Ya... know... If this steamer turns out to be as good as it seems... the sales will probably encourage Kato to make more steamers in the 'near' future. I'd love to see a better Heavy Pacific than what is presently available.
I don't think sales are in issue. Kato and distributors have pre-sold all their inventory. I'm not sure how many extra's the respective shops ordered but I bet most of those are pre-sold also. I've had quite a few people call the shop this week asking about them, people that knew about the release from day one. At that time they were told if they want one to reserve it, now they are out of luck.
I just got an email this week from Factory Direct Trains taking orders for Kato Daylights expected this month so I ordered a set. Seems strange from what I've heard about sold out. Made me a little nervous about hitting the checkout button. Why all of a sudden are they taking orders? Maybe FDT trains ordered a bunch for inventory or Kato is making enough on the second run. I dunno, we'll see. Could be April when I get it. How many roads had GS-4's? Lots of tooling to pay off. I've ordered from FDT before. They pack well and ship prompt so I felt good about it.
How many roads had GS4's? Just one, Southern Pacific, though I guess they could do them in plain SP black and Freedom Train schemes, they are selling well because of the nice looking paint scheme not because everybody's railroad had them. In theory at least, I model ATSF in Texas in the 50's and have no use whatsoever for a daylight, but I'm still getting one, I'm sure there are many others like me. 4449 has gotten around a bit more in excursion service though and even ran for a while in black with BNSF lettering for some BNSF employee appreciation specials. A couple of things I notice after watching Kato's videos a few times is that only about half the train is on the grade at any time and the mars light looks more like a flashing strobe light, though it might look different in person. Can this 'mars' light be turned off, the prototype didn't run with them on all the time and it looks like it could get a bit annoying seeing it flashing like that all the time, and in the video it looks like the headlight doesn't appear to be on (or at least not very bright), what's the deal with the lights? There's a PDF file on the Kato site dealing with installing the decoder that says, "Light functions are controlled by a separate board in the front half of the locomotive and are not controllable with the EM13 decoder." but doesn't go into any more detail than that.
I hope Kato makes many more steamers of various types. I have two Erie Mikados and would love to add a Pacific or Ten Wheeler to the stable -- NYC, Erie, LV--or just undec. and I'll decal. Please?
I'll second that. Like I said, I model Santa Fe, but my own Westfalen & Gulf could use more good steam, my primary modelling era at the moment is the late 50's when ATSF was dieselised but the W&G still ran mostly steam, I like steam but I've evolved this way because of the lack of ATSF N scale steam. Maybe they could do a mechanism thats a close match to several prototypes and do different boiler and tender shells. I for one wouldn't mind a loco with dimensions a few inches out as long as it looked like what it was supposed to be and was Kato quality. A good place for them to go next would be a USRA heavy pacific to complement the mikado, and MT's proposed heavyweights.
I assumed only Espee had GS-4's when I posted which is why I made the comment about lots of tooling to pay off. I thought Western Pacific got a hold of a GS class streamliner. The pics of the daylight in a layout setting on the Kato site did me in. Especially the shot of the observation. I mean I invested time and money in an N scale layout to showcase something like this. I vividly recall gazing for hours at the color drawings of the daylight published in Model Railroader back in the 70's. A little voice said, "order one, idiot" so I did. I won't get overly concerned about detail on this set. The engine is practically half what a Con Cor model costs. $160 discount for a 10 car set is $16 per car and they look drop dead gorgeous on the Kato site. I pay that for IM frieght cars. If the engine is anything like past Kato builds, it should run like a watch. Whatever quirks there are with the headlight can be ironed out I'm sure. Hopefully, it will pull the 10 car set around my 3 x 7 doorslab Unitrack playground without any trouble.
For all of us that want a Warbaby or the American Freedom Train we know where to go. http://www.katousa.com/contact.html. 1 email a day will tell them what we want. LOL!
I bet we'll get them at some point, and I cant wait for my set to arrive. Say what about the black striped livery 4449 wore in 2000?
That's the scheme I was talking about, I'd take one if Kato did one. How about that auxiliary tender as well.
You're right about the WP, I forgot about them, not sure if they were GS4's or an earlier version with the single headlight, maybe somebody with more expertise in that area could tell us. You're also right about the price being right, less than $130 for a 4-8-4, I think any Con Cor GS4's still on dealers shelves will be staying there. I have faith in Kato getting it right, just wondering out loud about a few things they haven't expanded on in their ads. They do make the odd mistake, like blue trucks on the ATSF NW2, I don't know where they got them from.
The Western Pacific 4-8-4s of SP design were GS-6's with the single headlight and they were classed GS-64 by the WP.
I got a call from my supplier yesterday; the lady said they'll have GS4 and 10 car set in about 2 weeks. The two-car expansions will come later.
My guess is the blue trucks on the ATSF NW2 is the result of some craze started by Micro Trains and/or Lionel (O gauge) coloring the trucks to match the cars. A good number of collectors like the look. Who knows. Maybe ATSF did it on an engine or two and they blackened from road grime quickly.
