Intermountain SD40-2 delays

[jagged ben]

Giving the bennifit of the doubt, I assume they are referring to narrow hood locomotives and the Atlas S-2.

Jason

I'll buy that for a nickel.  It does seem to be the only one on the list that stands apart.  Also, I beleive it's the only other one that's ESU.  Ergo, all the others must be crap. 

[coosvalley]

Ahem .....GMD-1?

[Ike the BN Freak]

Glad I'm getting out of Conrail 'cause otherwise I'd be stressing.

Didn't IM say they aren't going to tool up Flexicoils for these anyways?

[asarge]

The letter showed up on my email yesterday. In other words, they had no tooling ready or even cut, but were pre-announcing to ward off any possible competitors who MIGHT be doing the same loco.

I'll still get some of the regionals like DM&E and W&LE from them but I would welcome another manufacturer's model if it comes to pass.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm thinking about canceling mine and doing Katos with Shape ways Trucks.
~Ian

I'm being patient and waiting until they come out. They may be great! I've heard people are pretty happy with the Canadian SD40-2s they did.

But if they're corn art? Well, I know how to deal with that. I've done it before...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Didn't IM say they aren't going to tool up Flexicoils for these anyways?

They did. Then they said they weren't.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The letter showed up on my email yesterday. In other words, they had no tooling ready or even cut, but were pre-announcing to ward off any possible competitors who MIGHT be doing the same loco.

This is the only thing about this whole thing that actually makes me mad.

I had thought there was someone else who was going to be doing them, who I was REALLY excited to see take them on. But then this happened.

[wcfn100]

Didn't IM say they aren't going to tool up Flexicoils for these anyways?

Last time I talked to them they still wanted to tool the Flexicoils but basically need Atlas to go in it with them.  These are my words but that was the gist of the conversation.

Jason

[Mark5]

Is it me or do the fuel tanks on these pre-production models look too short (length)?

http://www.intermountain-railway.com/n/html/SD40-2-Samples.htm

Well, at least it looks like IM got the number boards right (one of the glaring errors on the Kato units).

I still think there is room for another player in terms of SD40-2s.

Mark

[Scottl]

Lower down there are painted versions with longer tanks.

There is a certain roughness around the cab windows in the painted versions, hope that works out in the final cut.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I really do hope that it's just that those are pre-production samples, because, compared to Atlas, Kato and FVM stuff, they just look a little "sloppy". Like, I can't put my finger on it, but there's something there.

But, then again, these are pre-production samples that I'm sure have been quite beaten up, so I don't want to base all of my judgement on that.

I do think it's interesting that the Conrail ones aren't in the decorated samples, even though I thought they were in the first announcement. Maybe they're afraid of getting skewered about the truck situation?

[lock4244]

The letter showed up on my email yesterday. In other words, they had no tooling ready or even cut, but were pre-announcing to ward off any possible competitors who MIGHT be doing the same loco.

I'd have thought their intention to do the SD40-2 would have been somewhat obvious with the SD40-2W.

[wazzou]

I don't have any dog in this fight because they are beyond my era but the most distracting thing to me is the clear absence of any kind of frame beneath the sill and the obvious appearance of the contact wipers.
It hearkens back to the appearance of the Life-Like C424/5.

[JoeD]

I had a few of their tunnel motors and they suffered from having too many extra parts requiring something other than production line assembly.  The FT's had the same problem.   This might be the same thing and I do hope the windows are clearer, if not, I have some slip cover glass that will fix it right up

Joe

I really do hope that it's just that those are pre-production samples, because, compared to Atlas, Kato and FVM stuff, they just look a little "sloppy". Like, I can't put my finger on it, but there's something there.

But, then again, these are pre-production samples that I'm sure have been quite beaten up, so I don't want to base all of my judgement on that.

I do think it's interesting that the Conrail ones aren't in the decorated samples, even though I thought they were in the first announcement. Maybe they're afraid of getting skewered about the truck situation?

[Missaberoad]

I had a few of their tunnel motors and they suffered from having too many extra parts requiring something other than production line assembly.  The FT's had the same problem.   This might be the same thing and I do hope the windows are clearer, if not, I have some slip cover glass that will fix it right up
Joe

I have had the same experience with Intermountain, and there is nothing I have seen on the pre-production samples to assume it will be any different.
Overall the assembly has gotten better over the years (likely QC has improved) but their shell design requires alot of glue and hands on work and is still hit and miss.

Looking forward to picking some up when they are released, but I'm also hoping someone else elects to produce a properly scaled Kato build quality SD40-2.