The New Menards Union Pacific Engines: Ultra Affordable O Gauge Fun!

well hey everybody I've got a brand new arrival that just showed up on my doorstep today it's from Menards actually there from Menards and they're both in this big box two locomotives one powered one non-powered these are the latest F unit locomotive releases from Menards they're on the beta 4.5 release so they're still doing the beta thing trying to shake out bugs and so forth but unlike all of the other previous beta releases that wore a Santa Fe paint Scheme these are wearing a Union Pacific paint Scheme and we're going to check them both out right now on Eric's trains foreign so this is actually the third version of these Menards F units that I've got in my collection I got the first red War Bonnet F3 unit that they put out I reviewed that about a year or so ago I'll put a link to that video in this video If you haven't seen it and then more recently I reviewed the Santa Fe Blue Bonnet AA set that they put out that was great especially for the price and now we've got this beta 4.5 release in a Union Pacific paint Scheme now these were not sold as an AA set you had to buy them individually the powered unit cost right at 160 and the non-powered unit cost right at 90. so all total I'm in at 260 bucks for the two of these which is still a good price for what you're getting and of course that doesn't take into account any mail-in rebates that you might get on their site or anything like that anyway let's get these out of the box and for today's unboxing from my knife collection we'll be using this guy this is a buck 110 slim Pro it's got s30v steel very nice all right yeah I heard about these on my Discord server and I actually bought these at like three in the morning because I wanted to make sure I got one from their site before they sold out because they usually do sell out and for the previous releases I always had to get them after the fact from eBay or what have you so I'm really glad I finally got these brand new from Menards all right so this is the oh let's see here up non-powered and so this should be a powered unit much heavier so it'll be interesting to see what they've changed between the last release with the Santa Fe Bluebonnet set and this release maybe they've changed nothing maybe they've changed everything we'll find out so wow looks great look at that remote control train sounds two powerful Motors working lights metal chassis very cool there's the tag by the way looks nice wow and just a cursory inspection that looks great if I look real closely I can see a little bit of the overspray that is typical for Menards models but it's not bad I mean for 160 bucks who's complaining feels like it's got a nice weight we'll find out exactly what the weight is when we get it on the layout yeah something in a little Ziploc bag are these Traction tires they're kind of flat for Traction tires look like rubber washers I'm not sure what these are look on the bottom here okay there are the Traction tires I'm going to guess that these are spare Traction tires that are just flattened out for shipping or something I'll find out for sure in just a moment and here's the remote looks pretty much the same as the other ones nice picture there in the road number and then of course we've got Jack the German Shepherd on the back and for those of you who Don't Know Jack the German Shepherd is the official Menards mascot probably a beloved pet of the owner or someone close to the owner and he has always found on pretty much every train item they make not the locomotives or Rolling Stock but buildings or any accessories he's always there and here he is on the back of the remote so three aaa's not included of course okay lights flashing it's looking for a signal from the locomotive that's good one of the things I love about these Menards remotes is that they have the volume knob right there so you can feel it with your finger you don't even have to look to adjust the volume I wish Lionel would put something like this on their line Chief remotes you can change the volume on a Lion Chief remote but you have to do a combination of buttons and it's not very intuitive whereas this you hold it in your hand and you can just feel that volume knob and go to town with it foreign there it is there's the tag much lighter than the powered unit probably has just as much plastic as the non-powered Santa Fe unit but we'll find out that was really one of the few criticisms I had for the non-powered unit when I reviewed the blue bonnet set is that there's a lot of plastic now then again it's ninety dollars so at that price it's okay as I've said before if this was 200 or 300 for this non-powered unit and it was all plasticky that'd be a different story okay and there that is yeah very lightweight foreign plastic trucks it's got pickup rollers so it is a lighted non-powered unit it's got a switch there and I believe that will turn the light on and off if I'm not mistaken yeah has a very similar feeling to the Santa Fe Blue Bonnet non-powered unit but with a beautiful Union Pacific paint Scheme all right here they are on the layout now just like with the previous Santa Fe Blue Bonnet release you know from five feet away or so the paint job looks great but the closer in you get you do see some mistakes here and there in overspray and so forth but again because this is a budget friendly model that's really not that big of a deal and it's kind of par for the course for Menards they're not exactly known for their Flawless paint jobs construction and feature wise they seem pretty much identical to the last release so on the powered unit you've got a plastic shell plastic horn and then pretty much everything down here is metal metal steps die cast metal couplers and Pilots the trucks and truck side frames are die cast metal and the fuel tank is die cast metal as well so it's got a very nice weight to it let's bring over the scale and see just how much this powered unit weighs probably exactly the same as the Bluebonnet Santa Fe three pounds 6.3 ounces yeah not bad at all so yeah the construction materials on the powered unit are great and again you've got two Motors in there so it should have decent pulling power it's not going to be fantastic I'm sure but decent I'll measure it in just a moment now the Plastic Fantastic non-powered unit on the other hand weighs a measly one pound 7.6 ounces so yeah very lightweight for a non-powered locomotive it'd be a good weight for a piece of rowing stock which I guess it essentially is but yeah you know there's so much plastic on here really the only things that are made of metal on the non-powered unit are the things that kind of have to be metal so the frame is sheet metal the steps are metal the couplers are die cast metal the center pickup rollers are metal and the wheels and axles are metal other than that pretty much everything is plastic oh I guess the screws are metal but yeah the truck side frames the trucks themselves the fuel tank area the body shell of course all of that is plastic and because of that you know it is very lightweight and kind of flimsy feeling but again for 90 bucks I'm not complaining I popped the shells on these off camera to inspect the internal components and they're pretty much identical to the last release so really no differences there and they do have the revised updated search circuitry and the non-powered unit so you won't have any exploding capacitors like it had on some of the units in the previous