This is from an email I received from Athearn News. I do not work for them, just copy and pasting this here to share with you all. [ March 26, 2006, 11:40 PM: Message edited by: Kozmo ]
Maybe I missed a thread if there were one on the Athearn new mill gondola? I did see a post on the heavy paint used. I purchased a couple and was surprised to see these appear to be diecast! Its true the paint is a bit thick but overall I like these cars. Never had a total diecast piece of rolling stock. They are heavy, perhaps the heaviest pieces of rolling stock I have purchased. In fact its all my B23-7's can do to pull these without wheels slipping if I run them together at the end of a short train on my flat layout. The only fear I have if in fact they are all metal is that the paint will chip off like it used to do with my matchbox vehicles when I was a Kid. I don't plan to treat them as rough as when I was a kid though so hopefully the paint won't flake. Nice cars. Have diecast cars been made in N-scale before? The other new PS-2 doesn't appear to be diecast but its heavy and more crisp in detail. I don't think the detail level on the car could be as good as plastic tooled cars but for the gondola its acceptable maybe.
Athearn will start ramping up production as tooling is updated and production cycles open up. With Ajin on the way out, I suspect we may see less N scale for a bit while the Chinese factories take up the slack. I do hope that Athearn is learning how to do die-cast well.... I would LOVE to see the old MDC husky stacks in metal.
The gon is metal. Daniel: I'd like them also, but, the challenge here is the Husky Stack tooling can't just be turned in metal casting dies. The plans are likely not digitized. It most likely will require all new tooling.
I thought they were designed on CAD software. It would be interesting to know if that was included with the tooling purchase. From what I understand, some injection mold dies can be used for low temprature metal (zinc for instance) if they were made with steel. I think the trobble would be to correctly (and consistantly) cast the metal lacing at the bottom. If I were Athearn, I would probably weld in the lacing and cast the basic tructure in Metal, then add seperate plastic parts. I think this would be a realistic solution.
FYI, I updated my initial post on this thread as one person here thought that I worked for Athearn. and they way I originally posted it, I coudl certainly understand why. I had just copy and pasted that info from the Athearn Newsletter to share with you all. I didn't want to mislead anyone to think that I worked for them or could take requests for future products, etc.
yes Yes Yes, could we please get that 4-4-0 in N-Scale!! I like the backdated look- perfect for branchline passenger work. I would vastly prefer that over the MP American. Dare I say, with a couple of those, I would be content to operate without a 4-6-0 What I wouldn't give!
Ya know, when I spoke to the Athearn Representative at the WGH On Tour Show at Chantilly, Virginia, I asked about an eight-wheeler designed along the lines of a rearrangement of the wheels and adjusting of the driver sizes of the consolidated/mogul. I asked this after I received an affirmative answer from the Athearn Representative about the moguls. The Athearn Representative went into a song and dance about how difficult this would be to do and ra-ta-da-ta-dahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well woulddunyaknowit? It shows up shortly after in Horrendiferously Oversized. It could not be that hard to do this one in N. I would rather see it than the mogul. If we got an eight-wheeler from Athearn that runs as well as does their consolidated or the MDC consolidated or mogul, I would be delighted. The tender drive is not a big deal to me, I would live with it to get a decent and reliable N scale smaller passenger locomotive. I would even consider giving up my caterwauling for the ten-wheeler if there were a decent, reliable and properly constructed eight-wheeler.
I think the N scale challenger makes up for the lack of current new product announcements. Maybe Athearn will offer an FP-45 in the near future?
