MTL SD40-2 Progress shot

Chris,
The weather in the video doesn't make me think of Jeff's idea of sitting on that locomotive in a chair. It looks just a little too cold for that. But that is an interesting locomotive.

 

Why do i get the strange suspision that MTL is going to re-release their Mogal, or try and hurry up and get a steam loco out before someone else does.... Hadn't even heard a peap about steam from MTL until now, and with the recent announcments of new steam coming seams to make me suspisious.
:tb-wacky:
Tony B..
Wasatch Z Club

 

tony,
wanting to do steam and actually announcing plans to do so is far different. joe wants to do steam. MTL hasn't decided that. i think you're safe. if i'm wrong joe will say.
dave f.

 

Joe,

I hope you don't forget the canadian z scalers! a CP one would be nice: no matter how many roadnumbers come out, I will buy more and renumber them!!; I dream of a BC rail sd40-2, but I think that's going to remain a dream...

I hope the z scale SD40-2 sells like the original, then you could ask for a wage increase joe :tb-wink:

on wiki, you can find some facts about the sd40-2: EMD SD40-2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

greetings, Daniel

 

Joe has been talking/trying to get a reasonably priced steam for a very long time, Just search on trainboad. To me all diesel and electric locos looks the same, just my interest or ignorance I guess. I am waiting for steams, I have a large collection of Marklin steam but I want more, a better runner to start with and NA style. To make a steam mechanism that is reasonably priced is not easy. In the mean time I am still buying all the GP's and SD that is available, but I not too excited by it. The last time MTL made the Mogul it never sold well just because of the price. I dont think MTL will make a shell that goes on another manufacturers mechanism, after all the commotion about other manufacturers cannot put MTL trucks and couplers on their product.

Kim

 

Don't worry Tony. Steam is a hard sell in Z around here. Not because no one wants them, just the number of people available to spend the money right now is not very high vs the cost to develop. I don't know what the price will be for the Mike, but if it's over $300 it becomes less of an impulse buy and something folks have to think about. Our Mogul was $500 when new and I think the expectations were reasonable considering the production levels. Inventories dropped here just as the market got saturated and sales dried up. From all the research we've done and conjectures based on our sales histories, once you get over that $300.00 mark sales drop off...especially these days. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but production levels and expectations need to be in line with the market. I'm sure if AZL were able to do a Cab Forward or the Big Boy in that range their sales would have been 10 times what they sold. That's unreasonable on a ton of levels considering the size of the engine, all the hand fabrication to assemble and the type of custom production necessary to produce them. Considering what they are (jewels), the price point is more than defenceable...and it seems as though they did a great job predicting demand.

I think the Mike will do well, we still have no clue as to the price, which is bothersom considering how soon they will be avaible. I don't see any reason to by coy about that aspect of the project. I'd like a heads up so I can start saving for two of them. If the price is sprung on me at the last minute, chances are I won't be able to shift funds around to catch them before Robert Ray, Jeff, Jurg buy them all! )

Cheers

Joe
MTL

QUOTE=zmon;483249]Why do i get the strange suspision that MTL is going to re-release their Mogal, or try and hurry up and get a steam loco out before someone else does.... Hadn't even heard a peap about steam from MTL until now, and with the recent announcments of new steam coming seams to make me suspisious.
:tb-wacky:
Tony B..
Wasatch Z Club[/QUOTE]

 

Kim,

Sorry but I don't agree with this assessment. Actually, the MTL Moguls did very well for their time. But Z was a very different animal back then. We had maybe a few hundred truly active Z scalers at the time they were released. For MTL to produce a mogul, let alone 3 versions was a huge risk with such a limited market. The oil tender was beautiful and those two versions sold out much sooner than the square tender version. Price was not an issue. I never remember anyone complaining. At that time, we were so happy to have anything new in Z! I would not call this release a failure, but a success. It did sell out, though not right away which is not a surprise due to the size of the Z market at that time. The only hampering point was that fact the loco only carried one roadname, SP. This limited the interest of our East Coast operators. Today, these locomotives are highly valued and command a good price on the 2nd hand market. Again, this is a definition of a successful offering.

