Locomotive Roster: NS Serie 6400; Minitrix 12517

Sometimes you get lucky.

That's the way I feel about this little locomotive.  I spotted this model in a Minitrix catalog from 2004 or so, and tried to find one.  No luck.  I've come to the conclusion that Minitrix does not produce its Dutch models in anything near the volume of its German ones (no surprise there!).   So I kept looking.  After two years I finally picked one up from a seller on eBay from Singapore.

A European locomotive that most Americans would have some comfort with in terms of appearance, the NS Class 6400 looks similar to its 'cousin' the Mak G1204, albeit the prototype 6400 class is a bit longer (1.4m) than your standard G1200 and is a diesel-electric rather than a diesel-hydraulic.

NEM 651 Blues:  Unfortunately, the so-called convenience of the NEM 651 socket is under-minded by whatever silly design Minitrix decided to use.  After fiddling around trying to figure out if my Sprog II was broken, the decoder was bad, etc... I ultimately discovered that the culprit once again was the decoder socket.  So I removed the NEM651 socket and soldered the decoder directly to the pads.  Problem solved.

The good news is that its a smooth running, quiet little locomotive. 

And, I have to say, I'm really glad I picked up one of these diesels in the classic Nederlandse Spoorswegen grey and yellow (everything is red these days apparantly).

Despite the decoder socket problem, a great find and a nice little engine from our German friends at Minitrix!  Just go fix that decoder socket, guys, and I'll continue to be a fan!

The video at the top is a new one with just one locomotive (and a much slower pace than my last one!), the train the 6400 is pulling are the coal cars that I weathered in my last post as well.