BLI seems to be improving with age as you might expect. Their latest release, the distinctive SP Cab forward is right on schedule and seems to exhibit a more refined level of detail. An operating Kadee Style front coupler was nice to see. The loco by itself weighs about 2# and based on the fact that it pulled a dry CMX up a 4% 22" radius grade, traction should not be an issue. All drivers and the the pilot trucks had electrical pickups as well as 4 tender axles. The driver pickups were a combination of wipers, push pins and split frame methods. I am not sure why at this time.

Our test loco started running smoothly at speed step 20/128 at a reasonable slow crawl. This will probably improve with break-in. Initially, there were many squeaks because the loco is shipped somewhat dry. The BLI instructions say to lubricate before operating, we did and the squeaking ceased.

The QSI horn reflects the Cab Forward prototype, the chuff is characteristic of all BLI offerings and plenty of volume is there if you want it for all sound functions.

The BLI Cab Forward is probably the best price-performance option for SP modelers ever offered for such a unique loco.

Pictures

bliCF-16 bliCF-1 bliCF-6 bliCF-14