhaust being molded like it is really isn’t acceptable – most folks, me included, will be looking down at some angle on their models most of the time, so any obvious roof issues are extra noticeable.

As far as I know, the Atlas Train Masters are the only ones available, so if you really want one, I can mostly recommend them for the right price. Would I but another? If it was from a railroad I really like, and could get a good deal, such as a discount code, then probably.

This turned into a ramble, so I’ll give the tl;dr version here:

Runs well, looks decent, but let down by small cosmetic details.

Anyway, that does it for this review – as always, thanks for looking!