Intermountain SD40-2W Review & Testing

Review and standardized testing of Intermountain's first run GMD SD40-2W. Locomotive weight: 370 grams Drawbar Pull: 55 grams Drawbar Push: 55 grams Released in September 2011 in the following paint schemes and road numbers: Canadian National Stripes with dynamic brakes - 5244 5249 5255 5258 Canadian National Stripes with no dynamic brakes - 5262 5267 5273 5280 Canadian National "Continent/Nafta/North America" - 5271 5272 Canadian National "Internet .CA" - 5250 5289 Canadian National "Expo '86" - 5334 DCC with Sound MSRP - $224.95 Detail - Very good. A few prototypical errors but still good. 8/10 Operation/Drive train - No keep alive capacitor in the decoder, combined with the light weight of this locomotive cause it to frequently stall and sound restart on dirty track and especially on non powered switch frogs. 6/10 Weight - Definitely on the light side compared to other manufacturers. 5.5/10 Sound - Small speaker but has Soundtraxx Tsunami installed so you can customize it to improve its sound qualities. 8/10 Lighting - Poor job on the ditch lights - crappy styrene light tube lenses made to look like CN lampshade style ditch lights. The are barely visible except head on. Number boards are much to bright out of the box. Headlight and rear light are great. This unit needs some upgrading done on the lighting. Some detail guys have taken it upon themselves to weather these locomotives then upgrade the lighting and sell them for a profit. OVERALL SCORE: 6.5/10 Recommended caution. The lighting is not up to par with some of the other brands out there. If you are an LED wizard you can easily fix the lighting. Sound can be improved with CV manipulation or JMRI. Weight cannot be improved, they have crammed that shell full there is not much room inside. Really, the best available option for the SD40-2 widecab ready to run. Railflyer makes a cab upgrade kit and I think also Kaslo so for the hard core guys there are more expensive options to get closer to prototypical. Lot's of work though.... Video of 4 Intermountain SD40-2W's running on my layout can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaP8VW... More HO scale locomotive review & tests: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL079496909FA5E9B4