They are an excellent loco. They pull better forward than i reverse, due to weight and traction tires, i surmise. I have...6! yeah i like 'em. One handed track placement is convenient.
Love to see a pic of yours.
I wouldn't mess with the shoes. You want to insure that they travel freely. (shoes, btw, are the most efficient device to gather power from the track. A slide is like a commutator brush on a motor, much more effective than the tiny rolling contact area of a wheel. The shoes also prevent micro arcing, which can result in pitting the wheel.
As a fellow banjoist, suffering the slings and arrows of the world, we have an internal strength that non banjoists cannot understand.
Thus it is too, with those of the Red Box Brigade, of which i am a devotee, and you are a budding apprentice. LOL
Its part of the spiritual transformation that goes along with most lgb, that being, surrender and acceptance....lol.
"At least in my mind , it does..." ...it seems, you have ALREADY been transformed.
Me, I have fully accepted lime green tank cars, pink box cars, and red and green moguls.....not to mention very short wheelbases...and giant rails.....like visualizing a flame in my mind, yogi-like, i no longer see all the LGB rubber ruler, fantasy liveries as anything other than my earthly reality. LOL You too will no longer see the shoes, given time and daily , mindful practice. LOL (Well, you might see YOUR shoes, as so many of us banjoist do, often covered with drool...)
Much of LGB is, for the most part, not to scale (although sometimes right on), not finely detailed, they are not prototypical, and they have features (or a lack thereof), that while toy-like, make them robust, weather proof, tolerant of repeated handling, and run like champs.
Paint can work wonders to reduce the toy like sheen and colors. (I have done this, but for the most part live with stock colors).
A nominal 1/22.5 ‘bumblebee’ with 1/29 (?)coaches. Contrasts well with the garden, if not nearly prototypical. Steam generator with arc headlights…go figure….
