Detailed Review: Broadway Limited BLI HO Scale Santa Fe (ATSF) Blue Goose Streamlined Steam Engine

Just to be clear: the cringeworthy phone call I received about my defective return was from Trainworld, not Broadway Limited who has been very receptive and cordial to me thus far
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[@mesenteria]

I believe the chain and cap near the front-end throttle is either a inspection/adjustment access hatch or it's a wash-out plug cover for the boiler. The Santa Fe, like all western roads, had problems with dissolved minerals in lineside water supply.

[@DoctorHobby]

Oh! Thank you for your thoughts on this. I actually liked how even the links on the chain were modelled so well.. just couldn't figure out what it did.

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

Ok, so the jerk at Trainworld is definitely Frank. They should just keep that guy in a box like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction. I've had some run-ins with him in the past too and it's basically turned me off to Trainworld all together. The "southeast" retailer is definitely Macro Micro Mundo. The owner actually cusses out customers in person an online. Go to the Yelp reviews of that store and see for yourselves. The "southwest" retailer, like someone already said, is probably A.J.C. Kids. I've delt with them too and they are very nice people but when you have a repair and write them, they'll give you some things to try that never work and then forget about you. I finally had to call them and tell them to take something back and they let it sit at their shop for over 6 months before doing anything about it.

[@codymarshall2540]

Great video, but I’m glad you have no problems with the Smoke Unit. Bad pickups are a common thing, cuz I have my Bachmann Spectrum 2-10-0 Russian Decapod that have one of the pickups get caught by one of the driving wheels, but how bad the pickups on the Blue Goose is a big problem from BLI and that “guy” on the phone sounded like he’s really mad about what the problem is on the Blue Goose and that guy saying “it runs fine”. Like dude your not even try hard enough to see the problem and see what mistakes they made. They seriously need to pay attention to us about all the problems that everyone had and see the reason why all of us return your products to them. I can’t believe that “guy” ask you and talk to you that way. Its unacceptable. BLI is getting way more worse as we know it. If I have enough money for one thing for the Blue Goose. I would get the Brass Blue Goose. I know that BLI’s problems and Issues aren’t a big deal, but to me, my friend and all other model railroaders believe its a big deal. I’m sorry for talking trash about BLI. I just want to this frustration off of my chest. I understand your frustration about the bad pickup problems on the Blue Goose. I recommend just fix the pickups. So that way you won’t get a call again from the “guy” from BLI. Again Great video.

[@DoctorHobby]

Thank you so much for writing, and, believe me, it's absoultely no problem to vent--this hobby requires it sometimes. I actually bought the Blue Goose from a different store than the one with the "guy" (who may or may not have already been identified here by someone who also seems to know his reputation). This pickup issue has been ongoing for a whlie, now, so I'm just not sure why it isn't fixed yet.

[@modelrailwaybackshop]

I've had issues with all broadway-limited models and decided to sell them off just so I didn't have to look at them. I now focus on painting, weathering and DCC in Brass only models.

[@DoctorHobby]

I can totally understand how they would be a turnoff… good on ya for finding a way to make your model railroading experience a happy one!

[@MaxSupercars]

Beautiful loco! 😍 I'm considering to buy her. But it's hard to get everything. 😃 With customer support in this hobby you're right. It's better in Europe. Enjoy the beauty! 🙂

[@DoctorHobby]

Most of the problem children I have are from Europe, but they seem to take awhile to get back there and then sit forever when they need repair. Apparently one of the larger European manufacturers have had some turnover problems lately. BTW, there is still a particular Skoda sound file I need really badly... Is that something you'll ever be willing to let me get from you? :)

[@anthonygunter4064]

Now...as for my BLI Blue Goose (BG) experience. I had been in the market for a HO set for over ten years. I even tried bidding on a Hallmark version but to no avail. So I gave up! Fast forward...when BLI announced their version of the BG, I was ecstatic but guarded! "Would they do a decent example of the BG" was my thought...after all, they had been doing some great HB models over the years. Long story short, I am 100% pleased with my BLI BG and ain't taking a second look at the Hallmark version anymore! Yeah, the "pick-up" issue is a bummer but I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bath water!👶 I'll wait for you to come up with a fix and move on. And since you've asked, I'm going to pull a set of Walthers Super Chief streamline sliver cars behind my BG. Life is good! Now...if only BLI could bring it upon themselves to produce the Southern Tennessean 4-6-2 streamline engine, with correct pick-up design...I would be in hog-heaven! P.S. Can I change the head light CV on the BG to make it a Mars light?

