Tiny Atlas runs

[w neal]

Someone here mentioned Atlas doing very small runs of N scale locomotives. Just curious. What were some of these small runs of locomotives?

[thomasjmdavis]

I don't "know" - since I don't work for Atlas or have access to their production figures, but I would speculate that their various releases of GP and RS units, and switchers, for the likes of Illinois Terminal, C&EI, EJ&E and Belt Railway of Chicago (I keep an eye out for Midwestern roads).  I don't think I've ever seen any of these for sale at a brick and mortar shop.  They were produced, sold out fairly quickly, and only rarely can be found on eBay.  At least, that is my experience.

My assumption is that, at least for a period of time, Atlas was painting small batches of such roadnames.

The only reason I know that the Illinois Terminal RS-1 was made is that I picked up a shell during the Atlas shell sale a few years ago.

[Englewood]

I seem to recall seeing somewhere that some roadnames have runs of as little as 300. I don't remember if that was in reference to Atlas or not.

[dem34]

Wonder if the Coast Guard scheme CNJ RS3 fits into that, couldn't find any mention of the things being made from the post 2001 runs but was able to pick one up from BLW's damaged depot last month. (loose handrail)

But I do know that when things are slow their warranty department also does a bunch of one off frankenstein projects that they sell to NJ LHSs out of cannibalized parts. I have a Conrail RS11 with parts from a couple runs.

[Rossford Yard]

I forget the details, but I recall talking to George at Wig Wag, and he said there was a run of just 48 of an ATSF loco.  Wish I could remember, but it seems like it was a GP49 or GP59, somehow almost identical to a GP 40 or 60 or something. (Maybe after they got the lifelike tooling and it was close to a GP 60? 

I hate to spread misinformation, but I think it was offered.  Not sure if it was a special run.

I have often heard runs of 300 are the minimum, but I talked with Atlas reps at the 2019 National, and specifically asked if there was some limits to painting each scheme, i.e., the pads wear out after 300, and it's not worth it to make the extra 20 if they get 320 orders, but they said that was not the case.  Not sure what the minimum to set up a paint scheme is within a mass production run.

[learmoia]

48 seems really low...... but are we talking paint scheme, road number or sku?

If Atlas releases 2 numbers of an obscure scheme, where both numbers are the same scheme..

Lets say Atlas produces 200 in that scheme.
Split 50/50 by road number.. you have 100/100
Then you split by sku (sound/no sound).. 50/50/50/50

~Ian

[basementcalling]

And no doubt the size of the production run is partially determined by the number of preorders before the Atlas deadline. They are probably more likely to make a few extras of proven popular roads than a small road they are taking a "chance" on.

The sound, no sound, offerings are one more reason to dislike the obsession with poor quality N scale diesel sound. Amazing to me how we obsess over the prototypical accuracy of every little detail on the model, but suspend disbelief enough to accept that what comes out of those tiny speakers is anywhere close to the sound of the real things. But that is just me. What do I know?

48 seems really low...... but are we talking paint scheme, road number or sku?

If Atlas releases 2 numbers of an obscure scheme, where both numbers are the same scheme..

Lets say Atlas produces 200 in that scheme.
Split 50/50 by road number.. you have 100/100
Then you split by sku (sound/no sound).. 50/50/50/50

~Ian

[Rossford Yard]

48 seems really low...... but are we talking paint scheme, road number or sku?

If Atlas releases 2 numbers of an obscure scheme, where both numbers are the same scheme..

Lets say Atlas produces 200 in that scheme.
Split 50/50 by road number.. you have 100/100
Then you split by sku (sound/no sound).. 50/50/50/50

~Ian

That was a specific, and probably one off Santa Fe loco, not a regular production run.  Maybe the ATSF Historic Society commissioned it.  Again, wish I could be more detailed in my memory.  In any event, it was at the advent of DCC, and before DCC Sound.

I too, have heard the 300 number for a road name, which might mean 150 per road number, or even 100.

I saw a presentation about mfg in MRR at the Proto meet in Ft. Worth Saturday.  The biggest cost of a loco is tooling, still at $250,000 and about 40% of the loco cost.  Other categories were included, but 10-15% looked to be materials and equipment.  I suspect painting isn't a huge cost, and if it helped sell even 50 more locos, it would help defray the cost of tooling, but there has to be some minimum to make it worth it running a very specific paint scheme, given the prototype research (which he said shouldn't be discounted as a major cost, even with us helpful railfans sending in pictures, etc.) 

I suspect that is why Atlas actually offered some "oddball" road names, like Houston Terminal, etc., over the years on tooling of lesser used locos on the prototype.  And, I have heard (with the $250K number causing $50 per loco to amortize, if the run is just 5,000) that the first runs are pretty break even at best.  When Atlas is issuing the 10th run of a loco, like a GP38, and the tooling is already accounted for, it is probably easier for them to take a chance on some less popular road names.  Just a guess, however.  I doubt any mfg wants even 50 of a model loco sitting on their shelves or out in the wild selling at 50% discounts.  As the speaker also said, they have to be really, really, really sure of a good sales run before deciding to go with a project.

[spookshow]

Back in the 80's (and possibly into the 90's) Atlas sold a number of "Special Limited Edition" locomotives. These were limited to a single road name/number. I know a number of RS-3's and RSD-12's were sold this way, although I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what production numbers might've been. Here's one of them -

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/scale-vintage-atlas-4220-rs-3035037321

-Mark

[randgust]

I've been surprised how much the basic tooling has been 'tweaked' between runs.

On the GP7 alone, there have been about five different motors from the Classic to the slow speed to slow speed with the original universals to the last run with ball joint universals.  And I just got a current run motor off the GP40 (?)to discover that the drilling in the brass flywheels doesn't match anything else previously out there, and now you have a bracket sticking down to power the speaker in the fuel tank.   So if that's a new 'standard', then all the frames have to be retooled, the motors are different, the universals are different....and that's more pressure on price, run sizes, etc.

When the GP7 does come back out (2023??), I'm just hoping the changes aren't so radical as to make my CF7 kits obsolete.   It's pretty darn easy on the last runs, but the fuel tanks present a whole different problem, let alone decrease the frame weight, pickup, and tractive effort (again).   And I'm also half betting that you've got soldered pickup wires instead of pickup wipers to the trucks, making any kind of disassembly that much more complicated.

The last run of GP7's with the different universals (ball joint instead of hex) were really excellent, but finding one is next to impossible.

[Rossford Yard]

Another interesting tidbit from that seminar on manufacturing was that aluminum molds are cheaper, and yield 10-20,000 uses.  Steel molds are more expensive, but they can get 100,000 or more plastic shells.  I recall other discussions on various forums, usually centered around when one company bought another company's molds. 

But, it would be a more interesting mfg decision to make than I thought.  If you could afford the price difference, I thought why not steel?  But, if they are forced to upgrade tooling every decade or less, maybe aluminum would be the way to go for almost anything other than hoppers and covered hoppers which, I think, tend to sell more because they go in unit trains.  Intermountain once said they "lived off" their covered hoppers, selling over a quarter million in each scale (a few years back, maybe more now.)

I also understand the molding technology typically needs 5-8 molds per model and allows them to have the interchangeable parts, like road-specific fans and lights that we demand, so it's at least possible to offer variants based on road details.

[u18b]

Yeah.... one of those limited runs that I never got and could kick myself for not getting on ebay when I could was a Chessie Torpedo Tube GP9 that was unnumbered.

Chessie is such a pain to paint and CSX had one of these.  Just adding a CSX road number would be great.

(hey..... no one has one do they?      )