I was in my LHS looking at both standard and wide cab versions and noticed when looking at them from the side, the shells do not sit level on the frames! The back part is clearly higher than the front. What's more is that on some, they painted the underframe black in an apparent attempt to hide this fact. Am I the only one who noticed this??? I haven't decided to buy any yet, mainly due to their price!
They painted the frames black because there is a gap between the fuel tank and the walkway that some people complained about. (The dimensions are pretty close to prototypical, but Atlas, unlike Kato, does not include an underframe detail piece to hide these things.) I've not seen any that don't look level, all six of mine are fine in this respect.
I have three of these and what I did was make the fuel tank taller for now as jagged ben said Atlas did not include underframe detail parts where they should.
I don't really rag on atlas, but their c40-8s are off. My Conrail wide cabs rode high in the cab because the light box doesn't fit the frame or shell right. After I did a lot of filing, the cabs sit level but there is still a gap between the battery boxes and cab. I don't like the way the shell goes on the walkway. Too many small nubs that get broken quickly. Its no where near as elegant as their previous engines with tab and slot locks. These really needed to have detail molded into the frames. Right now the blank area just looks incorrect even though everything matches the prototype dimensions. Then there is the awful window glass and glue everywhere.
