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 Posted - February 20 2007 : 12:59:52 PM
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Picked up from a post over on the Atlas Forum, a guy apparently got some juicy news from Athearn at the Portland, Oregon World's Greatest Hobby Show...
Athearn's RTR line GP40X will have a future release with prototypically correct "elephant ears" for the Southern Pacific example. This SP model, I've also heard, will include the correct experimental trucks that were also found on the Union Pacific GP40X models. To date, Athearn has only offered Southern and Santa Fe prototype examples, along with secondary owners of the same units.
The often rumored Athearn tunnel motor SD-40T-2 was mentioned reportedly at the WGH Show...word is it will be all-new tooling...remember Athearn did introduce an SD-40T-2 in two versions back in the early '80s and talk at one time was that we might see only a re-tooling of that shell...perhaps that will not be the case now. This new SD-40T-2 was mentioned now as possibly being included in Athearn's Genesis line. Great news for Rio Grande fans!!
Athearn did again display shells for its coming though to date not officially announced Genesis FP45 and F45 models. Sadly, they keep showing these black shells, which in pictures makes it very difficult to examine the detail quality. I took the pics from the Atlas site and I've ran up the brightness in these versions below to attempt to better show the detail...
/tyco/forum/uploaded/Tony Cook/Athearn_Gen_FP45_shells.jpg
/tyco/forum/uploaded/Tony Cook/Athearn_Gen_FP45_shells_2.jpg
These will certainly be awesome models. Can't wait to see the red and silver ATSF FP45's!
Athearn also is working on another improvement to its SD-40-2 models. This was first released by Athearn in the early '80s. Sometime in the '90s, Athearn issued a snoot nose and later phase SD-40-2 models. At that time they lost the non-prototypical lugs on the side that once held the underframe and shell together and the pilots got completely filled in with that issue. There were still knocks against the Athearn re-tooled SD-40-2 at that time.
Well, now comes word that Athearn is re-re-tooling its SD-40-2...I think many would be happier to heard all-new-tooling...but that doesn't seem to be the case according to this rumor. Anyway, more and better SD-40-2 models are coming from Athearn and will supposedly also include Southern hi-hood examples...this is a bit odd when you think about it. If Athearn is merely re-tooling the former one-piece early '80s SD-40-2 shell, then being able to drop a hi-hood on it wouldn't be too easy...kinda makes one wonder if perhaps the new shell will be multi-part and thus much different that previous attempts. The mulit-shell could facilitate the addition of treadwalk which is not usually found on a one-piece shell casting like the former shell from the '80s on the SD-40-2 model. It's also sounds more like the new SD-40-2 from Athearn will also be a Genesis released from the fact that the guy's rumor includes a statement that it'll be DCC and Sound equipped as an option. Athearn has not be doing DCC and/or Sound for its RTR line to date.
Also mentioned was late version Genesis F-units...these would be stripped of their skirts above the fuel tank...believe most roads began dropping things like the skirts around 1960 and later...this would provide from a number of later example paint schemes on the high quality Genesis F-units that would not be prototypical now with the skirting in place.
Finally, a bit murky is the news that Athearn is doing an "all-new-tooling" SD-45 of "Genesis quality." Athearn, at last summer's NMRA Show, announced an SD-45 was coming. At that time word was this SD-45 was to be a re-tooling of the Rail Power Products SD-45 and would be a R-T-R line release. This latest rumor calls for "all-new-tooling" and does "Genesis quality" mean it'll be in that line or will it be in the R-T-R line?
Atlas showed pre-production examples of its coming HO-scale Ford Fairmonts in Sedan and Wagon form...
/tyco/forum/uploaded/Tony Cook/Atlas_Fairmont_Sedan.jpg
/tyco/forum/uploaded/Tony Cook/Atlas_Fairmont_Wagon.jpg
Looks good!
This news again was posted originally on the Atlas Forum by its member CNW and the photos were posted there by JeffShultz.
Here's a link to the original Atlas Forum posting...
http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=35605&whichpage=1
Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net
Edited by - Tony Cook on February 20 2007 1:01:49 PM
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Country:  USA ~
Posts: 1658 ~
Member Since: December 03 2005 ~
Last Visit: February 07 2010
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 Posted - February 20 2007 : 4:02:04 PM
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An Athearn contact has commented that the SD-40-2; SD-40T-2; and SD-45 will all be Ready-To-Roll line offerings. Both the SD-40-2 and tunnel motor version will be "vastly improved" models "based" on the tooling of the earlier models.
Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net
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Country: USA ~
Posts: 1658 ~
Member Since: December 03 2005 ~
Last Visit: February 07 2010
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