[@DoctorHobby]

Oh, that'll be a really nice consist to pull! The Tennessean is a really nice model, indeed! You might want to stay tuned if you like that particular beauty!

[@stroodlegoatcheese4384]

Frank at Trainworld has been offering "reputable" service for AT LEAST a DECADE: Yelp Review from 1/5/2012 The sales people there, Frank in particular, will accuse you of not know what YOU are doing though he won't be able to help you rectify the problem.

[@DoctorHobby]

Like I mentioned... Small world...

[@stroodlegoatcheese4384]

I can unpack some of that since I knew who these were right away: The crusty guy who called you for no reason other than to gloat was Frank from Trainworld. He reminds me of pre-2000s doctors who thought they were Gods. They were nice until you questioned anything they said and then they took on a "how dare you question your god?!?!?" attitude. Hopefully this attitude will mostly die off with these older generations who are still hanging on. The extreme southeast model shop is most certainly MMM in South Florida. The owner is absolutely bats#$t crazy and is openly hostile towards.. everyone, basically. How they stay in business is beyond me. The other southwest shop sounds like AJC Kids. Really nice people. Good prices. Terrible aftersales support and communication. The screecher is a bit more difficult. If it's who I think it is, he's fairly young and likes to make video rants about what BLI _should_ be doing even though he doesn't have any connection to the company at all? I don't want to say who this is since I'm really unsure about this one and I'm taking a wild guess. Can you confirm if I'm right about any of these?

[@DoctorHobby]

I can't confirm nor deny any of your specifics, but let me just say that it's always amazing to me how quickly reputations can spread amongst members of such a small, tight-knit community. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@anthonygunter4064]

Does anyone here know if I can I change the BG head light CV to make it a Mars light?

[@JoshSmith-eq7kp]

Do you think you'll change the sounds to Tcs Wowsound or Wowsteam??

[@DoctorHobby]

I won't at the moment. The sounds are... "acceptable" to me and I don't want to muck with it until I get the pickup problem solved.

[@greg_mmm]

Yikes, I'm horrified to hear your experience with Trainworld (It has to be them, it's an exclusive, right?). My E6 just arrived and surprise surprise, the smoke unit isn't working properly so I sent it back. So far they've been very cooperative and understanding, I can only hope and pray this remains the case. You're videos are quite thorough, keep it up!

[@DoctorHobby]

It's definitely an exclusive and it definitely went back there. As for the smoke units... Ugh.. At least it was something that was clearly not working so when it got back to them there wasn't any debate as to its state of repair... That's what probably saved you the nasty phone call...

[@YukariAkiyamaTanks]

Its such a shame that customer support in this hobby is not good at all. I only have interacted with Rapidos customer support and they were great. Im sorry that the royal Goose gave you problems, now I'm worried about the Commodore Vanderbilt I pre ordered.

[@DoctorHobby]

Well, if something’s bad about the Vanderbilt, at least we can suffer together? It’s not as bad seeing as how BLI’s after-sales support has been pretty good, actually

[@YukariAkiyamaTanks]

@@DoctorHobby i really hope that the Commodore doesn't come broken. But anyway great video, I actually just saw this model at a model shop it looked really nice.

[@joshfullbright7678]

I'm kinda of shocked it has wiper pickups on the tender, they should of used axle end style thats so prevalent these days, I do wish the headlight was on the capacitor, I saw a few flickers with mine, thanks to your video ill know to keep those rear wheels clean if i have problems. As a side the bud fleet was not delivered in its entirety by the time the goose was laid up, the skirted version would be no where near the bud cars, I don't think it ever pulled a solid set of stainless, so heavyweights or heavyweight mail train is a great option if you got one without the skirt .

