Conventional Wisdom: No one will want a road-specific engine, there's no demand. Heh heh heh!! tongue:
What I have heard from my LHS is that the AC-12s are at Intermountain being tested. There's no word on what that testing is, but if it is "successful" they are supposed to ship later this month.
Today the laptop I'm typing this on has more memory than all NASA's computing power when they sent Apollo 11 to the moon and I can choose almost any colour I want for my car, but I still can't get road specific N scale steam unless, to borrow a word from another thread, it's a 'unique' articulated or flashy looking streamliner. That's what sells, people who don't even remotely model SP will buy AC12's or GS4's, but not necessarily an SP specific 2-10-2 or 4-6-2.
Don't forget Athearn's offering of UP's Big Boy's and Challengers. They're pretty road specific. And yes I am impatiently awaiting the arrival of two AC-12s to help fill my SP roundhouse. I just hope my wife doesn't find out how much I'm spending on the little beauties.
Yes, but the Big Boy and Challenger, like the AC12 and GS4, have an appeal to non-UP modelers because the Challenger is well known from #3985's fan trips, and the Big Boy is the Big Boy. The Big Boy was really specific to only a relatively small part of one railroad, but they would probably be the best selling steam locomotive in all scales, not because they are UP locomotives but because they are Big Boys. I doubt you could find a model railroader or railfan in the world who hasn't heard of them. Other than Athearn maybe one day doing an FEF 4-8-4 that people would recognize from fan trips, I doubt we will see any other mass produced UP specific steam. If you model a road that didn't run big articulateds or brightly painted 4-8-4's the pickings are even slimmer.
Agreed but it would be nice if some one like JnJ or GHQ would do some of the "accessory" items like a sky line casing. I don't mind grinding off domes but to get a clean looking casing is another story. I just can't justify putting a hacked looking accessory on such a fine looking model. Also, SP wheel diameters tend to be different from the stock models but that might be a whole new Pandora's box to get into???
Here ya go Carl! Looks like they're making their way out from Colorado. INTERMOUNTAIN "N" SP AC-12 CAB FORWARD RD #4292 IN HAND - eBay (item 330403489965 end time Feb-12-10 11:26:57 PST)
This is the problem, it's all well and good wishing for manufacturers to use existing mechanisms to make other roads engines, eg; Kato doing an ATSF '2900' on the GS4, or someone making a kit of parts to do the same thing, but the truth is, in most cases the only thing one road's 4-8-4 'mechanism' had in common with another's was the number of wheels, even if the drivers are the same diameter there are other differences. Maybe 10-20 years ago, but I don't think using common mechanisms would cut it today when we crave more accuracy in our models.
I agree, but more on the implementation of technology available. Anymore, we can design a new mech. in minutes in a CAD program, and have a prototype by the end of the day. It would be far more practical to design everything from scratch than trying to design a new shell, wheels, ect. on an existing mech.
That might still be a few years away, Mark. But then, a new generation of designers and engineers are learning these CAD/CAM tools as I write, and the tools are getting better every month. The most comprehensive ones are still very expensive and the province of the John Deeres, Caterpillars, and Boeings of the manufacturing world. But in a few years . . .
