Over on another board, Cory at Atas has publically stated that he's going to put a SBD System and a CSX B36-7 into the future production schedule! IMHO- this is great news. The conrail fans are bummed out since I don't think he's going to do a Conrail on that round. But the B36-7 was a glaring omission for the CSX line up. I'm jazzed. Time to start saving up. :teeth:
Oh sure. Give Atlas ideas. Just when I started to paint up a CR B36-7. They'll announce one for sure now.
OK, well that's interesting. What's the difference between a B36-7 and a U36B? I remember seeing the rather unusual sight during a tour of the GE plant in Erie of 'freshly painted' new Auto Train U36B's being turned around and repainted into Conrail. http://crcyc.railfan.net/locos/ge/u36/u36bproto.html Those four never saw the outside of the GE plant in Auto Train paint, but I was up in the cab of one. And they were rolling it back into the paint shop a second time.
Well I will have to get a couple for run through and borrowed power. I saw both NS and CSX locomotives fairly often in Northern CA, but mostly on the service tracks in Oakland.
I remember the same thing when the first batch of SD80's came out. Bought an undec, did it up to match a photo of an NS unit. That was involved, as the sill stripes were diagonally separated dashes. What do they roll out next?
They are a bit subtle. While they are VERY similar, you look at the section where the exhaust is. The U36B has the WIDE area right where the radiator section meets the exhaust (behiond the exhaust.) In the DASH 7 line, the wall of the radiator section comes forward to the whole section where the exhaust is. So the wide part narrows at the engine section (right in front of the exhaust). Minor difference, granted. But that is a main spotting feature. Also, the exhaust stack on the B36 is HUGE.
Just read this in the June 2015 issue of Model Railroader: Coming in 4th Quarter 2015 B36-7 in CSX and Seaboard System, three road numbers per paint scheme. :teeth:
How much did you pay to get that old news? It's been official since Atlas released the January-June 2015 catalog in late January and announced (again) in early March: http://www.atlasrr.com/NLoco/nb237b.htm
I guess it's only "old news" if you're monitoring new release schedules. My job keeps me away from my hobbies for long periods of time, and since I just saw this announcement in a current MR issue I thought I would pass the info along to others who may not have seen it. Mike
The Bmann combine seems to be the one that shows up the most followed by the coach. The rare one is the shorty observation. All of the Bmann shorts have a lot of drag mainly due to the axle wipers if they are the lighted versions.
It's a commendable idea to pass on the information. Unfortunately, while it's new info from print media, the pre-order window for these locos closed several weeks ago - so, theoretically, it's too late to place an order and be assured of getting any of them. The LHS I use seldom orders any locos - and to some extent rolling stock - unless a customer commits to a pre-order. In turn, the distributors he uses seem to function purely as (pre-)order consolidators - rather than stock/inventory buffers - by not (pre-)ordering any more than is pre-ordered by a retailer. Of course, you'll probably be able to find the item, once released, at one of the e-tailers (the names of which get censored here) who seem to order quantities beyond that required to fulfill pre-orders. Nevertheless, the popularity of some items gets underestimated all around and they sell out virtually upon release. For example, try to find any stock of the Fox Valley B&O wagon-top caboose in one of the red paint schemes. Some roadnames for the Atlas 40' PS-1 boxcars are quite scarce, too.
