Isn't it funny how the prototype uses such beasts? I suspect in HO a 36" or larger curve would be needed for those long locomotives to look halfway right. Whew!
The issue with the model is the front trucks were removed from the two booster engines and they are connected with drawbars...which for a number of reasons would not work on a prototype.
It's crazy. There are several on ebay now, in EMD Demonstrator Blue, that have been bid over $50...there is one with 2 days that is up to $71. What is the attraction?
I can only speak for myself - I 'm a fan of all the big bad UP diesels and gas turbines. I watch in reverence as my Athearn gas turbine cruises around my track, even though it has no prototypical reason to be there (not to mention it's a little funky even on 22" radius). That, and they are fairly hard to find in local hobby stores. Not impossible, but not easy. There was a new HO Bachmann twin-motor at the LHS not too long ago for 89.00. Gone now and no more. The older Bachmann single-motor ones are relatively easy to come by - but not much to talk about operationally. I took the two I had and made a "DD40B" out of them. Now I need a DD40 to hook it up to. :tb-err: I can't see the prices they are normally bid up to though.
I think used is the word. They've never been a big success. Even the 'current' generation of high horsepower seems to have fallen by the wayside long before they are life expired. Last I read I think all the 6000HP SD90MACs were idled along with many of the GE AC6000s. It seems 4000 to 4500HP units are about the sweet spot for US power.
I've noticed this trend with high-horsepower locomotives, and it's not the first time it's happened. The manufacturers come out with these big brutes, and after the initial novelty has passed, the railroads go back to motive power of more intermediate muscle. If memory serves me correctly, something very similar happened between the SD40 and SD45. Despite the SD45 having more power (and thus supposedly being "better"), the SD40s and SD40-2s still sold like hotcakes - and are still being widely used forty years later. Sometimes it's maintenance costs (both in downtime and repairs). Sometimes it's fuel economy. It's just that the railroads have a much better understanding of actually running locomotives out on the lines, with real trains, under actual operating conditions. So they naturally fall back on the more economical solution to their particular needs.
