My dad has been waiting for Intermountain to release more Cab Forwards. He checks Intermountain's web site each week and recently the entire listing for various cab forward reservations has vanished. Does anyone know if their plans to make more has been abandoned or is it a hiccup with their web site ?
They may have been pulled off due to the frame issues in their other models. I would sell you mine, but the shell is messed up because the frame material expanded and it no longer runs.
I can share my experience. Last fall, I called IM in Colorado and talked to a male person about an IM CF that I had just purchased used from a person who claimed it was from IM's latest release because it has a factory installed Loksound decoder. He confirmed that it was in fact "from our release #3 which will be the last we ever make". Interesting but I feel sure he is correct. If repair parts are needed I guess the loco will become a shelf queen.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooo , are you sure it wasn't a nightmare or something. again I can't click on "Like" Maybe Kato will see the gap in the market and make Cab Forwards as I feel the Big Boy has been done to death. ................. then again if they released an AC9 I'd buy two !!
I agree with you, IF KATO or Scale Trains ever decided to put out a CF, or AC-9 I would be, most likely, in line for a couple of each. Nada, zelch from Athearn, BLI, or IM ! ! Course I have a fondness for my very 1st attempt at a bash job : Love it, runs great, and I have a 2nd one in the que.
I looked on the IM website, and if you click under N scale locomotives, there is a link to the cab forward. It shows they are "taking reservations" which means if they get enough orders they might do another run.......not enough orders and you've seen the last ones. N Scale AC-12 Steam Locomotives (intermountain-railway.com)
Ahhhhhhhh , Ok , so it is there and it isn't there !! I followed the steps you said and it is still there I had gone first to the "Home" page ........ then "Current advanced Reservation Items" .......... than "N Scale" which took me to the huge long list of locos , freight cars etc which ended with the Cab Forwards at the bottom. The list was updated May 1 2023 and now has no Cab Forwards in that list anywhere.
If you go to ready to run locomotives, you will see the list has some numbers taking reservations. https://intermountain-railway.com/n/nloco/nlocac12.htm I, for one, will never buy another IM locomotive because they will not stand by the quality of their products.
Looks good, too! Regarding “nada, z(i)lch from Athearn, BLI, or IM”, this is where manufacturers’ apparent niches come into play. (discussing solely N scale here) Cab forwards seem to be the only steam Intermountain is interested in. Kato is only into Western steam. BLI is covering most of the continent, but was doing so with pretty much USRA generics, until the past year, with the advent of their y6b and Big Boy. An unheralded source of Eastern road-specific models over the past decade and a half has been Bachmann. The cab forwards have their adherents, but I gotta think they appeal to a niche crowd within a niche crowd. Until producers show otherwise, it seems Intermountain is your only manufacturer appealing to that niche crowd. Of course, all of us who look for road-specific models for railroads that aren’t among “the favored few,” or of narrower appeal from within the “favored few,” are in our own niche crowds, as well. This whole consideration of manufacturers’ apparent niche has me pondering my Kato Big Boy pre-order - Will it be perceived as only a vote for more Western big steam? What if I drop it and go with a y6b instead? (I can get a y6b from the same seller where I placed the pre-order. So, I wouldn’t leaving a seller entirely hung out to dry.) It would certainly be much more at home on my 1920s-1950s Central WV setting.
I personally would love to see an AC-9 from one of the big manufacturers, preferably Kato. However Kato is only really interested in steam that can also be seen on an excursion in a modern setting. I miss the days of affordable brass runs in N scale, alas those days are long gone.
I thought Bachmann would release an AC9 or DM&IR M3 / M4 after the EM1 went on sale ........ then ...... nothing. The Boxpok drivers are soooooo close in appearance I doubt most of us could pick the difference in N scale. They had a chassis already in production. BTW the cab forward drivers are a little different to AC9 drivers as the counterweights are offset backwards ....... although the same size wheels not interchangeable.
