Thanks, Pray59! It does indeed look great! I haven't run it much, exctet to see that it is in working order. The only thing that needs to be done to the moel is that the cab shades need to be installed. Eerything else is as it came from the box. Incredible! Daryl, I don't know what DCC decoder will fit, but even if I have to wire a decoder in, I had to have at least one of these beauts! Is the Atlas SD50 light board the same as in the SD60? I have no SD50's, but 2 SD60's. I am curious to know what PnP decoder will fit.
I just picked up one of these, they are ok, not completely on par with Atlas / Kato in all areas, they do look good and from my little running they run well. As for DCC it looks like the decoder DN163A0 will fit but you might have to extend the LEDs for the proper lighting. What I noticed with mine and what is obvious in the photos above is that they glued it all together and a little too much glue in some spots, look at the photo of the cab above for this. This is on my loco as well. The sidesill/walkway is a single piece and on one side a little warpped. The handrails are nice and fine, not sure what type of plastic it is but almost seems too fragile I know it bends easily. Mine arrived with a few missing paint spots, guess these where jarred or something, nothing major as these are on the metal grills, hopefully a few touch ups with a paint brush. Also to get mine to run I had to take the shell off and put it on correctly as it seems that at least on mine the shell was not centered and the front truck did rub the front. I guess my concerns are that with these taking so long to get here you would think that there wouldn't be things of this nature. I hope by the time DRGW units are ready all of these little things are corrected, not that they are huge. All in all a nice model, oh and the low hood lights are not lighted, time for some LEDs.
Hmmm.... I don't know... the camera doesn't lie. Not a knock at you guys, thanks so much for taking the photos and posting them. This is kind of disappointing if you ask me....
thanks for posting those pics and i hate to see the wait you guys went through on these but i am going to pass, i seen 2 of them today in person and believe me the pics must be from a perfect loco in there book as the ones i seen had the windows were all white from the glue crazing the plastic and several spots where paint had come off. almost looks like bachmann quality work if you ask me.
Thats kinda what I'm thinking. I have several of these on order, and I hope they all aren't delivered like this! For the money they are asking for one! Not terrible though.
I don't know, it could be they look great in person - from the viewing angles seen on a layout. And the rear section looks really good. But that cab area, egads.... Also the add on details look chunky - thought they were supposed to be brass? Makes you wonder what the real story is behind these units and the delays.... I was really, really expecting to be blown away by these - maybe that's the problem.
I have to agree with you guys, going by the pics it seems the models are not defined around the edges etc. An Atlas or Kato model always look so crisp and clearly defined between all over the body. I will wait until I see them in person before I pass final judgement.
that is some awesome detail, but as others said, too much glue. i would never have expected the see through grills on the top of the long hood. one questio, why the proper light package on the front but not on the rear? whats the point?
Does this mean that the Tunnel mtrs will run without conflict with SD50's?Are they the new Atlas mtr or the old?
Something else I noticed is mine did not come with bearing retainers, mine is going back tomorrow for hopefully a replacement. I do hope that Intermountain will return from the holidays and explain what happened.
I hope to see them in person before I pass judgement. The first 3 pics look really good. The last few are not so good. Some of the details look as though I installed them..that is a bad thing. I will wait till they show up at Feather River and then decide... The distance shots look really good though.
oh oh, OK, my questions would be as follows: ---is that right side long handrail coming off or bulging? ---Mold halves on the air horn and bell are off center? Way off center??? ---Cab headlight mount looks like a mess???? ---Left side front nose handrail, looks like a piece of a sprue on the white portion??? ---Why is there paint puddling around the rivets on the left side of the cab around the window? ---What's with the simulated M.U. hoses, are they filed flat? ---The windshield wipers look odd, especially the center one...bent? And is that glue in the hole where the small window(s) wiper(s) are mounted? ---What is all that under the road number 8325 on the left side? ---Lower right rear air intake is a mess, is that glue there also??? I'm supporting both an online seller who has been great to me and my LHS who has also been very good to me with the purchase of several of these...do I dare say to these poor folks that at $80-$90 per on these that maybe I'm not interested????? eeesh,,,,I hope my UP units that are on the way are better...sorry to be so critical but to have to spend so much money on these at this time of year, just finished Xmas and my son's birthday is literally right around the corner, it's hard to justify the several hundred bucks that will go ot the window for these.... I maybe jumping the gun here...but I'm a bit skeptical on this....
