Good Morning from sunny ( ) ) Oregon! Just wanted to update everyone on the passenger car project. First, plastic is being shot now and I have components slowly making their way into Engineering for testing and evaluation. Roofs look good so far. I am expecting the new first shot of the trucks sometime next week and will show those off as well. The tooling guys even got the lettering on the journals! We are doing something different with these, the first road will go up for Pre-Order the first of July, (delivery date will be posted on the announcement in the Micro-News) so make sure you get your orders in so we know how many to make! The pre-order window will be 30 days. The four cars (Dome car, Chair Car, Sleeper and Baggage/Mail car) are being released on the same month, in the same scheme, but will come with decals for all the different car names and numbers (the road name and all colors and markings will be pad printed as normal). So if you want to build a train 4 cars long or 50 cars long you can do it right out of the gate. You can pick and choose...need 4 baggage cars, 9 sleepers and 6 dome cars...no problem. Doing Commute service and want 6 Chair cars and a Head End car for local mail...no problem. Just want a string of Baggage cars for your MOW sevice...that's the plan anyway. The decals will provide all the markings you need to build a fleet. The biggest complaint I field daily is the length of time it takes to have a second release done, this is the only way I see those interested in a project can get what they need right away. Final unit cost is still being worked on, but from what I've seen, they are really reasonable...significantly less than other injection molded cars being produced now. I'm also hoping to do some Head End Fast Freight Box Cars around the month these are released, so you will have a number of options available. The E8 A&B has been delayed a bit because of development issues with the chassis on the SD40-2, but we have produced F7's in Passenger Car Schemes over the years and I would bet most who model a particular road has one or two of them. Being an SP modeler, the Bloody Nose F7's we just did will work fine with the SP release when it happens. Later in the month I'll be able to talk about the first two road names, but I think those who model East of the Mississippi and West of the Mississippi will be happy ) I'll post shots of some of the plastic when I get them presentable. Cheers Joe MTL
THANKS JOE, THIS IS GOOD NEWS! so to whom do we go to make our advanced orders? to recognized dealers? also, is there a listing of what roadnames will be available in the decals sets? so what i'm hearing, is the pre-order date is july, but the delivery date will be (another month?) later? thanks, dave f.
That is good news indeed. I vote for SP Daylight or Lark but I suspect my vote counts very little. I am sure I NEED at least one baggage, a few chairs and a few sleepers. What about an observation car? Any word on a Southern Pacific Black Widow GP-9?
As for preorders...generally about 4 or so months to do the production, more for sure when I get the final schedule planning doc's in a few weeks. These cars will come completely painted and printed, only the "car" name or number will be the option. I don't want folks to think they will have to use the decals to have something that's pretty much all there. Ie..a UP set release would be painted and marked as UP cars, with the Union Pacific Logos, pin stripes etc...the only thing you have to add is the name of the car and those are pretty small. Frankly, many of these went unmarked from time to time so those who don't want to do decals can just leave them off and still have a line of SP, or UP or NW passenger cars. Haven't decided on what to do with SP yet, 4 different options when it comes to paint schemes, but I know we will do them all sooner or later. As for a BW GP9, it's one we will have to do, but I don't have it on the schedule right now...I'll let you know when we do. Cheers Joe PS...on July 1 2008 you can contact any MTL Storefront or your favorite internet pusher like Anthony or Loren or some of the others and reserve through them. Again, you can pick and choose the car style you want or need. Yes there's an observation car, they are modeled after the Union Pacific Coach Lounge in the 7000 series. Later we will change out the sides to do lounge and dining versions.
Oh !! Ooooo !! Ah !!! That is a great idea with the car names. Yep. Northwest double baggage or combi car-bash, a string of domes and a pricey rear end. A pat those tooling guys on the back, better yet, get a BBQ going for getting lettering on the journals ! Yeow ! .
i'll be anxious to see examples. i'm going to have to do some kitbash/surgery on a few chair cars to get them to look like the old D&RGW Exposition Flyer cars. Rio Grande remade the windows on two cars to an oversize type which distinguished them on this particular train. so i need a look at the various car sides to see if i can replicate these large windows well enough. looking forward to the first views. dave f.
Fantastic news, another great year for Z with more things to come. American Z is really on the winning track! What was again the name of the manufaturer originally invented Z, some Germans.....
David, how about kitbashing a DD40 to pull those UP business cars. I have no need for passenger cars, but I do need them for my business cars.
well, you know, that sounds fun. but it won't happen. i've thought many times about building a DD35 (much easier kitbash) but that probably won't happen either. i have so much to do. i've built things for you and others, but right now i need to scale back so i can get my own house in order. when the SD40s come out i will be trying to make some tunnel motor SD40T-2s, SD45s and SD9s. but i'm at one of those places right now where i've lost a lot of motivation. it's temporary, i know, but for the present i'm overwhelmed with all the family/work obligations i have to manage. i'm going to NATS and plan to use what little time i have left to detail and finish my GP9s. so any DDs will have to wait, maybe for a long time. but thanks for the idea! dave f.
Ok, so as I understand it, during this 1st run, MT will build every road road name that is being asked for? Or is it 4 cars for one roadname....with a new roadname every month?
Hey Joe, Ok, One Road Name, ie, UP, or SP, or Pennsy, that month...each car in it's basic markings with that roadname and any other art other than the actual name or number of the individual cars. Say when we do UP...the Dome Car would have a decal sheet with all the numbers that car had in UP Service...the Sleeper would have all the names that were present on that car in UP service and so on. Kinda confusing I agree but the Ad in the Micro News will make it clear....Or I'll have to ) Thanks for asking! Cheers Joe
Joe, how about B&O. Now that is a pretty scheme. The colors would be perfect or pretty close for my business train.
Thanks for the response Joe! This of course brings the next question. Will there be a schedule of road names, so someone doesn't have to strip a set only to find next month is the road name that they were wanting? Thanks as always. Come on now John, isn't the SD40-2 in CSX going to be enough?
That's what I tell Management when I make product suggestions! ) B&O is in the mix, but I can't post the road names yet...Marketing is still working on the line up and wants to make the big announcement in the Micro News. Sometimes you just gotta let it be about them ) Joe MTL
