A Review of Atlas HO Scale ALCO S-4

When I was in high school in the early 1970’s, my mother had surgery and my sister and I were heading to the hospital to visit her. It was close to the Alvarado and I thought it would be interesting to see if anything was going on trackside. It was too early for the westbound Super Chief but we got lucky when we saw an old ALCO switcher shoving cars on the north end of the Albuquerque yard. The engineer stopped, waved at us, and I asked him if he would give us a ride. “Climb aboard,” he said.
This was before the days of corporate paranoia so he had no concerns about his job. We climbed into the small cab and he ran up and down the yard a couple times before letting us back out. Now that I have a spreading HO scale layout, I knew that I wanted to have an ALCO goat. TSG Multimedia on Youtube recently had a positive review of an S-4 made by Atlas, so I had to get one.
I’m not a big fan of box opening videos, but here goes! I ordered the locomotive from Yankee Dabbler. The price was $209.99 which included a LokSound decoder. Priority shipping was $13.17 and no sales tax was charged. The MSRP is $289.95.
The model was made by Atlas and the box it came in was just beautiful!
Alco introduced the S-4 in 1950. The S-4 like the earlier S-2 was a 1000 horsepower switcher. Some 636 S-4’s were built for North American railroads. The primary quick spotting difference between the S-1/S-2 and the S-3/S-4 can be seen in the trucks. The S-1/S-2 has Blunt trucks,
while the S-3/S-4 has AAR-style trucks. The versatility of the S-2’s and S-4’s were evidenced by their service in mainline railroads, shortlines, and industrials.
The detail on the model is exquisite with real grab irons drilled into the model and not faked by plastic bulges. The railing is mostly straight and the decking is beautifully detailed. The paint is crisp and correct and the louvers on the doors and fans are very detailed.
On the prototype, the exhaust stack is different and there is a sun shade above the rear light and shades over the conductor and engineer’s windows on the rear. Based on the two pictures I found made by Dick Leonhardt in 1974, I couldn’t see any other differences.
My current locomotives all have Tsunami decoders and I’ve been happy with them. The Atlas model is equipped with LokSound and I’m really impressed with it. Programming is straightforward and putting it into operation was quick. Turning on the rear light and initiating the startup sequence with F8 reveals that the light actually dims as the battery starts the prime mover!
The front light also lights up the number boards. The bell sounds good and the single horn has a great reverb. The locomotive moves well at low speeds and will haul three freight cars up my 3% grade, but that’s about it and what I would expect from a 1000 hp engine.
The S-4 is right at home on my mid-century layout and it’s been a lot of fun putting it to work shunting cars around the yard, just like it was 50 years ago!

[DomAZ]

Great unboxing and beautiful Alco. Looks good and sounds wonderful. Beautiful waterfall.

[wolfgangpfeilergartenbahnd]

Hello Thomas, I am always enthusiastic about the ALCO diesel engine sound. A great model of the ALCO S-4 with a very nice sound. Congratulations on this great diesel locomotive. Greetings Wolfgang

[alwillcoxen]

Hi Thomas, great to see you and your great Alco switcher!!! Nicely detailed!!! Sounds awesome and am sure it will give you a lot of pleasure on your layout...cool waterfall, too on the layout!!! Great work! Al W.

[mattdonovan]

Great review and video as always! I may need to pick up one of those for the Rio Grande Valley! Do they offer an unnumbered/unpainted model?

[jkl]

I like it for the most part, but that mold line right below the sand filler hatches on the nose is awful