Introduced: circa 2005
I'm not exactly sure why I'm bothering to include these cheapie Chinese toy trains in the encyclopedia, but they're N scale, so what the heck. These generally sell for under $20 and include a locomotive, two cars, a "power" unit (holds 4 AA batteries), a section of track that transfers power from the power unit to the rechargeable batteries in the locomotive, and some plastic track (a couple of turnouts, a crossover and assorted curves and straights). Takes 1 minute to charge the locomotive, after which it will run for three minutes.
It's all pretty much toy junk and completely unsuited for use on an actual N scale model railroad, but I will say that the locomotive shells are surprisingly well detailed. The SD40 I got with my set is at least as nice as some of the junk locos Bachmann used to sell back in the 60's, 70's and 80's, and it makes me wonder if somebody over in China hasn't "boosted" some American N scale manufacturers' tooling. I'd go so far to say that some of this stuff might actually be usable for kit-bashing projects and whatnot. They're certainly cheap enough!
There are the sets that I know of -
- SD40 with two box cars (CSX, SF and UP)
- C30-7 with two tank cars (UP)
- C44-9W with two hoppers (UP)
- 4-4-0 with one passenger car and one livestock car
- AEM-7 with two passenger cars (Amtrak)
- F59PHI with two passenger cars (Amtrak)
- F40PH with two passenger cars (Amtrak)
- F7 ABBA (Amtrak)
- P42DC with two passenger cars (Amtrak)
Grade: F