release and it's got the same features as before so on the powered unit you've got the two Motors you've got lighted number boards and an operational headlight and backup light and it's got directional lighting as well and then of course you've got the sound system in there and then on the non-powered unit you've got LED lighting I measured the pulling power on the powered unit and it came in at 1.5 ounces which is not spectacular but not unexpected either on a budget model like this with one pound five ounces of pulling power you can probably pull maybe 15 16 cars at most although I would probably trim it down a little bit I would probably recommend pulling no more than 10 to 12 cars with this one unit now when I reviewed the Santa Fe Blue Bonnet set because the non-powered unit was so lightweight and flimsy I actually opened it up and added some weights to the inside just to give it a little more heft on the rails and I will probably do the same thing with this non-powered unit if you want to see how that's done check out the video I did on the Bluebonnet set I'll put a link to it in this video and the last thing I want to do before we start this up and demo it and take it for a spin is point out that again the standout feature of the powered locomotive is that the sound system includes Road number specific dialogue which is incredible you know when it comes to Lionel you have to spend thousands of dollars on a vision line model to get a road name and a road number specific dialogue but here they've got Road number specific Dialogue on a budget locomotive which is really cool now having said that I know a lot of people are going to jump on the let's criticize Lionel bandwagon and say how come Lionel can't do something as cheap as this and with road number specific dialogue well comparing Menards trains to Lionel trains or MTH or Atlas for that matter is really not a fair comparison because with Menards Menards they don't do model trains as their main bread and butter business Menards is a home improvement chain it's sort of a cross between a Home Depot and a Target in my mind and so their future doesn't depend on making a profit from these trains and what I've heard is that the only reason Menards makes these trains is because the owner of Menards is a big train fan and he's just decided hey I've got this big company I'm going to start making some trains and so I think the whole mindset with these trains is different with Menards when compared to Lionel and MTH and Atlas and others because Menards doesn't have to make a big profit on these or any profit at all my guess is that they're happy if they just break even on these trains because their livelihood doesn't depend on it unlike Lionel MTH and Atlas where if they don't make a profit on the trains they sell they go out of business it's that simple and so yeah comparing Menards to other dedicated train makers like Lionel and so forth is really an unfair comparison it's really apples to oranges because it's a whole different ball game with Menards they could lose money on these they could stop making these trains all together and and Menards as a company would do just fine you can't say that with dedicated train manufacturers but you know it's really a trade-off because with Menards you get really affordable trains but the build quality is not great the paint job is not great and they have decent features but other than the road number specific dialogue nothing really stands out on the other hand with Lionel Atlas MTH and others the build quality is much much better and you get much better features overall and so long story short in the end the old saying is true you get what you pay for but you can't deny the value and the fun of these Menards O gauge trains for the money you just can't beat them all right let's put some power on the track okay here's the horn [Music] this horn actually maybe it's my imagination but it actually kind of sounds better than the last horn it has a little bit more of an echo at the end which is nice the previous one as I recall had kind of an Abrupt cut off which I didn't like [Music] yeah that's a little better I think here's the Bell foreign talk with the road number specific dialogue one dispatch you can see the signal has gone from red to Green we are moving check the signal is green [Music] dispatcher 4694 East confirms mile 243. yeah this is great approaching menardsville Junction the track is cleared and we have a green signal confirm clear and green signal 4694 East you are clear of Bernardsville menardsville awesome 46 90s approaching miles it's important flowing to go in the hall confirm 4694 East aligning to siding dispatcher confirmed green signal is a slowing to enter This Crew talk is fantastic this is some of the best crew talk I've heard and it's on a budget-friendly model it's incredible Amtrak 7201 East clears you are clear to mile 3 [Music] dispatch dispatch 201 is clear the firm 7201 is clear switch is aligned to track one signal green and we are moving confirm the green the air brake test was good so let's get ready to move Roger that we are ready to roll okay we're ready to roll it out now I want to see how the throttle control does because on the last release I thought the throttle control was a little bit finicky it was hard to keep it on neutral without it accidentally drifting it's a reverse or forward so let me try moving this back and forth for a moment foreign yeah it works great and this locomotive actually has a really nice Coast to it so when you kill the throttle it actually coasts for quite a while before it comes to a nice smooth stop very nice now including the non-powered F unit I've got 12 pieces of Rolling Stock behind the power to F unit so let's go ahead and roll it out [Applause] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah foreign [Music] [Applause] so there you have it the new Menards Three rail O scale powered and non-powered F units in the beautiful new Union Pacific paint Scheme I keep saying this like a broken record whenever I review Menard stuff but for the money you just can't beat them Menards is without question the master of ultra affordable o gauge trains and I'm so glad they're on the scene and I look forward to what they bring out in the future if you want to get one of these for yourself go to your local Menards or if you don't live near a Menards like me go to their website at Menards.com lastly if you'd like to support this channel I would greatly appreciate it that can be done through patreon at patreon.com ericstrains patreon supporters get access to all sorts of perks and benefits and you can read about those benefits on my patreon page I'd like to put a big thank you out there to all of my current patreon supporters your support means the world not only to me but to the future of this Channel and an extra super big thank you goes out to my premium tier patreon supporters you'll see their names listed at the end of this video anyway let me know what you think in the comments below I'd love to hear what you have to say that's it for now I'm Eric Siegel thanks for watching and I'll see you next time [Music] oh [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Eric's Trains

Views: 80,625

Keywords: Eric's Trains, Eric Siegel, O-Scale, O-Gauge, Hi-Rail, 3-Rail, O Guage, O Scale, Model Trains, Electric Trains, Lionel, MTH, Atlas, Locomotives, Freight, Passenger, Cars, Trucks, Power

Id: qOyQnMFwZsw

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023