Kato GS-4 Locomotive

Manufacturer: Kato USA
Scale: N
MSRP: $198.00
Available: Feb. '08

The Kato GS-4 Locomotive

These new N scale GS-4 locomotives from Kato USA are decorated in Southern Pacific's red and orange "daylight" color scheme. The "GS" stands for "Golden State" or "General Service", depending on who you talk to. GS was Southern Pacific's class designation for their 4-8-4 steam locomotives. The Kato GS-4 locomotive will be available in two road numbers; number 4449 is already shipping and number 4453 will follow in March or April. These locomotives were made for use with Kato's Southern Pacific Morning Daylight car sets, reproducing that famous passenger train of the 1940s.

Evaluation

The Kato GS-4 locomotive is beautifully painted and detailed. Watching the video of this locomotive pulling 18 cars up a 4% grade is quite impressive. This latest offering from Kato advances the state-of-the-art in N scale locomotives. For many N scalers this is the first "must have" of 2008.

As the saying goes "nobody's perfect". The Kato GS-4 is having problems operating under DCC. I'll be posting additional information as it becomes available.

If I had one complaint about the GS-4 before the DCC issue was even annouced, it was that Kato used a proprietary connector in the tender for their own DCC decoder. What's more, their decoder only controls the locomotive's speed; the light board at the front of the locomotive has no option for DCC control. The only option to Kato's motor-control only EM13 decoder is a custom wiring job.

At $22 the EM13 decoder doesn't cost any more than a third party decoder but, current problems aside, Kato isn't offering a sound decoder. In contrast, my Con-Cor Zephyr not only has the NMRA standard 8-pin connector, but also has a place to mount a speaker.

Sound Options

Sound has come of-age in N scale. If you don't beieve me take a look at recent offerings from Athearn and Precision Craft Models. The lack of an industry standard DCC connector in the Kato GS-4 limits your options for sound installation. If they'd used the NMRA standard 8-pin connector, customers could choose from a number of sound decoders to add the bells and whistles (literally), not to mention the classic steam chuff-chuff sounds, to their GS-4s. As things stand now, GS-4 owners have two choices: put a sound-only decoder in the passenger car behind the tender, or wait for a sound decoder manufacturer to come out with a unit that fits the Kato connector. I'm going with the second option; waiting for a Kato-compatible sound decoder.