Not sure if they ever received more than smoke deflectors. Nothing like what they put on the Hudsons.
Whatever it is going to be Kato already knows, they don't just pull them out of a hat. I wouldn't mind seeing them do an early CB&Q Zephyr. No one does stainless steel like Kato and it would go with their other Burlington trains.
For Me: I want an Acella and a 'Regional'. Then again, I want, well, never mind that. I really would like to see Kato get the rights to build those. I wouold quit drinking for six months just to save up for it. The 'Regional' should have the 'Toaster' type, AEM usins: Of course, they probably won't if they know I will have them pained 'Canadian Pacific Red' and have the CP logo put on it.
I would LOVE to see them do a NJ Transit train, but I doubt that's coming, even if they could get the rights. I agree with others that a nice Acela set would be well received, especially after the nightmare that Bachmann did with it not running well. Kato has been in the bullet train business for a LONG time and I'm betting they could take their experience from that to make a functional great looking Acela.
And it's probably no less than 2 years away so I'm not going to worry about it. At this point I'd only be interested in a post-55 prototypical Empire Builder with E7s, Any protypical Hiawatha with appropriate power and on the freak chance they'd do it, any prototypical Rock Island train. Jason
I'd second that EB, but I'd need some F7's. E units only ran North of Seattle on the west coast(until BN and not counting SP&S #750).
I may be confused on the GN E7 and the post-55 train. As much as I would love the big domes, I'm tired of Kato's F units for passenger trains. IMO, GN put the best paint scheme on the E7 so I'll take a pre-dome train if that's more prototypical. Jason
GN's was nice, but I like my SP&S hourglass. I have a pair of IM GN G units on the way, probably not enough power(in the real world) to tug a 15 car Empire builder around but atleast they have SG's. If you want a GN train without domes and post 1955, I think the Western Star would be a good choice. Kato doing some GN E7's would be good.
I guess i sort of lied, I'd take about any proto-GN train. A late Gopher/Badger would be neat as well with simplified paint and snow pilot and the ex-SLSF coaches. Jason.
Another train they could do further down the road. Seems to fit the Kato criteria. Colorful matching fixed consist (at least as delivered) Sort of a Western railroad. Would have to do a fluted E7 shell for the power. Would probably sell well in Japan.
The E-7s did run across the mountains on the pre-dome Builder albeit for just a short while. They even spliced an F-7 B between the two units for a while but that did not work out either. They ended up running the Badger and Gopher, Red River, and the Internationals after that. So there would be some nice boxed sets of short passenger trains with an E-7 although to do either the Badger or Gopher would require some new tooling for the tail end cars. Now if they really wanted to go out on a limb do the early Builder behind an electric and a steam generator car.
E units and hills were never really a good combo, but like the Silver streak zephyr sets I'm sure Kato could make a buck releasing GN sets like the listed trains above. I'd get an international and alternate F7AB/AA set for pool trains as well.
