Athearn December announcements

[lock4244]

Three of the UTLX "Early cars" have conspic stripes and three don't...

I knew it was too good to be true. Guess other than a few undecs, I'll be sitting this one out. Have no use for conspicuency stripes... will have to email Athearn to get an exact idea of what has conspicuency stripes and what doesn't. Sucks the big one if all Procor cars have them on this run  ???

They also pre-date my era (1987-1989), but I'll just have to suck it up since the odds of someone doing an earlier body style that isn't a whale belly are remote.

[C855B]

The "early" LPG tanks are not early if they have the vertical yellow stripes on them - that limits their usefulness to the last few years, which is a shame.

Not just "the last few years", but the last four years, specifically. That's not just "modern" in modeling terms, that's today. This is nuts for a car which has been around since roughly the late '60s. So, 1/2 of the offered models are good for just 1/10 of their potential modeling era? By virtue of something highly period-specific that can be added with off-the-shelf decals, but subtracted only by potentially damaging the model? That's like putting ACI labels on a 40' boxcar with a roofwalk.

Maybe somebody was trying to make the point that they're keeping abreast with changes in the prototype. But, really, conspic stripes aren't 100% mandated until 2015. So you kill-off your pre-"today" modeler sales by doing something which isn't even required equipment yet? Ooooooookaaaaaay...  :

[lock4244]

Athearn says their cars date from 1992 to present in terms of the actual car(s) they are making (I assume the early version dates from 1992 and the late car from some time after). This is not a body style that'd be seen in the 1960's, and is a few years you of my era... but I don't care so much since it's better than nothing.

Still, the conspicuency stripes are lame, but here's hoping the next release is sans stripes. I really want some Procor cars!

[C855B]

Possibly... there are likely some valving and catwalk detail differences I didn't catch in my quick research of old photos, and new photos of old cars, but the basic style's been around for decades. Like you, in most cases those sort of detail differences don't jump out and slap me in the face. But you can't say that about conspicuity stripes. They're... uh... conspicuous.  ;D  And didn't exist at all before 2005.

EDIT: It could be that these didn't happen until the early '70s. Industry changes were fast and furious in that era and everything was a blur even back then.

[asarge]

Contact Athearn and make your wishes known. They do listen.

[GaryHinshaw]

While I like the con. stripes because they shout today, I agree that they're a lot easier to add than subtract and they should have done more numbers w/o them.  Maybe they could slip a small decal sheet in future releases?

-gfh

P.S. The last set of Microscale con. stripes I applied partially dissolved around the edges when I applied Micro Sol... >

[lock4244]

Contact Athearn and make your wishes known. They do listen.

Already done  

[ljudice]

I vote FOR conspicuity stripes - but wouldn't the compromise be to split the release - some with and some without - as long as the car was built prior to the onslaught of the stripes?

[Robbman]

I vote FOR conspicuity stripes - but wouldn't the compromise be to split the release - some with and some without - as long as the car was built prior to the onslaught of the stripes?

That's what they did... we did the same thing on the new run of TopGons... half with, half without.

[lock4244]

I vote FOR conspicuity stripes - but wouldn't the compromise be to split the release - some with and some without - as long as the car was built prior to the onslaught of the stripes?

That's what they did... we did the same thing on the new run of TopGons... half with, half without.

Not a bad idea, but this release was 15 with and 3 without striping... far from half. Still, easy on the wallet (for now) and I'm sure future releases will come without conspicuency stripes.

[Denver Road Doug]

I agree, if they'd do half-and-half I think that would be reasonable.  But, I suspect before it's all over with Athearn will give everyone what they want...eventually.  As it is, Athearn will probably be scratching their heads wondering why they aren't getting more reservations.  I model 1999 +/- and I would be in for some of most schemes sans consp. stipes....probably not all 18 but more than 3.  I think that the "Tank Car People" scheme is a recent marketing slogan... in the last few years anyway isn't it?  Oh well, need time to research anyway I guess.  I'll be in for the three.

Overall, I'm still very excited about the release.  These are gonna be nice cars.

[Robbman]

I vote FOR conspicuity stripes - but wouldn't the compromise be to split the release - some with and some without - as long as the car was built prior to the onslaught of the stripes?

That's what they did... we did the same thing on the new run of TopGons... half with, half without.

Not a bad idea, but this release was 15 with and 3 without striping... far from half. Still, easy on the wallet (for now) and I'm sure future releases will come without conspicuency stripes.

My bad... I just looked at the 'early' UTLX cars...

[ljudice]

Buck up guys, and just switch to present day railroading...

 ;D

[Denver Road Doug]

I did that....10 years ago.

[lock4244]

Recently backdated to the late 1980's... will not be going forward anytime soon. If I do, it would only be to the late 1990's, and I'm not going to.