New Athearn N scale announcement

[jpwisc]

Mine was already set in 1993. I'm golden. 

Let me know when you want to have a renumbering party. With only 4 3-Packs of each you'll need to renumber a few dozen to make a properly sized train for your layout.

[sundowner]

Body mounted couplers, hopefully they migrate to the propane and ethanol tanks. I have to wait for the second run, I want the comp stripes like the HO ones.

[delamaize]

Man. So far out of my era and area it's not even funny. BUT I do have a Kato Speed Lettered SD40 that could use some buddies, and a string of these would be a cool Ntrak train.....

[asarge]

I have no use for them whatsoever but I know a bunch of SP modelers who are having heart palpitations right now. Glad you got 'em.

[tehachapifan]

Man, those look nice!

[James Costello]

Finally

So glad I skipped a BLMA unit tank train (outside my era) and held out for this.

So very happy.

[Denver Road Doug]

Finally

So glad I skipped a BLMA unit tank train (outside my era) and held out for this.

So very happy.

This is one of those iconic trains in railroading that has a lot of connection to a lot of model railroaders.   Nobody that was a train nut (railfan or modeler) in the 80's doesn't know about these cars, with their colorful graphics and unique setup and unit train cool factor.  Kato has seen how successful it can be to cater to that emotional aspect, and now Athearn is getting in the game.   Great stuff.

James, I was thinking you were gonna be pretty stoked about this.   Glad to hear you're getting one of those "signature pieces" for your locale/era.   (As an aside, you might be interested to know that I'm contemplating shifting my n-scale era to early-to-early/mid 90's...no mo BNSF)

[James Costello]

James, I was thinking you were gonna be pretty stoked about this.   Glad to hear you're getting one of those "signature pieces" for your locale/era.   (As an aside, you might be interested to know that I'm contemplating shifting my n-scale era to early-to-early/mid 90's...no mo BNSF)

Thanks DRD - despite growing up with model trains as a kid, I seriously got interested in them in 1992 and both Tehachapi and the TankTrain was one of reasons I ended up choosing to model the SP. Both Railfan & Railroad and Trains had coverage on the operations at the time and I remember seeing the train and those smokey helpers on a VHS. Layout planning does have the loading facility at Saco as part of my scene for Bakersfield, so yeah, stoked is putting it mildly.

That's an interesting development mate, keen to hear more!

[Philip H]

Oh dear god. Need this like more holes in my head. But oh god what a beauty.

[jagged ben]

So, on the prototype how many cars would be in a string, or was it frequently adjusted?  Say you wanted to put together a 30 car train, how many of the end sets would be appropriate to buy?

[Missaberoad]

12 cars per set and typically 6 sets per train or 72 cars.

Although you could probably drop it down to 8 and do 32 or bump it up to 15 and do 30 and keep the look of the train.

[jagged ben]

Gotcha.  I see they actually mentioned the 12car prototypical set in the flyer.  So I'd probably be choosing between 24 and 36 cars. The question is whether to bet on future runs with new numbers.

Another question:  There's a mistake on the flyer.  They've got the large orange and white scheme labeled as 'Early' but then under the features list they seemingly have the number series switched around.  Which is correct? 

[James Costello]

Gotcha.  I see they actually mentioned the 12car prototypical set in the flyer.  So I'd probably be choosing between 24 and 36 cars. The question is whether to bet on future runs with new numbers.

Another question:  There's a mistake on the flyer.  They've got the large orange and white scheme labeled as 'Early' but then under the features list they seemingly have the number series switched around.  Which is correct?

Athearn's release strategy in HO has been a little different, but they've done (or are doing) at least two runs so far.

The 486 number series / large orange and white seems to be the Early (1977) scheme, while the 282 series / small dates from 1982.

The 282 small scheme is what I mostly remember from the mid-90s, but I need to look for proof of whether I can include a dirty original scheme amongst them.

[Missaberoad]

Athearn's release strategy in HO has been a little different, but they've done (or are doing) at least two runs so far.

The 486 number series / large orange and white seems to be the Early (1977) scheme, while the 282 series / small dates from 1982.

The 282 small scheme is what I mostly remember from the mid-90s, but I need to look for proof of whether I can include a dirty original scheme amongst them.

I stand to be corrected but I don't think the "eary" scheme ever ran on Tehachapi.

From what I can gather it was the scheme applied to the original test train used in Alaska.
With the Oilcans starting over Tehachipi in 1983 it is likely the "Late" cars were purpose built for that service. I'm yet to see a photo/video even going back to the 1980's that wasn't solid "late" cars.

I did find this article on the Alaska tank train cars.
http://www.alaskarails.org/fp/TankTrain.html