Modern Modelling Scorecard: UP Clearly Rules

[ljudice]

Ignoring older model locos, it is interesting how easy/hard it is to model the four major US railroads:


NS (HARD!)
       C40-9W (NS's most common loco)  No model; Kato C44-9W wrong H/L location, trucks
                                       and hard to find
       SD70M (bit player on NS)  Kato
       SD70M-2  No model, maybe 1-2 years away from Kato
       ES44-DC No model, maybe Kato someday
       Other Six Axles:  SD60 Atlas, C40-8 Coming from Atlas

CSX (Moderate)
       C44-9W Kato model completely wrong, forget about it
       AC4400CW Kato has nice model, but it only has right trucks for about 1/4 of the fleet
       SD70M (bit player on CSX) Kato
       SD70MAC Kato has nice model for early version of fleet
       ES44DC/ES44AC: Maybe someday
       AC6000: Forget it!
       SD70ACE: coming from Kato, no promise of CSX
       Other six axles:  Atlas SD50, SD60, C40-8

UP (EASY)
      C44-9W Kato - accurate for CNW and SP versions
      AC4400CW - Kato 2 versions 
      SD90MAC - Kato
      SD70M - Kato - model of one relatively rare version, plus more common version in SP
      SD70ACE - coming - at least two versions
      ES44AC: maybe
       AC6000: Forget it!
      Other: Atlas C40-8 Coming

BNSF (Moderate)
      C44-9W Kato - sort of accurate for EARLY versions, wrong windows for most
      AC4400CW (bit player) Kato
      SD70MAC Kato, several versions
      ES44DC/ES44AC: maybe
      SD70ACE: coming, no committment for BNSF
      Other: Atlas SD60

[Mark5]

What about the SD40-2s? Oh yeah, they're easy to find in N!

Crap, I guess it is an older model.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Don't forget the number of SD50s and 60s still in mainline service with CSX and NS.

They're not nearly as common as some new stuff, but not too infrequent either.

[bobcat]

SD80MAC for both CSX and NS(bit player both).

Too bad Kato didn't do the CSX YN3 version with their last release.

[James Costello]

From a west coast intermodal (rolling stock) point of view, UP is way easier than BNSF. Plenty of Pacer, Stax and EMP containers for the UP and ZERO JB Hunt cans for the BNSF folk....  >   Just as well there isn't an accurate C44-9W for those hotshots anyway...

[ljudice]

Not to beat a dead horse, but while the CSX SD70MAC is nice, it is not as common a locomotive on CSX as the AC4400. The AC4400 is a relatively rare loco on the BNSF. But they release a CSX SD70MAC and a BNSF AC4400.

They also released Conrail SD80MACs - which you can still pick up the ORIGINAL run at BLW!

Then there is the NS C44-9W(C40) and BNSF C44-9W - which both would require tooling changes - but they are probably the two most common locomotives on the rails (given that they run everywhere in run thrus).

And of course it would be easy to do YN3 AC4400's, SD40-2's, lease scheme SD40's (instead of Algoma Central!!!)

Or the Conrail SD40's - why did they do the ORIGINAL scheme instead of the 69xx series white stripe SD40-2E rebuild scheme???

Arrggghh!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Or the Conrail SD40's - why did they do the ORIGINAL scheme instead of the 69xx series white stripe SD40-2E rebuild scheme???

Because that scheme sucks and white frame stripes are for little girls

[ljudice]

For little girls, eh???   >

May someone come late at night and apply Microscale reflective yellow conspicuity stripes to all of your locomotives and rolling stock!   ;D

[Alcuin]

Athearn also did SD70M's for CSX and NS, as well as some demonstrator units that were eventually painted in CSX colors.

[wm3798]

Not modern (unless you were born before 1965) but I think my vintage WM has you all beat, at least on a percentage basis.
BL-2
VO-1000
F-3
F-7 A/B
Alco FA-2
GP7/9
RS-2
RS-3
GP35
GP40
SD-35
SD-40
44 Tonner

Absent, Baldwin AS-6-16, VO-660, Alco S series. 

For a lot of them, bring decals, but there are many available off the rack in factory paint now.

Lee

[ljudice]

Lehigh Valley and D&H are also looking good these days...