Also note, at the same time, MTL offered a Nn3 version. It was a different brass shell on the same Marklin 2-6-0 chassis. This released was prized by the Nn3 community.

Rob

 

It's not normal... the upper set of gaskets you see on any -2 are for the knockouts to access the radiator core crossover piping, not for class lights.

 

Dang. Chris!! That's a deck Definitely going to need a hot tub AND the chairs !!

And don't worry about me buying up a bunch of the new Mike's, I'll leave that to Rob Ray, Jürg and others. Maybe one. I'm going to wait for the different one. Bigger, longer; something different. (Kim, I can sorta tell, I'm with you. Just make mine noticeably different). Plus, I'll have to leave an open bank account for the 1st Challenger that will trade for my cash.
.

 

Rob,
I kind of agree with you, You have better insider info on how many you sell, but it could also be different points of view, based on how you look at it. I based mine on what Joe wrote earlier in this thread
New Motive Power at MTL on the way - TrainBoard.com

to quote

"I hope to do a switcher next, but that is only a wish at this point. I have to look at what I want our catalog of Z to include and there are a number of "basics" necessary to move forward. We did have that small Steam Mogul, but that did very poorly and was too expensive. That's not to say we won't, things are moving and changing with respect to Z here and I can't say never. Steam represents a huge design effort, I mean really huge to do it right. ...."

Kim

 

Hmmm, if MT did steam again, I'd think it would sell well. I agree with Rob's comments, just try and get an MT mogul for less than $500 these days with the vandy tender. Not an easy task. They truely are fantastic looking loco's. (ok, you all here know I am biased because I have 2 ) However, If someone were to make something similar to that with tender pickups (my only complaint about the MT moguls), I think they would have a winner. I do also agree with Joe about the $300 price range as well. The two moguls that I got, I had to pay $400 and $515 to get them. It was not an impulse but a thought out months in advance thing. Steam is something I want, but they are not as easy to produce. Even in n scale you out to read all the complaints about the LL 0-8-0. (I still have some N scale...I really like the model power American, after I added a kato tender to it) So for now I will be patient and hope when it comes out it is done right.

 

"To me all diesel and electric locos looks the same"

Hi Kim,

I totaly sign on this, because it will be difficult to repeat the success from GP35
in Europe with other diesels.
For you american guys, they may look a lot different, but I now have about seven
railroads in the 35, and for me european guy, I virtually see no reason to buy
other.

But steamers from all kind will always find number of adepts, even when they are
from other countries. There is something magic with steamers.

Anyway I catched last week my saddle engine parts from Westmodel, I really wanted
something small and new from US steamers.

 

To Rob's point, they could be viewed as a sucess, but in terms of how they could have done if they were cheeper and more available...they wern't the hottest item we had. Still it's cool to run them and I wish we could do more steam. Maybe North American will produce a moderatly priced Mike and we can piggy back on them ) Kidding.

Joe
MTl

 

Let me know if you need a paint diagram...

 

Thanks! I'll forward this to Creative Services for reference.

Cheers

Joe

 

Mmmhhh.....Myself, as an european from the stinkin' cheese eater country, I don't agree at all with this statement....I don't think at all that a Geep 35 has the same look than a Dash9, an U-Boat or even a SD40-2 (and on the opposite I consider all modern european motive power have the same look....). That's why I purchased all types of hood units released in Z scale, and I'm very happy to assemble nice lash-ups with a mix of them!

But I guess it's only a question of taste!

Dom

 

Me Too! )

http://www.trainnet.org/Libraries/Lib006/CSX8368.JPG

I think the ghost scheme might be first due to capacity, but it will be easy to add the additional colors to get any CSX schem you need with it. I actually like the overall Blue with yellow lettering, but I understand those were for switching I think. As soon as we work out capacity and some other housekeeping stuff I can let you know what it will be.

Cheers

Joe