Intermountain Products

[carlso]

I have been reading through some old threads, posted back in 2014, in 3 different forums and this has brought up a question.

It was stated that IM announced and would release F3's and F7's with Loksound as an option. Am I totally out of touch and missed the arrival or has it never happened to date? ?

Curious mind, dontcha know,
Carl

[MK]

I see these on Train World.

https://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/intermountain/intermountain-69108s-emd-f3a-locomotive-w-dcc-sound-baltimore-ohio/
https://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/intermountain/intermountain-69203s-emd-f7a-locomotive-w-dcc-sound-union-pacific/

Whether the date is true or further speculation I don't know.

[carlso]

Thanks MK,

I think you just confirmed my thinking. Never been in stock and not due 'till 3/28/20. I would only wonder how many times the due date has changed.

Is it possible that 6 years after announcing and they still have not hit the shelves. I hope I have missed some earlier arrivals but am beginning to think not. How are they hanging on ?

[pdx1955]

With Intermountain its a total crapshoot when something will show up. I've waited a minimum of 2 years and up to a decade for a pre-order. Many times they've been lapped by other products, so its almost best to consider them a "backup" if you can't find a suitable other source.

[High Hood]

I’ve been waiting for their FT release since at least 2014, maybe earlier. 

[wazzou]

IMO, this is the potential counterpoint to the reservation system, with Intermountain anyway.
I think it may lead to the prohibition of another Manufacturer not producing something because it's been previously announced for reservation.

[BruceStikkers]

On April 11, 2016 I ordered one of the Centralia Car Shops superdome cars and just recently got it. They had it scheduled for August 2016. The car is great, but the wait frustrating.

Bruce Stikkers
St. Joseph, IL

[Missaberoad]

On the brightside I just ordered a pair of their recently released gunderson boxcars, excited to see them!

[thomasjmdavis]

It sometimes seems some of their locos have been open for reservations for more than a decade.  I am happy with the IM units I have (I could argue about color, but then, that is often true). But given IMs history of letting things ride for years and years and then cancelling, rather than reserving and waiting years, I figure I will just buy a Kato and paint it.

On freight cars they have been better (in the 6 of the past 12 years not impacted by Chinese factory closures and such).  But there seem to be enough available on the market for me to get whatever I want through online retailers after the release. 

[jagged ben]

IMO, this is the potential counterpoint to the reservation system, with Intermountain anyway.
I think it may lead to the prohibition of another Manufacturer not producing something because it's been previously announced for reservation.

It's not some hypothetical 'potential' problem.  It's been a real problem for me deciding whether to place pre-orders for other products when I've putatively dedicated some portion of my budget to an Intermountain product that I have no idea when or whether it will come. Judging from comments in the numerous threads about this here, I'm not alone.  How many people are now not pre-ordering Intermountain products because of their model, thus creating a vicious cycle in which product that does not get produced does not get pre-ordered and thus does not get produced and so on and so on?     

[carlso]

 " How many people are now not pre-ordering Intermountain products because of their model, thus creating a vicious cycle in which product that does not get produced does not get pre-ordered and thus does not get produced and so on and so on? " 


I am guilty as I have totally given up on IM for their sales model and to some degree lack of QC. Same for Athearn, only totally because of poor quality work in factories that makes it out to buyers.

KATO, ATLAS, FVM, Scale Trains can fill my needs quite nicely. Not sure of BLI or I might have included them.

[reinhardtjh]

The IM F7's were held up for a few years for one reason or another, then they decided to go with ESU sound and waited for ESU to design a special OEM decoder for them.  That decoder was probably the 73100 with Atlas then getting onboard the bandwagon.  ESU had at least one attempt that didn't work well and required a re-design (which became the 73199) and delayed the IM F7 again.  Then just when they were in the production queue (and maybe even in production, based on some IM newsletters) that plant shut down and threw everyone's (except Athearn and Walthers and Bachmann) production plans into the crapper.  IM is jsut recovering from that still.  No locomotives have been produced but some freight cars have hit the shelves.  When they switched to the new production announcement format we loast all knowledge of when thins were coming as the best it had to offer we "scheduled for production" and "in Production".

So, no, those F7 and F3 models never came to light.  I believe they did have some F3 that were pre-sound released sometime a few years ago, but not the ones that had been advertised with ESU (or MRC) sound.

[EspeeGoldenState]

How many people are now not pre-ordering Intermountain products because of their model, thus creating a vicious cycle in which product that does not get produced does not get pre-ordered and thus does not get produced and so on and so on?   

I order IM but my LHS doesn't require a deposit and is willing to do layaways, so that helps in that regard.

KATO, ATLAS, FVM, Scale Trains can fill my needs quite nicely. Not sure of BLI or I might have included them.

It's odd that you put FVM into that solely because they use IM for their factory, same for Trainworx. Atlas at times hasn't been much better and all were affected by the Chinese closures.

Sadly, I still order the IM and family products, but I hold my breathe on when they will ever be delivered especially IM specific models.

The NSE IM SF Bicentennial SD45-2s and the FVM UP 1943 and foobie NS AC44C6Ms were announced just over two years ago. You have to wonder how many have canceled theirs since Kato has done two (or three?) runs of now of UP 1943. Scale Trains will inevitably be doing the AC44C6Ms at some point and they have confirmed that in Facebook posts since they have the tooling to do it in many regards. And they will be probably in the Rivet Counter series.

Who knows if will ever see the IM announced C44-9Ws or the Tier 4 GEVOs.

NSE blames Atlas and the closures for the two cabooses needed to finish the KCS Holiday train that they started in 2014 with the Reindeer/Sleigh flat car and 2016 for the Rudy and two boxcars.

Kato and ScaleTrains are about the only companies that I really expect the arrival dates to not fall back.

Chris

[wazzou]

It reminds me of the childhood phrase "keepsies".

[reinhardtjh]

" How many people are now not pre-ordering Intermountain products because of their model, thus creating a vicious cycle in which product that does not get produced does not get pre-ordered and thus does not get produced and so on and so on? " 

The F7 order was my last locomotive order from IM.  I found the email and it was March 2015 I made the order with @SkipGear (Hobbytown Cincinnati).  Since then, I did order some C&O and Erie boxcars but they were never produced, failing to make the production quota.  I would have ordered some Dash9-40W (NS) and T4 GEVO from IM as I was boycotting ScaleTrains but I gave in and got a couple of each so I don't need any more.  About all I need from IM's current catalog are some more 1937 AAR and AAR modified boxcars and maybe some 8K tank cars.

As far as I know my reservation for F7's is still good.  If they actually get produced I may use them, but I've recently bought a bunch of Kato undecorated F7A and F7B's on Ebay and other places ($55-60 each) and will use those instead if IM doesn't produce.  Then I'll see if a Photon or EPAX can print a decent F3 shell.  If so, I'll be set.