timberley
Member
Posts: 189
Primary Railroads: VIA Rail Canada, AMT (Montreal)
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Post by timberley on Mar 6, 2015 10:10:26 GMT -5
That US west coast longshoremen strike is finally over,and freight is moving thru the ports, there should be other items caught in this backlog,should be showing up shortly. The Container ship companies have tacked on "waiting" time charges to the freight bill.  The delay on these particular models was originally due to Athearn making changes to the P42 molds and I believe delaying production so they could do them with the new run of Amtrak units. Then when they did finally arrive at George's a few months back, there was damage to the shipping boxes so they got sent back to Athearn in L.A. for inspection before going out. Just imagining how brutal it would have been if there had been extra delay charges tacked onto the price in addition to the inflated exchange rate.... |
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timberley
Member
Posts: 189
Primary Railroads: VIA Rail Canada, AMT (Montreal)
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Post by timberley on Mar 6, 2015 10:28:20 GMT -5
I would love to know Athearn's reasons for not doing a mass produced VIA P42. Maybe Kato will do one in HO since they did do a VIA P42 in N scale. I think the only thing any of us have been able to come up with is that there may be some exclusive licensing of the scheme in HO, not with VIA, but likely with those who have commissioned the runs (Hobbycraft, Georges). Each of the runs has used the same digital artwork (supplied by Dan Darnell), noticeable in that they each repeat the same small mistakes: namely the curvature of the yellow "swoosh" is off, and the font/location of the Canada wordmark is also not quite right....little things, but noticeable if you really know the prototype. So perhaps there is some sort of relationship/agreement there that prevents Athearn from running the models generally. Now if there is a way around that and Kato is able to produce their own in VIA colours in HO, I would be interested in seeing it. Despite my issues with Kato's HO P42, I will admit that they did a nice job on the art design for their N scale one (they just really botched the colour). However if they can and want to do the VIA version, they will need to revise their tooling to do the original nose design, as VIA hasn't made the Amtrak-style mods. It would be cool if they could do the modernized VIA version with the extra headlight below the numberboard (plus little changes like the forward-mounted emergency horns, filled-in rear sandboxes, etc), but knowing Kato's track record I'm sure they'd have that extra light lit off a single shared LED with the headlights, ditch lights and numberboard....  |
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timberley
Member
Posts: 189
Primary Railroads: VIA Rail Canada, AMT (Montreal)
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Post by timberley on Mar 9, 2015 8:39:15 GMT -5
Here's a few comparison shots between the three different custom runs of Athearn P42s. The unit in the back (912) is from the original Hobbycraft Canada run. For that run, they went with a dark blue/teal metallic paint. It looks distinctly dark blue, but has a teal hue to it depending on the light. The unit in the middle (905) is from the second run, from George's Trains a few years ago (~2011, which also went with a metallic teal colour, but this time the green tint was a little more pronounced. It looks much more of a green/teal in person than it does in these photos, and the difference between it and the Hobbycraft run is quite pronounced. There were a few little improvements cosmetically (like darkened grills, silver painted stack, proper numberboard, etc), and the model by then was upgraded to be DCC-ready. Also now had both front and rear headlights, and the tiny bulbs instead of a huge one. The front unit (908) is from this latest George's/Puce Creek run. This time it matches the newer blue paint on the prototype (for those unaware: the prototypes were originally painted in a metallic teal paint, but this faded to a flatter blue over a few years, and VIA started repainting them in bright blue. Now a few units have been repainted in the Renaissance green seen on the rebuilt F40s, and this is likely to become the norm in the future). The newest unit has quite a few visible improvements, including better painting in a lot of areas (like the fan grills), a nice new 2-piece windshield with painted gaskets, etched wipers and mirrors, proper sinclair antenna, new horn, better darkened grills, gaskets painted on rear windows, etc. Overall really really nice. Haven't had a chance to run it yet, though I know that it does now have ditch lights installed. I'll eventually start installing Loksound decoders (and LEDs) in these, once I can free up the $$.      |
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Post by backshophoss on Mar 9, 2015 22:22:25 GMT -5
Interesting to see the minor changes between runs,however why the plastic spring McHenry's
on the 1st and 3rd runs?
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timberley
Member
Posts: 189
Primary Railroads: VIA Rail Canada, AMT (Montreal)
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Post by timberley on Mar 10, 2015 10:35:18 GMT -5
Interesting to see the minor changes between runs,however why the plastic spring McHenry's on the 1st and 3rd runs? The McHenrys are standard fare on Athearn locos, and all three of them came with them. The one from the second run has a Kadee on the rear because I changed it out, but it did originally have the same one as the others. I need to change them all over to Kadees, just need to get the right couplers. The Athearn design is such that the rear couplers are low on all of the units, so they really need an underset-shank Kadee (which is what the middle one has on the rear) to bring them up to the right height. |
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Post by backshophoss on Mar 10, 2015 18:41:06 GMT -5
Check them with a coupler height gauge,KD - 147 should be the cure,when running a mixed
set of Heritage cars with Amfleet cars(All Walters),had to install 147's on the Heritage
cars,you might need a longer shank coupler to clear the plow.
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