All that snow making you agitated, Larry? I can't imagine. AZL Forum. Hans. Owner of AZL. Great products ... Ok. Your Google must be snowed in also... I can help you: https://azlforum.com/board/4/azl-product-announcements
I can google myself. But wouldn't it be nice if Hans provided the link? Or does he hover so far above us that we bend down to pick up the crumbs he drops for us?
I would prefer he spends more time developing locomotives than making a precise post on Trainboard. Good day to you.
That’s not good enough, Frank... You should at least post it in video! Just like Rob did yesterday morning... (wink, wink)
As a general rule rolling stock never really gets me excited with anticipation. I think the last time rolling stock did that was the PS 2 hoppers. However, these tank cars have got my total attention! I think it’s been 10-15 years since I said “I can’t wait” for rolling stock! But seriously I can’t wait!
I got pretty excited watching the video they put out for these releases. The tank cars look pretty neat and like something new (to me). The E7A and B locos and car sets look nice. I see two Southern Pacific and a Union Pacific livery I would choose from. I will do a little research but i wonder if either of those Southern Pacific's would have run alongside Union Pacific locos of which I already have, GP7, 38, switcher. I'll bet a Z scale Hobo would know...
I like, and can use a dozen of the tank cars. They fit my era well. Pass on the E locomotives, still waiting for the F7's that were announced 10 years ago, and specifically the locomotives to match the NP passenger cars they did. I bought every car number so I have 16 NP passenger cars without any matching locomotives. SP, UP, NYC, Burlington, all those passenger sets were released with matching locomotives, and they are releasing another passenger train, the ATSF set with matching locomotives available, but no NP yet. Outrage!
The tank cars are a welcome addition. The road names are interesting. Unfortunately I do not have a need for more tank cars since I recently converted 10 of my favorite Marklin tank cars to MTL couplers and metal wheels. I used Jon Pope's conversion kits for the conversions. I'm still waiting for some RTR switching loco's and in particular something in NHRR. The asphalt tank cars will be useful for small industry switching, which is the focus of my layout. Passenger and long distance loco's are not in the mix for me. It does seem odd that you have the entire set of NP passenger cars but not the appropriate locos. Is there an explanation? Would other locos not be prototypical? The extent of my passenger service will be one or two NHRR RDC's running on a reverse loop to add interest and movement. They will run along a viaduct that divides my 2' wide layout. Jim
The NP was a mountain route railroad, and when they started using Diesels for their passenger trains that previously were pulled by 4-6-2 Pacific Class high speed steam, their Engineers requested the shorter F units instead of the longer E units, as they could handle better, especially in Montana where their was both a Freight mainline and a steeper and rougher Passenger mainline. F's do better than E's in mountainous regions. So all the NP Diesel trains used F's. First they tested the drawbared FT's in an ABBA configuration, and quickly found the most efficient configuration was the ABA, which was used till Amtrak took over. So for a very short time the passenger trains wore the light green and ugly "Butterknife" scheme until Raymond Loewy designed the beautiful 2 tone green scheme which lasted until the end of the NP. So for some reason AZL decided to do the old butterknife scheme NP passenger set with locomotives, which I purchased with matching F3's. Then a year ago AZL released the new beautiful 2 tone Loewy Green passenger set, but no matching locomotives. My set has been sitting in a box waiting for the correct F7's to pull them. This is the locomotives I am waiting for:
Are F3's close enough to F7's for a re-paint? I can relate to the F versus E thing. D&RGW had F's instead of E's because they were shorter and did better in the mountains. So there weren't D&RGW E's. But I'm lucky I can use the AZL D&RGW F3's from the California Zephyr.
Thanks for the explanation, Robert. Maybe AZL will see the oversight and correct it. What about the Marklin PRR F7 ABA set that came out a while ago? Could that be repainted and relettered? Jim