I too must agree, these do not look so hot. Compared to my Atlas and my Intermountain FT set these seem to lack the good construction and cleanness of my other engines. Thanks for the great pictures and I have spent much time looking at them trying to figure out what exactly it was that bothered me about them. Then it hit me, the unit looks muddy. The lines are not crisp, the detail in a lot of areas not well defined, some parts looks like I scratch built it which you would not want. I looked at these pictures and then would look at my FT's and I must say, they do not look like the same company produced them. I will wait and see one in person, but if the photos are typical of the units, I have to pass and go with Atlas SD's instead. I might be too picky but I have seen what both Atlas and Intermountain can do and it does not seem these measure up. Sorry to weight in negative, hope I am wrong.
There were actually about six different nose versions between SP/SSW/DRGW: 1. 81" nose with ratchet brake, vertical mount Gyralite - DRGW 2. 88" nose with brakewheel, vertical Gyralite mounted on a "box" - DRGW 3. 88" nose with brakewheel, vertical mount Gyralite - DRGW 4. 88" nose with brakewheel, SP light package - SP 5. 116" snoot nose, ratchet brake, SP light package - SP 6. 123" snoot nose, brakewheel, SP light package - SP/SSW I can post a number breakdown if anyone's interested - not up to doing it right now since it's late, and not really in the mood to drag all my books and notes out. One thing I couldn't help to notice on the pictures of the SSW snoot that hemiadda2d was kind enough to post was that the unit seems to be missing the front anticlimber, the walkway extension on the front end (similiar to what's on the rear). While none of the DRGW T-2s had this option, all of the SP/SSW's did - I'm kind of surprised that IM would overlook this type of detail, considering all the others they put into it. Another SP-feature I noticed missing is the rear light cluster, which all SP/SSW units, except for the 116" snoots, were built with. Still, all this can be easily fixed with styrene if one wishes to do so, or maybe even from an aftermarket supplier (I model HO, so I don't know what all is out there for N-scale details ). Overall, it looks like IM has filled a huge void in N - I'm sure there are a lot of happy n-scale SP/SSW/DRGW modelers out there right now. [ 31. December 2003, 09:41: Message edited by: SP 8299 ]
Hey Brew, Chuck has them in, he posted a bunch of pics elsewhere yesterday! Some of the pics of these have lots of fuzzies on them that came off of the box liner, one pic almost looks carpeted! I hope for the TM fans sake, that IM does a good job on these (especially for you TiVo!)
Sigh..... I posted some similar replies regarding the up-close views on the Temp Atlas Forum yesterday. The units that were sent out seemed to be assembled hastily without care to do a good job... perhaps due to the pressure we've been putting on IMRC to get them to us before year's end. I think that at an arms length, they look great, but since so many of us do look at these and take photos at close range... the lack of care during assembly is very disheartening. Obviously these loco's are more complex than the F units seem to be and as a result there are more areas for problems to surface. Due to all of the variations that IMRC wants to provide, the shells of these units are virtually a glue together model kit (like a plane or boat kit) unlike the single (generic) castings that Kato would do.. which as a result would take liberties with correctness for specific roads. I was expecting that this model would be made this way... but unfortunately, i was also expecting that the assembly would be as clean as the FT's... and it is not. Maybe this is just part of the growing pains IMRC will be facing and future releases will be more carefully assembled... at least I hope so, because I'd like to get several of these even though they are outside of my modeling era. I hope that this lackadaisical assembly is not an issue that we'll have to tolerate with future TM's or F unit releases... that would be disastrous for IMRC. [ 31. December 2003, 14:33: Message edited by: Calzephyr ]
Disappointed? Kind of like when my golf instructor mentioned she had seen worse swings...at an abandoned playground. Going to go ahead and wake Mr. Wallet from coma. No reason to keep him sedated anymore.
