Guess What's Coming to HO from Atlas

Hello everyone!

Quick update on me (finally out west in the lovely state of Washington now.) I absolutely love it here, but besides that, my former job @ Union County in NJ has hired me part-time as a consultant, so I will be back and forth a lot.

I'll tell ya, Atlas really surprised a lot of people with the NJT Multilevel set. It seems like it is boding well for them, as they're doing NJT, AMT in Canada and I would assume MARC down the road.

I preordered the whole NJT series (hey, I like fleets of trains), and it convinced me to change my modeling to my hometown RR of NJ Transit. I think you will see future offerings from Atlas in regards to commuter equipment. For some reason, commuter stuff sells. It is not as much of a "niche" market as many manufacturers thought a while ago. I am sure some can remember this:

"No one will produce an FL-9, it's too limited.)
Rapido produces it, sells GREAT.

I think that caused some to take notice. I don't have my hook at Walthers anymore so I have to clue what is up their sleeve. But Atlas really stepped up to the plate and they even said that NJT models sell pretty well. Even out in WA, the few modelers I have met are getting some ALP45DP's and cars cause "they are so cool and look great." (Quoting) They have a bunch of people (and not on just this board) waiting on the next run of AEM-7/ALP-44's.

I would not be surprised if you see Atlas do the Comet line. They can do Comet II (as delievered and rebuilt) in a multitude of schemes, and perhaps the Comet V cab cars (coaches too possibly) with an ALP46/PL42AC. What I REALLY want is some Arrow III's.

Acelaphillies brought up a good point here in regards to sound. The sound quality has become SO good lately, that (at least for me), it is worth buying the sound versions.

For the Arrow's, they can perhaps do the Silverliners in one big project. Of course I am just speculating here but I think things look pretty sweet for modern commuter modelers.

I am really going to have to brush up on sound-equipped engines. The last I had was the first run of Athearn Genesis MP15AC's with that dreaded Tsunami sound.

Tom

Might be a "off hand" ref to the "Pain in the butt" MRC decoders that you could not read back what was entered
into the decoder,MRC decoders were Athearn "factory installs" for awhile.
The Tsunamis installed at the factory are slightly different than what is offered to the "public"
they are very specific(ie:"Custom") to a certain model,and somewhat inflexable for reprogramming
for other models.

The speaker used on the MP-15 is somewhat tiny,that limits the sound levels,can distort badly at high volume.

PATrain

Yep. Pittsburgh to Versailles over the old B&O. Ended in late 80s. Equipment went to ConnDoT for the original Shoreline East commuter equipment.

Atlas is doing a run of the Heritage AL45DP and MLV-II's,PRR, CR,PRSL,CNJ, and EL schemes