For a US-Railroad layout I need an american locomotive. As an experienced arm-chair modeler I am great in acquiring rolling stock. After reading some of Lance Mindheim’s books I really fell in love with the look of the CSX locomotives, especially the YN2 theme (bright future). I like switchers and small road switchers most, like the EMD MP15 or GP38 and similar. Due to my experiences with sound and for such a small layout with slow operations I think sound is a must.

With all my available patience, which is not very much, I found a new Athearn Genesis EMD MP15AC in CSX livery. The CSX 1173. It is equipped with sound and comes with the YN3 “Dark Future” theme. It is not my preferred YN2 theme but it is in use since 2002, so it is more than appropriate for modeling the modern era.

As far as I know, it has been built from 2009 to 2011. I bought it on eBay. For my taste the price was fair. Adding shipping to Germany and purchases tax it was not inexpensive but still about half as expensive than the last german locomotive I had on my which list.

I have testet it on some Märklin K-Track with narrow turnouts. It runs smoothly and sounds great. I had no idea what its DCC address was, but it was no problem to configure it with my Intellibox. I also reduced the volume of the sound as it seemed to loud for my taste.

The RP25 wheels do work on simple K-Track but it does does get stuck on the turnouts. Time to get some cars and some track to deal with these wheels.