I am not sure if this is the right spot and please don't think I am being "Political" BUT - I have been silent for too long. There are some great new "HO" products coming out for pre 70's equipment - Walthers bringing out GP-9's, Rapido with two bay hoppers, Walthers International Car Co Cuploa Caboose, Atlas, Athearn, - great stuff but no railroads from the Southeast - we had The Southern, Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line, G M & O , L & N, all major carriers and others Florida East Coast, Georgia, West Point Route, Clinchfield, Norfolk & Southern, Central of Georgia, just to name a few - Broadway Limited and Intermountain do offer a limited amount of Diesels - Southern, FEC, and L & N Thankfully you can get some locomotives undecorated and paint and decal how you want them. It just seems like there is very little available for modelers doing this era or is this a dying breed? Would appreciate comments-
I don't find you in that way. The 'Wisconsin Central Ltd.' doesn't even exist anymore and the 'Wisconsin' rail doesn't even come north of Chicago anymore. But I still relate to it often.
There did seem to be more southeastern roads available some time ago. A number of ACL units were produced, along with some GM&O and L&N. SOU and N&W's penchant for high hoods has limited production of some of their models, but Atlas made some. Atlas also did WRofA, CC&O, SBD and maybe CofG. But yes, these were produced long ago. Someone did an SAL Centipede. You might need to hunt the various models down on eBay.
Thanks for the reply - yes in reality the demographics of the younger people coming into the hobby changed, which I think is great, the newer people are more the "after caboose" freight car graphics era which is absolutly supported by these folks. The manufactueres are out for profitable sales, I understand that, I just hate there is a vast area where ready made pre 70's locomotives and rolling stock, passenger cars included, are just not there. I do prowl EBay and local RR shows all the time for older stuff
I model a freelance N Scale road set in the early '80s and with its modest size and smaller radius curves, equipment from that era looks better and operates better on my pike. Atlas bought Life-Like's N Scale molds, so hopefully we'll see new releases of the equipment you and I seek. You might even want to drop them an e-mail with suggestions. They're a well-run firm and would likely welcome a note.
I hate to say it, but the Southeast Railroads don't sell. It has been that way for as long as I can remember especially when I worked at a hobby shop back in the 70-80's. Another case in point Bowser is using the L&N-ACL C430's for replacement parts on the other C430's. Rapido got crucified by the CSX modelers for the steps on the C36-7's but they did not do enough pre-orders for Rapido to make a separate step casting and although CSX was the predominate buyer of C36-7's the ATSF and SP versions vastly outsold the CSX models. Rick Jesionowski
