I've been looking for IM F7s or F3s in Amtrak, for a long time. Now I am seeing a rash of shells, on the bay, but no units? Whats up? The units were supposed to be awesome, who's gutting them? Is a rerun rumored?
I think these are blems and defect shells. IM has the mechs made overseas and they do the injection molding and painting here in the US and then send them overseas for the details to be added. The shells are mated with the mechanisms here in the US so when they get a bad shell, they grab a new one and put it on the mech. These are the rejects. I have bought a few before and they all had a nick or blem somewhere on them. I think, if you notice, the seller is in Colorado, near where Intermountain is located. Somebody has a contact and is getting their reject shells.
I'm waiting for a SD-45 shell in LTEX. Same seller. I figure I'll dirty it up real good & put a JD DeBene figure in it.
That is no longer the case. All production is done in China now, and has been for a while. Intermountain has a couple CnC machines for cutting tooling and a single injection molding machine for testing. Once the tooling is complete, any test shots and the tooling are sent to China for production. They do have a laser cutter in house however so some of those parts may still be done here. Jason
I've bought some of the shells, and mine have all been fine. It's pretty much the same as the shells Atlas sells........IM has been having "manufacturer problems" and I think they just got stuck with extras and no chassis to put them on.
I bought a few of these shells,nope,not blems..Some may have broken railings,ETC,but any defects will be stated in the auction.
I just purchased an sd40-t shell from an outfit in Michigan. They have a number of SP shells for auction right now - Starting around $10
I've picked up some hoppers from this seller. The PWRS L&N center-flow hoppers have been out of production for about 6 or more years and now all the sudden shes been listing a pair each week. Me and friend bought the four 3-packs when they originally came out and split them up so we'd each have 1 or 2 of each style. I've been able to get 4 or the 6 I was missing for about $10.00 each along with some data only covd hoppers. They're not blems but it seems there has to be some connection to Intermountain for them to be listing all those shells and long OOP hoppers. Hmmmm Mike
Tony, I think you maybe partially right. I don't know who is selling what on ebay, but I do know for a fact that when the IM F7's first came out, the B unit sides and roofs were reversed; ie relative to the sides, the roofs were cast backwards. To their credit, IM corrected this faux pas by running a bunch of corrected shells and made them available to buyers who cared (and sent me four replacement ones for free), and presumably corrected newer production runs. The way to tell whether you have the corrected shell is to look at the three porthole windows as they are not centered between the doors: they should be closer to the rear, or boiler end, of the unit. If they are centered toward the front, or the DB end, you have the original, defective shell. Of course, this has nothing to do with blemishes or quality of the castings. I suspect, but do not know that the flood of shells is the result of this....either there are a bunch of incorrect shells out there, or possibly, these are the corrected shells that nobody asked for because most people can't tell the difference... Regards, Otto K.
Auugghhh. The 2 pages of responses were a good read, with a disappointing conclusion (so far). Looks like I'll just keep looking for a full set of Amtrak units to come up for sale. Then (as happened with the plethora of E8 stuff I bought, they will be re-released. Step 1, find units Step 2 wait for re-release! Works for me
I have purchased from them and they do not appear to have defectd. I would suspect it is IM dumping/selling an overrun through an un-official channel. After all, the seller had to procure them somehow and probably made a bulk buy to clear out the overrun.
Okay John, so where are the portholes relative to the front or back of the unit (see my post above)? Thanks, Otto K.
I dug through my history and this is not the same seller that I got my IM odballs from about a year ago.
I bought an SD40T-2 shell off the same seller. No defects. And even if it did have any, it would still be much better than the original shell for my loco, which took a 640-scale foot drop to the floor a few years ago! Besides, it was a short-nose, and the new shell was a much more sexier-looking snoot nose.
I have only bought A units shells, tunnel motor shells, SD45-2, and SD40-2W shells. I can't speak for the "B" units.
I bought a pair of SD45-2 (MRL and ATSF) and the MRL had the handrails broken in a couple places. I contacted the seller and she said that they didn't have any more, IM was out and to try to fix it. So I noticed a few weeks later, she had more MRLs listed. Other than that, I'm happy with the SD40T-2, FP7, F7A and F7B shells I've purchased from her.
Multiple IDs = same eBay seller InterMountain has often cleared the shelves by offering Dealers heavy discounts on stalled merchandise, eventually selling it to whomever could put up the cash. They're many dealer/vendors circling the drain and have tried to use eBay as a last resort to profitability, most with no success. ...... The Ohio eBay seller referenced earlier in this thread uses more than one ID. Nothing nefarious, all IDs have tens of thousands of positive feedbacks. Very well organized sellers - a couple, TW and KW.
