Introduced: 1969
N scale needs a decent 0-6-0 steamer, but unfortunately this ain't it. What we have here is an extremely lightweight model that only uses four out of its six wheels to gather current (and via primitive wheel wipers no less). IE, a locomotive that's pretty much useless outside of a "running at full throttle around a simple circle of track" setting. And yeah, I could go on about the cheap 3-pole motor, the giganto-huge Rapido-style couplers, the sloppy paint, the lack of lighting, the lack of window glass, the... oh man, what's the point? Let's face it, it's a cheezy trainset locomotive from the dim and distant past. Let's move on...
Like other steamers from the early Atlas era (4-6-2, 2-8-2, etc), this one was available sans livery and with a sheet of do-it-yourself decals for various roads.
Although very similar in appearance to Mehano's 0-6-0 saddle tank steamer (released in the same year), there are a few obvious differences. The easiest way to differentiate the two is by the running gear (one driving rod per side on the Roco, two driving rods on the Mehano).
I'm not exactly sure when it was that Atlas dumped this model, but I'm quite certain that it didn't live to see the 1980s.
Grade: D