Athern November Announcements - Tri-Level Autoracks, 57' Reefers and 30k Tanks.

[GaryHinshaw]

They also tout "Photo etched metal walkways and end platforms".  Isn't this also new?

[nkalanaga]

Jason:  Thank you, I will change my "wants" list.  The COTS stencil doesn't bother me, as they were in use by mid-1974, even if they were still rare.  If it doesn't want to come off easily, I'll just leave it, and claim that was one of the first cars to have it added.

For the COTS stencils, I've noticed that Athearn tends to reuse them.  Many of their releases have the same one on every car, at least in the artwork, which means the blt/serviced dates on them can't be used to date the cars.  I can see why they do that, it would be hard to get the right data for every car, but it puzzled me on their first new cars, years ago.

[unittrain]

Here's an N&W from 1979 and an MP
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=rttx913049&o=ttx
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=rttx911081&o=ttx

[brokemoto]

... sad for those who preferred a simpler time...

Athearn did announce some new nineteenth century paint schemes a little while back.  What is sad, though, is that the last time that I talked to anyone from Athearn, the guy told me that it would not be adding anything new to the old MDC line, it simply would be issuing new paint schemes and road names from time to time.

I would not mind seeing some nineteenth century hopper bottom gondolas or some tank cars, for two.  After reading several articles and books, I learned that the tank car took its shape early in the development of the railroads.

In addition, I would not mind seeing Athearn make an eight wheeler out of their mogul/consolidated.

[Mark5]

More N&W love on the racks, so must have for me.

A little weird to have so many N&W racks with yellow bottoms (which makes them 1970+). I wish they had done some with brown TTX flats ...

Will need to remove this: (Attachment Link) and add something correct.

Will need a few racks from the other roads too.

Mark

Just a note for those that don't know - the N&W "hamburger" on this car was replaced by the "NW" scheme in 1971, so this car is good for 1970+ (aside from the COTS issue).

Mark

[jpwisc]

They also tout "Photo etched metal walkways and end platforms".  Isn't this also new?

The roofwalks have been etched, but the current end platform appears to be molded plastic. So that’s would be another improvement.

[nkalanaga]

Mark:  OK, I'll add another one to my list!  Thank you.

[w neal]

Glad to see Tri levels as well. I am getting a bit worried though, with the repeat of some roadnames & number of Atherarn racks out there already, that we might reach a point of market saturation. I hope I'm flat wrong about that.

I like the racks, eh, eh..., know what uh mean, eh, eh...

http://www.cardinalfang.net/episodes/season_one/images/ken_shabby.jpg

[nkalanaga]

They still haven't done the GN, CB&Q, BN or MILW racks, so there's still plenty of names left, just in the Northwest.