[@fredrick5152]

I usually don’t like steam locomotives, but the blue goose is definitely one of the most beautiful steam locomotives of all time in my opinion, but the price is insane.

[@DoctorHobby]

It does look very unique and the paint scheme really sets it apart, for sure! Thank you so much for watching!

[@joshfullbright7678]

It is a high price but the Hallmark super crown is well over 2X the price and no dcc

[@johnhermanson5249]

Apparently some dealers don't want to get involved with after sales service. That is bad, especially for hobby products like model railroading. Years ago, there was "Red Caboose Hobbies" in NYC, who, if you happened to call during his lunch break, he would curse you out on the phone. Did that to me once, never bought from him again and eventually was shut down due to non payment of taxes. The BLIs look good but they sure seem to have their problems. Personally, I just don't like their sound system. The "chuff" just sounds like white noise. I use TCS, Tsunami 2, then ESU.

[@jmarv63]

Can the smoke unit be turned on/off?

[@DoctorHobby]

Yes, with both a soft function switch or a hard switch on the bottom of the locomotive

[@spadesofpaintstudios1719]

I found a riverosi on eBay for 89$ with shipping ofc. It I’ve been holding off because I’m just getting into the hobby even though I wanted an engine for years, also I don’t have any tracks 😂. Only issue with the engine is there is no tender so I’m not sure it’ll even run.

[@DoctorHobby]

It won’t run without the tender if it’s Rivarossi, so you’ll have a bit of a tough choice to make. Any Rivarossi tender will work, but I’m not sure how often Blue Goose tenders come up by themselves.

[@spadesofpaintstudios1719]

@@DoctorHobby I figured as much kind of a pain, and your right about that I hardly ever see any for sale it’s mainly always the engine alone.

[@jeffreyrule8143]

5) Fix your track issue. Just kidding. Great review and beautiful locomotive. I like consist #3. Who makes that consist?

[@DoctorHobby]

Ah... The stainless steel consist is a very very close second place for me! These are just your basic Walther's Mainline Budd corrugated streanliner cars. Relatively inexpensive, but really nice to look at, I think!

[@anthonygunter4064]

I'm appalled at the reply you received from BLI! Not surprised though! Earlier this year, I had to return for repair my brand new UP earlier challenger! The cow catcher was dragging on the rails. Come to find out that this problem was systemic and the lady in the repair dept was vert apologetic. She went over in great detail what my problem was and then gave mer a RA #. So, to hear how rude your repair service tech guy was, that may have ended my buying from BLI; and I buy a lot of HO from them!!! They ought to be begging us to buy their product. Thanks for sharing your bad experience...

[@anthonygunter4064]

Thank you Doc. Hob for clearing up my assumption regarding BLI! Now I feel much better! As for the rude person being at Train World...now that makes sense - - because after all they are New Yorkers! People in New York are always truculent, it's their sate wide demeanor. 😃 I started buying from them way back in the ninety's, and it always seemed that after calling their 800 number, I had to go into therapy! However, it has gotten better as of late. Just a while back, a nice CS lady there was very helpful in taking my order for two BLI ATSF 4000 class steam engines. And shortly thereafter, she was able to find me an A-B set of ATSF Rapido PA units of which were not on their website. Not that was special. 😁😏

[@DoctorHobby]

Oh, yes.. to be fair.. BLI has been really good to me. If that ever changes, I'll let everyone know. It was TrainWorld.. and a person who MAAAAAAY or may not be named "Frank" as others have already seemingly pointed out previously. I'm glad they've treated you well, however--even if they are New Yorkers (which isn't an excuse I'm willing to accept, however)

[@Marco-xz9sc]

Just got one in at the shop I work at…. It has the problem with the power pack!!

[@DoctorHobby]

I'm starting to get the feeling like these might have some widely occurring glitches. I'm interested to see the reports start coming in about these.

