Intermountain SD40-2 !!11!

[Denver Road Doug]

I think the ICE units were a smart move.

I agree...I've seen quite a few of them in my somewhat limited Chicago area railfanning.  Rossford Yard is right, they're perfect for him and I really like the paint scheme too.  I will live vicariously through him.   

I think another scheme that would do well is the green and silver FURX units.

[Scottl]

I had not even heard of ICE before, but I am glad to hear there is interest in these.

Despite the pokes at IM, I think this is a great development and these will please a lot of modellers.  Using Atlas mechs in past units was smart in my view, as it meant getting some iconic units to the market, even if execution was less than perfect.  The same applies to the CN wide cabs.  IM will come out with other paint jobs, but they clearly directed this first offering to some of the best sellers and I won`t fault them for that.

The market can definitely support two models of this common locomotive.  I would take a Kato over any other based on mechanical refinement, but these are a welcome edition to the scale and I hope they do well with them.  That will lead to other paint schemes, and perhaps also give Kato a reason to produce more of theirs as well.

[OHCR 4218]

If you look at the HO listing for SD40-2s you can see what will probably be done in N for a second run if the first run sells well. They are doing a high nose version in HO as well, hopefully they will do that in N.

Brandon

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

I had not even heard of ICE before, but I am glad to hear there is interest in these.

Scott ICE just like DME are owned by CP and run through toronto all the time. I know i will be getting the ICE units in how ever many numbers they do.

[learmoia]

Iowa, Chicago and Eastern, and the GATX are strange choices, bound to gather dust on the shelves I think.   Hard to make everyone happy with eight roads, but UP, ATSF, BN, CSX and NS are smart picks.   CPR would have been a good call given the huge fleet they had.

With the CPRS merger, ICE isn't that bad of a choice..  I've seen a surprising number of photos of ICE units running to the east coast on Ethanol Trains.  Conversely, I've seen alot of CSXT power in Iowa over the last few years.

Ian

[Scottl]

Hmm, funny enough, I have seen two CPR trains east of Toronto in 15 years living here.  I cross the line nearly weekly- it is like it is abandoned out in this part of Ontario. 

[soo]

Well I just went an looked at the HO side of IMRC,,, They are doing some really neat paint jobs.

  The ones I like are the SOO ( of course) ,, and The running Indian Milwaukee road scheme,, super cool.

 We will see what we will see, on the quality of said lokies.

wyatt

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

Hmm, funny enough, I have seen two CPR trains east of Toronto in 15 years living here.  I cross the line nearly weekly- it is like it is abandoned out in this part of Ontario. 

I saw a ICE SD40-2 on the expressway train about 2 weeks ago. The problem is it leaves toronto around 7 pm so would pass you around 11 or 12.

[unittrain]

I sure hope they do a better job on these  hopefully they learned from all the bashing of the sd45-2's which I so looked forward to and ended up not buying do to quality issues after a what something like 5 year wait  Seems like they should have had plenty of time for research. I want to buy several of these I just hope they are decent! Some of the roads in this release are head scratchers though But I'm sure they will do plenty of roads like Chessie and Conrail 

[fredmoehrle]

I am looking forward to these!
My CR SD45-2 run great and look great behind my C630's! (Where they belong! )

[kalbert]

This forum has a pretty significant number of eastern modelers, I'm not surprised you're not excited about ICE. There's a big world outside of Pennsy steam though. ICE doesn't mean NE Iowa anymore, it means anywhere in the US CP system. Not to mention yellow is a hard color to paint with blue, likewise for yellow decals. I'm sure a couple of these will get erased and have DME applied. I know they will in my house (although that just guarantees IM will do DME in the next run). No, a guy doesn't need 10 of them, but any "modern" era US CP modeler would probably welcome a couple.

I wouldn't speculate too much about how the mechanism will perform or what level of detail they'll have. Nobody here knows what improvements (if any) may have been done to the mech, and a line drawing to lay their paint scheme ideas on isn't going to accurately reflect anything that might actually be produced. Let's wait until someone spots one in the flesh before we dump on it, eh?

TRW Product Review SOP:
1. All judgement made based on pre-production drawings and assumptions made when badgering sales reps at a show 10 years ago.
2. If it's not offered in eastern roads crap on it.
3. If it it is crap on it on for not "running right" or "looking right" or both.
4. Crap on high detail RTR models for not having the right details and pandering to the RTR market.
5. Crap on entry level RTR models for not having the right details and pandering to the RTR market.
6. Don't forget to drift the thread to the political and manufacturing climate in China.
7. Comments about Kato's western bias welcome.
8. MTL box cars ride too high.

[lock4244]

Hmm, funny enough, I have seen two CPR trains east of Toronto in 15 years living here.  I cross the line nearly weekly- it is like it is abandoned out in this part of Ontario. 

Scott, the CP mafia is already looking for you... you may already be gone before I post this. The ICE units are common enough on the ethanol trains that run on the Belleville Sub (642 and 643), but not the crude trains. Strange, but generally 642/643 get older SD units for reasons I won't even speculate on (it CP, so it's bound to be a bit wonky... of snap, now they're coming for me, too).

A little ICE on the Belleville:
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=10956
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=10348
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=1534
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=352252
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=362373

[asarge]

Love the SOP list Kalbert. People can say what they want about IM Loco's but my C&O and NYC F7's are excellent loco's. I have a C&O A/B set running on the shop N scale layout for oh, about 3500 hours now. We've only had to lube once about 2k and at about 2600 hours the light bulb burned out. Outside that, they have been extremely reliable and very good pullers.

I had a feeling IM would be the one to do the SD40's and IC&E on the first run will dent my wallet I saw them in '04 in Bettendorf and a set of 4 drilling the Savanna Illinois yard. Nice engines, they have been getting to Georgia on a regular basis, but I haven't been lucky enuff to catch any. Now, if I can get them to do Wheeling and Lake Erie, I'll be one poorer, but most happy camper.

[Scottl]

Hee hee, I need to go sit at the CP tracks to confirm they actually are in use.  Fresh snow today, I`ll bet there are no tracks!   I`ll probably see an ICE loco first time though...

TRW Product Review SOP:
1. All judgement made based on pre-production drawings and assumptions made when badgering sales reps at a show 10 years ago.
2. If it's not offered in eastern roads crap on it.
3. If it it is crap on it on for not "running right" or "looking right" or both.
4. Crap on high detail RTR models for not having the right details and pandering to the RTR market.
5. Crap on entry level RTR models for not having the right details and pandering to the RTR market.
6. Don't forget to drift the thread to the political and manufacturing climate in China.
7. Comments about Kato's western bias welcome.
8. MTL box cars ride too high.

Additional context:
1.  Why wait to see it to judge.  We know everything 
2.  E.g., if it is not Atlas, we bash it.  Bachman may be getting into the good books and some resistance to bashing might emerge 
3.  Only Atlas locomotives look good and are above TRW criticism 
4.  And they are too expensive, darn it.  We want to buy these in the cheap bin at Walmart 
5.  How dare they, that panel has nine rivets and a variant built after a wreck added two smaller rivets 
6.  Have to mention Pennsy steam at all times, regardless of relevance or market interest. 
7.  All TRW members know that Kato hates the eastern roads.  They throw darts at Conrail pictures in their corporate offices 
8.  Yet, we still buy them, seemingly in droves, and breathlessly ask for more.  Only uncool rivet counters point out the height issue 

[Scottl]

Funny, those ICE proto shots would look like DME locos to the unwashed heathen.  I think I`ve been schooled.