Model Railroading > Athearn late Nov. announcements

New run of UP 4-8-4's with new sound, AC44's in BNSF,KCS and NS blue and silver scheme and black and silver scheme.

Happy that there is going to be a new run of 4-8-4s.

And the switch to ESU Loksound......
 

Amazing what a little competiton will do. :-)

Yes, the SP AC4400s are back! Need to order some of those. Curious, the PDF says Roundhouse instead of Ready to Run. Did they change their branding? Thought Roundhouse was for late 1800s/early 1900s era models.

Posted from iPhone

atsf121 Wrote:
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> Yes, the SP AC4400s are back! Need to order some
> of those. Curious, the PDF says Roundhouse
> instead of Ready to Run. Did they change their
> branding? Thought Roundhouse was for late
> 1800s/early 1900s era models.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Roundhouse is the new "brand" for what basically amounts to the old blue box line with simple details. GP40-2s, generic 1960s rolling stock, etc. 

Roundhouse is now their entry level line, regardless of era.    

I'm happy to see the patched SP/UP AC4400's.   Those are still all over the place and one of the most common ways to still see "Southern Pacific" in some shape or form.    Looks like it will come faded too.

So it looks like Marten containers are already defunct?   That didn't take long.

Jason Eminian
Smith Brothers Hobby Center
Northridge, CA

Athearn's "entry level" AC4400CWs are the same price as the RTR AC4400CWs from 2 years ago.

EricSP Wrote:
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> Athearn's "entry level" AC4400CWs are the same
> price as the RTR AC4400CWs from 2 years ago.


And the average gallon of unleaded gas in the US costs almost half what it was two years ago. Go figure...


​Mr. MRL - I blame China.

Maybe I've missed the discusssion or something, but the Northerns will be equipped with LokSound. Wonder if they are gonna switch from Soundtraxx to ESU or maybe Soundtraxx doesnt have a Tsunami2 equivilent for the Northerns?

Chris

Regarding those patched SP AC4400s with the yellow frame stripe... How early did those have yellow stripes?

Between the CSX YN3 ES44DCs they announced last month and the CSX YN2 AC4400CWs this month; I'll be pretty poor next fall when they finally come out...

*sigh* If only they had done the "Pre 2016" version of 844 (with the red Mars light), I might have been tempted to upgrade my MRC-decoder version to a newer one with ESU and LED's.

Posted from Android

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
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> Roundhouse is now their entry level line,
> regardless of era.    
>
> Jason Eminian
> Smith Brothers Hobby Center
> Northridge, CA

Thanks for the info Jason.

Posted from iPhone

MrMRL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> EricSP Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Athearn's "entry level" AC4400CWs are the same
> > price as the RTR AC4400CWs from 2 years ago.
>
>
> And the average gallon of unleaded gas in the US
> costs almost half what it was two years ago. Go
> figure...
>

If you can invent an equivalent-impact of fracking for casting plastic and assembling models, I am sure you can bring the price down.

Best regards,

Rob L.

EricSP Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Athearn's "entry level" AC4400CWs are the same
> price as the RTR AC4400CWs from 2 years ago.

No price increase is a welcome thing.  These should be the same models, despite the branding change?

tracklight Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> EricSP Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Athearn's "entry level" AC4400CWs are the same
> > price as the RTR AC4400CWs from 2 years ago.
>
> No price increase is a welcome thing.  These
> should be the same models, despite the branding
> change?

Perhaps I am wrong, but I assume an entry level line consists of lesser detailed, less expensive items.

Maybe they'll start putting the headlight in the right spot on the NS engines. But Athearn doesn't care about the lower priced versions...