Athearn's website is now saying "Due Late March": http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=Big+Boy&CatID=TNLS
That's good news. Now I can order a second turbine. Because we Southern Pacific in the 90's modelers need turbines. And Big Boys.
I saw that on the Athearn website... but... the year was not shown. The most recent Model Railroader mag was claiming these under current releases. I just saw the online dealer further stating that the expected date is March 2017. Sent from my SM-G530T using Tapatalk
Maybe the poll results attached to this thread along with slow reserve orders has caused them to re-think this release. Who knows? Oh, I guess it will be a lack of ESU decoders being ready. Sound familiar? Carl
Eventually they will be released and become available. Staying cool and having fun with it...... Shades
I don't think that slow orders would be an issue, Big Boys and Challengers always sell well to the clubs and to the lovers of large steam. I have always liked the Challenger, but at $400, I love 4-5 SD40-T2's more
To date there have only been 53 votes cast in the survey. I'm sure there have been more than 53 TB members who could have cast a vote. I'm guess the rest of the TB members don't have an opinion one way or the other. There is only one week left in the poll so the countdown is near. We have at least 6 months before the Challenger and Big Boy models are 'now' tentatively scheduled to arrive. It is a concern though... many on TB are not voting and the numbers who have voted to purchase are very low at only 26.
I plan to add both "Challengers" and "Big Boys" to my fleet of these fantastic steamers. Staying cool and having fun with it..... Shades
I had thought these were coming out in March 2017? I just checked Athearn's website and they now say "Due Late July". There is a second run announced now. "Announced January 2017, Due Late December". Is that true? Wonder if they will all show up in Dec now?
Yes... they moved back the first release to July 2017... then... added more numbers for the Northern Pacific Z-6 and SP&S Z-8 Challengers which are due in December (which year... I'm not sure?). Sent from my SM-G530T using Tapatalk
Huh... interesting to see this come up again. My answer's still the same, though. If the price point were halved, then both. Currently, neither... especially now that BLI has a T1 in the works (which is a must-have that I already put money aside for) and Kato is re-releasing the GS4/Daylight sets. The SP stuff doesn't 'fit' any better than a Big Boy or a Challenger would, but I guess I just want it more.
The production of our model railroad products overseas (China) has been bothering me much more lately... specially with the producton delays to the Challenger and Big Boy lokies from Athearn. It seems the new political administration has been warning some companies, which have moved (or planned to move) production offshore, that they may levy import taxes. If this were to occur... what will this mean to the production of model trains in ANY scale; and, at what cost to the consumer if these taxes are passed on them? Obviously... this goes way beyond our little hobby... but is a concern to me since so many items (hobby or not) are imported now. I can't envision production returning to the United State any time soon; and if it does, at what premium would we have to pay to have our trains 'home-grown'? China will not release the tooling for any of these models... all tooling would have to be recreated here and skilled craftsmen would be needed ($$$). I'd be glad to see our models made domestically... specially more jobs for people in our country... but are the consumers going to be able to afford the new paradigm of domestically produced items at a higher price? We complain about the current costs of many of these items... with good reason... since we had been spoiled for many years with much lower prices from the far-east factories and their cheap labor force. If $400+ is the current 'market value' for Chinese made Big Boys and Challengers... what can we expect prices to be if these are produced in the United States? Years from now we may be looking at the current price points as a bargain that should have been exploited. The secondary market for these items being made today could... (A) be profitable... or (B) non-existent because the hobby could be priced out of existence.
Calzephyr, I fully agree. It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, but this can't be good for the hobby. If it's tough for newbies to get started in the hobby now. Imagine how unattractive it will be when prices have risen due to protectionist taxation or higher costs to move manufacturing back to the US. In either case, life will never be the same again. And of course, slowing sales means fewer items being produced or planned for for the future. I think the Golden Age of N Scale will be coming to a close. To be honest, no matter what the administration does, manufacturing will not be returning to the US. There is too much already invested in the current production chain to change course now. They would either raise prices and produce less, or simply shutter their business.
If it's all doom and gloom and impossible to do here, how do you explain Micro-Trains? Yes, it will be hard to restart whole segments of the manufacturing industry but it's not impossible. And that exercise will underscore what a small minded bunch of gullibles we've been for thirty or so years now. What it will take is what manufacturing always was, a lot of hard work by some smart people, some capital, and some real skill. What will come out of it someday, whether sooner or later, is what a line of hooey we were sold since the eighties with all of the smart guys' predictions coming true each step of the way, right up to the present. The sooner we get on with it the better.
Micro-Trains might have successfully brought production back Stateside, but the move wasn't a clean one. There's a reason MTL doesn't make Z-scale hood units anymore, and it isn't because people weren't buying the models. Slow and careful is the only way to go if we want to keep the surge in product diversity we've been enjoying, especially in steam. The same thing that happened to MTL's SD40-2, GP35, and GP9 could just as easily happen to Bmann's K4 or BLI's M1- down the black hole, never to return. If we want manufacturing to move back home, that's a great thing to work towards... but it can't be like ripping off a band-aid.
All of MTL's plastic production is in Oregon. The Z Scale F7 is also made in Oregon. The other locomotive chassis are made in China. All of their plastic production has been in Oregon since 1972.
I haven't paid attention to the Big Boy versions. Have they announced a version that is close to the one being restore to operation by UP? #4014
That explains why the shells were still available for a while after the hood units were discontinued. I didn't realize that the freight and passenger car lines had never gone overseas in the first place. I'm glad none of their other products were affected, but... still, losing even just those three models was a serious setback. I know it wasn't their first choice; as I understand it their Chinese manufacturer was basically holding the tooling hostage. It still did a lot of damage. MTL hasn't so much as hinted at another Z locomotive since, despite having initially led the charge on the newer mechanisms. They went from industry leader to falling back on a 40-year-old product. Maybe that's a good argument for avoiding reliance on foreign suppliers in the first place... but... all I'm saying is, it benefits no one to just lose good products like that. N scale is a bit better insulated than Z when it comes to diesel models, but not steam.
