I just checked the BLI website and notice the PRR M1 is scheduled for January 2016 delivery. I had thought it was scheduled for November 2015 (and a couple of dates before that too). I had lost all interest in this locomotive so can anyone tell me if the January 2016 date is a recent change (say before August) or if I am really behind times here.
Yes it was just announced a few days ago . I'm guessing it will be April or May before we really get it . Hey someone should start a pool , person with closest guess to real release date ..........
BLI delays the M1 again... who saw that coming? Well, I guess that money's going to another Bmann K4s instead. Hopefully the next time I save up for it there's actually a product to spend the money on! I'm not at all confident of that, but I guess I'll keep giving them chances anyway until somebody else comes out with one instead. If that happens though... let's be honest, the fact that this is still the only announced mass-produced Pennsy freight engine is the only reason anybody is still willing to give these guys a chance after ten years of false starts and delays in favor of (insert diesel everybody's already got plenty of here). If another company announces an M1, an L1, an I1, an H-anything...
I agree as well about losing interest. How can it be so much of a problem to make? Certainly does not instill any level of confidence in potential buyer from my point of view.
Don't forget the Baldwin Centipedes are pushed back as well to that faithful month of January 2016! I believe BLI has had finished versions of the Centipede going around trade shows for almost a year now. The M1 has been only seen in YouTube propaganda. I suspect the M1 will be significantly behind the Centipede release.
It would be really something if someone beat BLI to market and captured the lion's share of the market. All that money invested and nothing to show for it. That would be a sad day. I would not cry my eyes out but it still would be a sad day. Bachmann did both a light and a heavy Mountain. I don't know what the driver diameter was on either one or how closely it matched the PRR M1. The M1 had 72" drivers and I believe other Mountain driver diameters varied. In all probability the BLI M1 (or any M1 done by someone else) will have undersized drivers. Those 72 inch drivers were on 75 inch centers (except for driver set #4 which was 76"). Add an inch for flanges and the flanges on successive wheels are only 1" or 2" apart. That is not enough of a flange to keep the locomotive on the track. NMRA standards call for a .022" flange in N scale which scales out to 3.52 inches. Bachmann faced the same problem on The K4 and went with smaller drivers. So in a nut shell it may be possible for Bachmann to use the heavy or light Mountain mechanism to get an M1.
So what is my arrow pointing too? Is that the water catching thingy that dips into the pans on the track for extra water?
Every class of tender intended for main-line service on the PRR had a scoop. I want to say a few other US roads besides Pennsy and NYC used them too, but I can't remember which ones... I know they were used extensively over in the UK, though (some British diesels even had scoops to resupply their steam generators). They were beneficial anywhere that had lots of high-traffic routes where pulling off to top up would have been too disruptive (hence why they were popular with the two biggest northeastern roads)... but maintenance considerations made them less useful elsewhere.
The answer to that burning question and so much more: http://jimquest.com/writ/trains/pans/Track_Pans.pdf
