These photos were taken by Harry Wong. At the bottom of the page is a link to the whole photo album, there is over 40 photos. I couldn't attend the convention this year and am thankful somebody took some pictures and put them up. Deluxe/GHQ 53' Spine Cars Thrall Lo Pack 2000 well car, reworked by Deluxe/GHQ Deluxe Highway Rig Atlas Code 55 Track Micro Trains new Tank Car Kato AMD 103 Budd RDC Red Caboose Coil Car http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4292472673 [ 17 July 2001: Message edited by: brian ]</p>
Thanks for posting! Those 53' spines will go good with my 48 footers from Alan! . I'm assuming those will be in kit form only. Nice tank cars too! Russ
Russ, I think the Deluxe spine cars are RTR only. I was well into making patterns for these cars, when George emailed me to say they were doing them. If I had continued, I would have had them for sale several months ago! Had I known how long the Deluxe ones would have taken, I would definitely have introduced them. Oh well . . . Anyway, my container-only five unit spine cars will be ready in a week or two
I am going to stick with alans cars. There are many reasons and I am not taking anything away from D.I. Alan gave us something we wanted and didn't produce it on his time! He not only has listened to us, but has worked his @#@#^%# to give us something that with others may have been produced when they were good and ready. All I am saying is that my first choice is Alan and I am grateful for him meeting our demands. THANK YOU ALAN!!! God Bless all and support our Trainboard Brother Alan.
It looks like Atlas is doing ME one better on their track, it looks comperable to Shinohara's last atempt but refined a bit (at least from looking at the photo).
The nice thing about cooperation between N Scale manufacturers is that having a conversation with Alan created an opportunity to have 2 prototype spine cars of different sizes, and not the very same car twice. Our car is a JAF-53 prototype made after the Johnstown America car built for TTX. The car features the all purpose fixtures for trailers and containers with the A and B platforms taking dual 20's through 48' containers and up to 53' trailers. The middle platforms will take 40' to 48' containers and the same 53' trailers. The 53' 5 unit is being built now by Johnstown America, Trinity and National Steel Car. The cars will be ready to run with etched metal platforms and knuckle couplers. Alan's car is a 48' spine. Quite a different beast. We talked before launch so there would be no stepping on toes. Hey, we could have chosen an FT as our next project George
George, Thanks for the post what you say is very true and alan had previously advised us of the same conversation. I beleive it is great that manufacturers can communicate between each other so that the consumer benefits from multiple models rather than the same model. By the way how are the Swift roadrailers coming along?
Welcome aboard George. I've always been impressed of your business ethics, first on the various listservers and now here. You handled this with your usual skill. Our hobby is blessed to have such great gentlemen as Alan and George bringing us such terrific products. It doesn't have to be like the Windows/Mac zealots...
Our philosophy has always been there are lots of prototypes- enough for everybody. Best to discuss it early, and not have two people develop the same product at the same time. The development cycle of a product takes as long as it takes, and it is better to know who is doing what and not jump them. This is a very small business and you need all of the friends you can get The worst thing in the world is to have two of the same prototype product competeing for the same dollar. Nobody wins. Better to have two different cars that help complete a train. Good that the market sometimes allows us to do that.