[wm3798]

One thing I'm curious about, since there are now only 4 major US carriers, plus the two Canadians, are the locomotive manufacturers doing more "custom" work for each road... thereby making it more difficult for the model manufacturers to do correct shells that have multiple applications?

Not being a modern modeler, or much of an attentive railfan these days, I don't know a GEVO from a Big MAC, so I certainly couldn't spot differences between the various roads (other than paint).

Back in the day, certain railroads wanted their locos "just so" (NW and Southern with their high hoods, SP with their tunnel motors and light clusters) but most smaller class ones ordered pretty much from the catalog, so a single shell works for a multitude of paint schemes.

It seems to me that things are less generic these days... Am I right?
Lee

[Hyperion]

It seems to me that things are less generic these days... Am I right?

Generally speaking, yes.  Every customer's order for, say, an SD70ACe is slightly different in, more often than not, seemingly innocuous ways.  While certainly the Class 1s, which buy 99.9% of the new locomotives, easily have the power to make such requests (and often do out of no other reason than because they CAN -- it's like some sort of tradition for the Mechanical Director of Locomotives to put his own mark on the fleet by changing the purchase specs ever so slightly), even the smaller ones often do.  If they're going to spend the big bucks on buying brand new power, however few units it may be, they're going to spend a little more to get exactly what they want.  It doesn't hurt that the builders aren't exactly turning people away at the door because of too many orders either.

This isn't necessarily what the manufacturers like, particularly EMD.  I've spoken to the Presidents of both EMD and GE Transportation in the past on the subject actually, as I'm directly responsible for ensuring the material is there where and when it's needed to repair a significant percentage of BNSF's locomotive fleet (mostly the stuff assigned to coal service out here, though the units often venture elsewhere), a responsibilty that is often complicated by variations within a model; and even if our models are all the same, causes high prices and long lead times for parts from the manufacturer if they're unique to our fleet.  Ironically, EMD which dislikes the variation more than GE, is more prone to doing it than GE is; a byproduct, if I had to guess, of their desire to please their customer and secure some much-needed business.  GE makes a significant portion, if not the entirety, of the profit of their locomotive sales on aftermarket support so they don't mind the variation too terribly much because it provides an excuse to charge you an exhorbitant price for the part (and you would be AMAZED at the price of replacement parts for any locomotive, a GE in particular); even if often times that change allows them to use a part that they've already got in their catalog (it's not uncommon for GE to charge several times more for a replacement "X" for an AC4400 than for a Dash-9 even when they're the exact same part with a different part number -- sort of like VW and Porsche in the automotive world).

But, moreso than customer specs, there's also improvements.  40 years ago it could easily take a very long time to determine the root cause of a problem.  And often times the field simply accepted whatever issues they might come across and they might never be communicated higher up the chain or to the manufacturer.  Today we have long testing periods, we have extensive testing protocols to determine failure causes, there's a high level of communication from the shop floor all the way to the manufacturer.  As such, there is often some pretty significant changes even within a single order.  BNSF and UP alone each have 3 different variations of the ACe for example.

[3rdrail]

Yes, Lee, you're right, to an extent. There are only two high-horsepower locomotive manufacturers left, EMD and GE, and each basically only offers one model, but with a plethora of "options", the largest of which is AC or DC traction motors. A lot is internal, but some is not. Things like headlight and numberboard placement are very minor in the grand scheme of things, but important to modelers. Then you have things like EMD changing the design of the cab front and the nose but keeping the same model designation.

That's why I like steam, not only was every road's 2-8-0 different, and each class on a road different, but there were differences between individual units in each class! Then there were over a dozen wheel arrangements!

[sundowner]

I was suprise by the Kato CSX 70m since this were no even bought new by CSX, yet kato choose to CSX instead of UP which has way more than the 22 CSX unit that fit that particular model. I was glad when Kato did the AC44 eventhough it only matches the first 173 units that CSX got, you could also do the first 100 units CSX got with the steerable trucks if you get the sideframe kits from steve4.

I hope Kato does the Ace for CSX but I am not holding my breath. They will probably do undecs so I will get a few of those to paint into CSX since the first 3 that UP painted are fairly close to the CSX ones.