Well...It DID happen.When LL was purchased by Walthers I felt, and told others LL N was DEAD. Walthers has always had HO tendacies, so letting their N Scale fail does not surprise me, and I think others. Mine and only my personal view of Walthers. It's a shame,too. The N Convention will be in their backyard this summer and it looks like Walthers could be trying to hide from N Scalers this summer!!!!!
I was thinking the same thing. While 60-70 for a Kato loco is a pretty decent price.... There is something within me that has a hard time paying 60-70 for a GP20 when they went for EIGHTEEN dollars just a few years ago.
Walthers has many ways to irk N scalers... This is just the latest of worrisome practices which certainly gives me pause about buying (and certainly not pre-ordering) anything from them.
Have we heard from WKW if the old shells will fit onto the new frame? Amoung other problems, I do hope that they have corrected the tendency of these things to pick the points on B-mann EZ-TRAK #4 switches as well as Atlas code 80 points and frogs. They do not pick PECO switches or even Shinohara (everything else seems to derail on Shinohara switches, but not these things), but they do pick the others.
So no roadnames I want, however I could always get one or two, strip it and paint it up as BN. However, guess the one question that we're all waiting on, how DCC "friendly" will these be? Simple swap of a board, or more to it than that.
If someone produces another early phase sd40-2 within the next decade I'll be happy. Being that it is/was one of the most common locomotives of all time I'm sure they'd sell.
Fixed it, I mean the last run Kato did was what? 2006? I think. The kato's are getting more and more expensive on ebay with each day it seems. I for one am not going to be selling any of mine anytime soon. Well not counting the Intermountain wide cab units.
I love how Walther's support of HO over N, is considered disdain. They started as an HO company.....now it's disdain. Oy. A little harsh, but yes. Figure it out? Or don't want to because they know where their market share is going to get them the most return on investment? Yep. I bet they'll hide in the bushes, and wonder what they can do to make the small percentage of N scalers actually happy.
Oh, yeah. In the meantime, I like how no one has said anything about how this thread is completely inaccurate with real information now.... As I said earlier, the model was on display at Trainfest, I found it hard to ever believe this wasn't being released.
On display at Trainfest? I guess I never heard that one and don't remember anyone posting pictures. Did you manage to get details at that time (and maybe a glimpse of the mechanism?)
I saw the Walthers SW1200 at Trainfest as well. (Hard to miss as there wasn't much else in N scale at the Walthers display.) I was in a bit of a rush and didn't examine it closely, however. The Walthers folks seemed pretty occupied with what I assume are modelers in other scales. Since it was displayed, I'm watching to see how this whole thing plays out. Andy Tetsu Uma
Walthers has responded saying it will be here. Yet, the bashing continues.... It's not a model I'm very interested in, so I glanced at it. I'm certainly not going to take one apart.
Well, I would love to see the return of the SW9/1200, and if it comes out and the path to DCC isn't so fraught I'll likely buy one, but I no longer buy $100 diesels new that need massive surgery and grinding to convert to DCC.
No grinding needed to convert the old model to DCC if you use the TCS Z2. My biggest gripe with the old model was the use of plastic worms and the inconsistent performance caused by it. I hope they have fixed this with the latest release.
FWIW, I have never had any problems with any of mine (plastic worms and all). Of course, I don't run them eight hours a day so YMMV -Mark
I also saw the SW9/1200 in the Walthers booth at Trainfest. I was waiting to talk to some of the sales folks about n scale, but after 15 minutes I gave up as I had to keep moving along. And not because the Walthers folks wouldn't help me....let me explain: I was waiting as a couple of gents drilled into one of the Walthers reps; the other Walthers reps had 2 folks waiting to talk to them already. Listening in, it kind of went like this: "blah blah....well I know there are 40 rivets in that Pennsy model blah blah and you guys just can't get it right. The Walthers model has 38 rivets; when are you going to fix it? And then on the NYC model, the paint shade of the green is one shade too dark for blah blah...." On and on, it just didn't let up on complaints. The same thing happened at the Athearn booth while I was waiting to talk to a rep. It seems like some folks' real passion about this hobby is complaining. I'm not even sure I would want some of us as customers as we can be difficult. Oh well....
I found it to be a hit and miss on the ones I bought, but I am thankful to Ron for figuring out the fix. Now that these are going to be released, I will have to buy at least one just to see how they are.
I am surprised to hear people having problems with this locomotive. I bought two PRR models when they first were offered and paid around $45.00 each for them. Others whom I know who also bought them also tell me they run just fine so hearing that some are having problems is news to me.