[@thomasavensjr.2790]

What a beautiful locomotive model though it's a shame that it is full of reliable performance issues, the "Blue Goose" features an attractive paint scheme and is a unique "Hudson" type locomotive. This locomotive is a unique and interesting piece, but BLI needs to seriously improve their electrical pick up contacts along with their decoder performance functions as these locomotives are far too expensive to have to deal with fresh out of the box. I really hope that BLI gets their act together and solves these performance issues soon otherwise they will have endless dissatisfied customers- Tom.

[@DoctorHobby]

It’s something I’m getting around to working on and there are certainly a lot of dissatisfied customers; although there seems to be a healthy contingent of folks who find that these are the best models ever made… not sure what to think about that in the face of all the evidence.

[@johnathentribble]

I like the video

[@santafewarbonnetproductions]

14:24 im a CB&Q and ATSF guy lol 😏

[@OriginalBongoliath]

Thank you for the video as I was about to pull the trigger on this. Broadway Limited at it again and the fanboys will somehow excuse this meanwhile they criticize Bachmann but at least they have been getting their products right lately and listen to their customers more than Grubba does (if I was him and cared I would be embarrassed with the quality of his products lately, but he cares more about cutting costs at the expense of quality). At least Bachmann uses decoders from the past decade and realize TCS/Soundtraxx is the way to go. I swear I have been sending BLI their stuff back to repair for months now but they are a virtual steam monopoly in HO so I have nowhere else to go. Monopoly=no reason to improve and charge whatever for it. I have had better luck with MTH HO products than BLI. Can't wait for ScaleTrains steam to come online and wish Lionel would drop their HO toy train crap and bring Legacy/Vision Line to HO. I have the Rivarossi Blue Goose passenger consist and I was going to run that but I sold my Rivarossi Blue Goose Hudson anticipating this model with DCC/Sound/Brass but with all the issues and for what they charge I don't see it as worth it as much unless, again, the price is insanely cheap. As for the light the only way around it I see is to run it without the light on especially since the paint scheme matches the color of the sky so it makes more sense to run it as a day train than a night one. Many railroads in those days ran their locos in the daytime without lights on so it would be prototypical and alleviate the issue. Unless there is something only available in 3 or 4, Paragon 1 or 2 is the way to go with BLI back when they seemed to care.

[@DoctorHobby]

Thank you so much for posting such a deep consideration of these issues. You might watch my next video (will drop either Sunday or Monday) to feel even better about not picking one of these up..

[@OriginalBongoliath]

That is what makes it harder since I went to the Great Scale Train Show in Timonium today and a member of one of the clubs had a Blue Goose running and I watched it make its entire loop and I liked it. I noticed the blinking light issue once on a switch point but after that had no issues. I'll wait to see your video though as I'm in no rush to get anything else at the moment considering the show took a chunk of my change.

[@TrainsCatsOtherStories]

Man that guy on the phone sounded like an inpatient jerk. I understand there are difficult customers in every line of work but... I mean damn. He clearly doesn't care or like what he does so why work there?

[@kkrices]

I'd go with #3 or #4 because it's a design flaw, not really a defect. Then make a vid of the fix .. and maybe bli will take the free engineering. I suspect btw that bli does little inhouse engineering on these and farms it out to the Chinese factory. And that's the fundamental problem.

[@oregonwesternrailroadprodu5239]

we got 3 of these engines at the shop i work at 2 of them were doa both were shorting and were having to send them back not a thing you should be doing on a 800+$ model

[@DoctorHobby]

So…it does indeed look endemic. I, curious to see how many more will have to go back… my Cincinnattian shorted occasionally, too, and for my efforts I just got a nasty phone call.. blargh

[@DoctorHobby]

I'm starting to hear from others that this is a somewhat glitchy model

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

I'm surprised Mike hasn't responded to this saying how there couldn't possibly be a problem with these since his has worked for a whole 5 hours without problem...

