I want to see some 1900s rolling stock, 2-8-0, 4-4-0, and 4-6-0 locomotives (Baldwin and Alco). Some of the rolling stock needs to be reefers, tank cars, and stock.
I'm fairly new to Z. Some miscellaneous thoughts... Alaska SD70MAC F40PH (What's this talk that there used to be one available in Z? I can't find any evidence of one) Union Pacific steam locomotive #844. That's the one that was travelling around a while with the Big Boy this last year. Any rotary snowplow would be cool.
It's going to be hard to find an F40PH, however they do exist, I was in Seattle in 2004 when Harold Freudenreich introduced them. That said, depending upon your skillset, you could pick up an AZL F59PHI, and make an etched brass or 3D printed shell for it. The trucks are the same, and although the F59 is 58 feet long , the F40 is 56 feet long, that's only 1/10" difference. They have the same 40' truck centers, so the mechanism can be filed down. Also, you could contact Harold at http://www.fr-model.homepage.t-online.de/ and ask if he has any shell brass laying around.
My first post in the z scale section... I'm new to the forum and to model railroading. Seriously considering beginning a z layout prototyping the 1960s-80s Vermont railway. I have a ton to learn and am still in the early planning stages but eventually I would love to see some gen1 or 2 diesels especially Alco rs3s and any locos or rolling stock from VTR, central Vermont or Rutland. Looking forward to learning a lot here! Cheers, Matt
Since Micro Trains has already made the SD40-2 Missouri Pacific in UP colors. I would like to see some made in Jenks blue. Maybe, I'm asking too much? I am a MoPac fan though, I avoid the UP merger colors.
Love to see one in plastic from AZL! They already have the Superliners in the paint schemes from the 80's on.
He released the Amtrak version years ago, equipped with DCC by the late Oliver Passmann. There wasn´t that much feedback when I remember exactly, so I´m sure he´s done with it. I´m glad I got mine. Greetings Mattias
Harold came up to San Jose after the 2008 NTS to go to the local Train Shop to purchase the Kato set as it was the most accurate. Since all of Harold's products are etched brass, it takes time and money. The market in Germany for US is not that strong and the economic down turn at that point left the passengers cars for another time. But AZL announced the RS3 and SW1500 at NTS in July. They were hoping get out this year but there's a bit of a slowdown, as you know ;( These locos will go GREAT with the tons of Micro-Trains older era stock. AZL also announced another run of the GP-38's that too will go great with the tons of MTL rolling stock. https://azlforum.com/#zscale
I would love to see AZL do the "City of Los Angeles" like the California Zephyr they have already put out. Ok, not strictly a road. How about Texas & Pacific, which is almost non-existent in z?
I think you're going to find that 1/10" to be a lot more noticeable than you think. The signature "stubby" look of the F40PH matters, IMHO. Also, the truck centers aren't the same...the notorious "first Google result" in this instance has some inaccuracies unfortunately. I would question if a F59PHI mech would even fit in a to-scale F40PH shell. You can get a look at the *reverse* of this...https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/kaslo-shops-f59ph-power.57224/#post-729522 ...a Kato N F40PH mech on an accurate F59PH shell (not an F59PH"i" but the mechs are the same) and you can see how short it is....now imagine trying to fit a longer mech and wheelbase into the above photo. I'm only bringing this up because I got the same inaccurate info when I was in N regarding using a Kato F40PH as in the above linked conversion and was basically out the cost of the Kato locomotive as it did not work for me. I would hate to see someone plunk down the $85 for an F59PHI and have to learn a life lesson. Now, I do think someone was producing an extended length F40PH shell recently, so that would be a different story and the F59PHI probably would work for that. I'm not sure if it ever got done. And finally, AZL did admit the F40PH is in the pipeline sometime last year I think. So while it may be a couple of years, it has a very good chance to be on the way eventually.
I only pointed out the possibility of making one using the F59PHI mechanism as a starting point because it's the closest starting point available in Z, and the modeler would have to produce his own shell anyways, so the thinking would be, he is going to make the shell to fit the mechanism. It probably would not look as stretched as Marklin made their interpretation of the F7 vs the wider but shorter MTL F7: Get a load of that "Alco PA Stretch" that Marklin pulled on the nose of their F7,