New Products at NMRA/NTS

[central.vermont]

What is that anyway? A steam powered railbus!! ;D ;D
Jon

[3rdrail]

What is that anyway? A steam powered railbus!! ;D ;D
Jon

'bout the size of it. The prototype is 42" gauge, not 30" gauge, though.

[wcfn100]

Looks like the Bacnmann DD40AX will come in four styles but still have truck mounted steps and pilots.  I wonder how that'll go over.


Jason

[up1950s]

Looks like the Bacnmann DD40AX will come in four styles but still have truck mounted steps and pilots.  I wonder how that'll go over.


Jaso

Badly I guess , but I bet there is a way to dissect ,  shim the gap , glue in place . The big unknown is , when done can the chassis be removed . Sure beats a truck mounted coupler with 75% of the pilot cut open to allow for the swing . 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Looks like the Bacnmann DD40AX will come in four styles but still have truck mounted steps and pilots.  I wonder how that'll go over.


Jason

Where did you get this from?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Well I guess this answers the question if the DD40AX is noew tooling:
http://www.visi.com/~spookshow/dd40ax.html
Note the body sperate from chassis/trucks/pilots

http://www.pbase.com/tracktime/image/100358276
Looks to be a new chassis but same body... too bad.

[wcfn100]

If you notice, the paper behind it doesn't say 'spectrum' like the tenders below.

Of course, the 44 tonner just has a blank piece of paper.  Maybe for contrast.  ???

Jason

[Hyperion]

I just got back from the NTS.  I talked to the head guy (whose name escapes me) over at the Kato booth for quite a while about the ACe...

The initial run will be UP Flag plus 3 of their Heritage schemes (he told me which, but they escape me -- it's the ones with the notched hatches).  Since the others (and some UP Flags as well) are slightly different, they'll do those in a later run if the first run sells well (which of course it will).  They're expected in the latter part of the first half of next year.

Other major roads will of course be done, but they really seemed intent on getting them as right as possible, and the ACe has had a lot of variations in it's short life.  The BNSF has a completely different fuel tank, dynamic brake area, and sideframes than the UP units for example, and the guys here are pushing for the bosses back in Japan to get them done right.  They'll get a lot of life out of that model, that's for sure.

We talked about the EVO, there was no explicit mention of a model, but we talked about the business sense, licensing things, etc, but I got the impression that it's something that they've got 100% of the preproduction work done on, they're just waiting to see if someone else shows their hand before actually moving into production with it.

A McHenry rep was in the Athearn booth showing off the coupler with a functional switching module.  We talked for a while as well. I was incredibly impressed.  It worked smoothly, seamlessly, and flawlessly every single time.  And it looks better than the Micro-Trains coupler too.  The only issue it has is that it doesn't uncouple very well when coupled with the Micro-Trains -- or rather the MT has trouble uncoupling from the McHenry.  They're shooting for an MSRP of under $2/pair.  Assembled, no kits.

Finally met Craig from BLMA.  No information on the TopGons available really.  He had a sample of his modern billboard there though which I found quite nice.  The detail was great and the scale was impressive.  Anyone in a 1990+ era will probably want a number on their layouts, I know I'll be buying a few.

Dave from Deluxe Innovations was there.  Nothing much new there.  He had production samples of his new small steel buildings.  Very simple but nicely detailed.  Downspouts, electrical meters, AC units, and a couple other small details.  They'll come without the details applied so the buyer can select which they want for their application.  Also the kit will come with Pikestuff-esque outlines on the rear for a variety of window, door, and rollup cutouts.

Athearn's F45's looked flippin' superb and weighed a ton.  I didn't notice the bus was new until it was in this thread so I didn't chase down any info on it.

Bachmann had samples of their 44-tonner, the DD40AX, and their Excursion car out.  The detail on all was impressive.  The locos had seperately applied grab irons and cut-levers, but the DD40AX was black, and I hate black preproduction samples as it makes detail hard to see.  The handrails on the  Excursions rivaled those on the HO model.

Trainworx had several samples of their Autoparts cars which I was happy to see.  Detail was nice, but there's not much detail on those cars really.  They'll come with truck-mounted couplers but they've already got the holes drilled for body-mount for ease of conversion.  They're looking at a 18"-minimum radius on body-mounts, which I was dissapointed to hear as my minimum will be 15".  They will confirm the minimum once production is finalized.  The doors are actually seperately applied for ease of painting the body at the factory (since they're often left unpainted on the prototype).  The Undec kits will leave these doors as a seperate item for your own ease of painting.

Rapido had undec'd passenger cars on display.  They were amazing.  Interior detail was great, as was underbody.  They'll be well worth the money.

And, ermm.....I can't think of anything else right at the moment.

[up1950s]

Well , if the guts are the same as the 1995 DD40AX version , the modification looks pretty easy , and as mentioned above should work  .

[POVC]

Any word from Fox Valley on new releases?

I got the impression from Matt at Louisville that there would be another new car at the NTS, but nobody has mentioned them (yet).

Tim

[ljudice]

Thanks for the update!  Any news from FVM (which was supposed to announce a second new car today) and Red Caboose (not heard from for a while)???

[Hyperion]

FVM had a booth, but there was nothing new that I had noticed.  Doesn't necessarily mean there was nothing, just nothing that I noticed.

Red Caboose wasn't there unless they were damn good at hiding.  In fact one of the main things I was hoping to find there was some Red Caboose Autoracks, but none of the (very few) retailers had any and there was no Red Caboose that I saw.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Anything from Hornby or Dapol? Both were suposed to make anouncments of North American prototypes.

[Mark5]

Anything from Hornby or Dapol? Both were suposed to make anouncments of North American prototypes.

Perhaps those rumours were slightly exaggerated ...

[ljudice]

There are a lot of "MIA"'s out there!

Where is the NMRA show next year???