[@timboyle3114]

Bit late to the party here - but WOW - Thats just bad engineering on BLI's part. All wheel pickups shoudl be standard, not a nice to have. I mean how hard is it to do that in the tender and all drivers! I suspect the reason is keep it cheep, which to be honest IMHO is why BLI are still sticking with QSI derivitive poor electonics. I suspect that the addition of keep alive was a band aid to mask over this fundamental design and engineering issue. For the cosy of these things that and TBH thinkgs like poor cab detail, and not putting turned metal whisstles etc on these is just inexcusable IMHO - this is a result of no/limited competition. Whatever happened to Scaletrains getting the MTH stuff out again? Was seriously looking at getting the GS-4 when it comes out as I have the full Morning Daylight consist, but nothign to pull it! Not sure Im going to bother right now.

[@w.rustylane5650]

You know that you can change out the small details that you don't care for. I don't think I'll ever own a BLI locomotive as they are just too expensive for an old retired guy. They do make some great looking engines but I can do without the DCC and sound as I'm strictly a DC modeler. I like to fix up old Mantua 4-6-2 Pacific engines. I always change out the magnets in the open frame (Pittman) motors and install neodymium (rare earth) magnets. It makes a HUGE difference in current draw and now they "creep" around the tracks. And that's with a simple 3 pole Pittman motor. I model the Central of Georgia and engines and rolling stock are getting hard to find. Your background music is so loud I cannot hear the sounds of the loco. I don't know why KZbinrs do that. You mean that when you're running the locos around the track that you actually use all those sounds??? What if you're running two locos. I'd think that you'd forget which sounds go to which loco. You paid what, over $500.00 for that engine and it has flaws. Not me. Cheers from a 73 year old ex-Georgian modeler in eastern TN

[@brandonpurple165]

Broadway Limited they do know how to Spoil Railroaders. I buy a lot of their Unique Steam Locos and Diesel Locos cause they Smoke

[@DoctorHobby]

Same thing here, my friend

[@mjd3245]

Try backing the tender truck screws out about one full turn each. Might solve the pick up issue for ya.

[@DoctorHobby]

While that might help on another loco, the pickup issue is in the steam engine part of the train as demonstrated in the video.

[@mjd3245]

@@DoctorHobby If your tender is picking up properly, you can lift the loco off the rails and it will still have lights/movement/smoke. A loss of headlight and smoke indicates a loss of pick up entirely. Try backing this screws out, and you might be pleased to find that the tender will keep the engine (lights and movement and smoke) going through that spot. If the tender truck springs are too tight, they will not float with the rails, which is why the guy at the store had different results. I’m not saying there is no problem with engine-side pick up, I’m saying if you get the tender to pick up more consistently by backing those screws out, any problem on the engine side will not be seen.

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

@@DoctorHobby If this works, which it might (probably not) this will be a kludge at best and doesn't really make up for crappy engineering and design.

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

@@MikesProjectsandHobbiesMC that's not true at all. The design work can be marginal/borderline where it works for some and not for others. Other people have reported this same issue. A solid design would work all the time and for everyone while marginal design will do just this-work for some, not work for others; work some of the time vs. all the time.

[@stroodlegoatcheese4384]

@@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830 most 737 MAX pilots were able to fly their planes for days and months on end "flawlessly" (certainly more than 6 hours) and "all of them" didn't have the "issue" of crashing and killing everyone on board, so obviously there wasn't a "design flaw" . Of course design flaws can effect a subset of a batch without necessarily affecting the whole. But, more to the point, never, never, never, ever, ever, ever argue with a fanboy! It's pretty obvious that Mike exists to love, cherish, and cozy up with BLI since every post has been BLI-positive. To think that he has to have a unit that shows a flaw before he can declare it one is fanboyism 101.

[@modelrailwaybackshop]

The Walthers cars aren't as heavy as W&R Brass Heavyweight cars. LOL! And my brass 4-8-4 can pull them easier than the Walthers cars!

[@DoctorHobby]

Walther's do be a little sticky lol

[@jeremiahwilliams7809]

I had a not so pleasant situation with a company called trainworld way back the 80s, haven't done business with them since........

[@DoctorHobby]

It seems like when trainworld turns people off, they do such a good job they’re turned off for life.. Yelp has a lot of people in that situation it seems