USA Trains Deleted Locos

funandtrains

funandtrains

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Having looked through the latest USA Train catalogue I see that although there is a very lovely, but expensive steam loco, they no longer have several of the other locos in production does anyone know if this is a temporary thing and they will be reintroduced or gone for good?

They also seem now to be selling heavy weight passenger cars - are these the old Aristo-Craft models or new tooling?
 
Not in Rio Grande pullman green though.....:(:(
 
A set of twelve heavyweights in CP livery would look VERY nice behind my Royal Hudson....the disparity in scale is something I could live with, if forced.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS
Port Orford Coast RR - Eastern Sub.
 
funandtrains said:
Having looked through the latest USA Train catalogue I see that although there is a very lovely, but expensive steam loco, they no longer have several of the other locos in production does anyone know if this is a temporary thing and they will be reintroduced or gone for good?
They also seem now to be selling heavy weight passenger cars - are these the old Aristo-Craft models or new tooling?
Click to expand...

That 1/29th FEF is a real game-changer, that's for sure. GRS are taking advance orders - WAAAAAY north of £4000, though.

However, before you put your money down, you might take a peek at this little movie on Youtube- showing the problems arising from having an almost totally rigid wheelbase tender...


And here it is running...


I'd have to alter the throw on the eccentric crank if I ever got one - it is just not moving enough if you look up at the Hudson for comparison.

Here are the heavyweights - they look drop-dead gorgeous, but so far there are no CPR versions. IMO the $300 MRSP is a total steal for a car like this with six-wheel trucks and lights installed.


tac
OVGRS
 
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PhilP said:
So looks like a 22' wide garden is probably not enough then?
Click to expand...
I'm surprised that they haven't cheated in some way with those tender wheels - it's going to put a lot of people off the loco, but then what's the operating radius of the heavyweights?
 
I'm betting that if your trackage is a a kind of in and out of the gnomes and water-mills kind of thing, then running this loco with a string of twelve heavyweights behind it might not necessarily be a priority for you. Reading the many posts over on a number of other fora, RayMan844 notes that it would be best on at least eight-foot radius or bigger. We could run it over on our track, and many others here who have similarly large radius bends could do it, since we run Gauge 1 stuff as a matter of course, and most of that needs at least a four meter radius curve. We have run a Gauge 1 FEF on our track with total success, but it is, for the most part, around 5m radius.

Rhinochugger Rhinochugger - if you can run a Big Boy tender around your track without it derailing anywhere, then you can run this loco. Note that RayMan844, the notified spokesman for USA Trains, has told us that there will be no blind/flangeless axles anywhere on this loco.

tac
OCGRS
 
Yeah, my minimum diameter is 8ft, but the scale would be all wrong as I'm a pretty confirmed Fn3 man nowadays :smoke::smoke:

I hope that there is enough customer support for it, but I'm concerned that the 'no blind axles anywhere' may limit its appeal - hope I'm wrong.
 
Let's be honest about it, the number of UK buyers of the USA Trains Big Boy, with which it shares the tender, could probably fill a mini-van, and likewise for this new loco. I'm sure that 'our man' at GRS could tell us, if he'd a mind to do so, how many they actually sold. Unlike the MTH version that was actually Gauge 1 and, being a lightweight mostly plastic model, the USA Trains Big boy was 1/29th, die-cast - like the FEF - and weighed it at over fifty pounds for the loco alone, limiting it to people who either had it permanently on the track, or were possessed of the mighty thews needed to haul it on and off.

A small market, but GRS obviously know their business. Having the requisite wide-open trackage, I could run it without any problems, but lack both the £££££££ and the incentive - it's nice, but it's not Santa Fe's #3751 or even better, SP&S Northern #700, and therefore of interest only in the way that any fine piece of model engineering might be.

Anyhow, I get to see a Gauge 1 Aster live-steamer version on occasions, and that keeps me more or less happy.

tac
 
I started with USAT and Aristo' 14 + years ago. USAT certainly were aimed at the more scale/detail minded operator, which is my inclination. Though even then the need to capture the maximum sales the all around creation of "generics" was inevitable. I'll forgive them that, I loved the 6 car streamliner Daylight set and the F3 ABA lash up that I had to pull them. Used to just sit back and watch it wind its way round and round the garden gnomes on a warm sunny summer's day. The problem in the end was the limited range of suitable steam outline locos in that scale, hence my shift in scales. If I had stayed in 1:29, rather than moved to Fn3 and 16 mm, then a set of those heavyweights would have found a way in there for sure. Max
 
USA Trains made a generic 0-6-0 tank loco of astounding price, the beautiful NYC Hudson - around £3000 or so, and the Big Boy, at about £5000, although I might be wrong.

Now the FEF has appeared at around £4000, and that's steam in 1/29th that isn't by AML/Accucraft [live steam and electric Pennsy K4 and maybe a [very] few others, but not exactly bargain basement stuff]. For all the hype, for true-scale on 45mm track, it's 1/32nd scale that wins hands-down.

tac
 
Where does Raymond Manley become the "notified spokesman" for USAT? For years his site has been full of people denigrating the USAT locos for not having ball bearings in their gearboxes, etc. His big buddy Chuck has made several videos, and there's a lot of snide, anti anyone else but MTH stuff on his forum.

Yes, for true-scale 1:32 is right, but the sheer quantity of 1:29 and more being built is the hands-down winner in volume and popularity.

Greg
 
I’m sure I saw a while back that USAT had to change factories in China. This will have prevented any new batches of diesels being built. I think the transfer was largely successful but some tooling for the SD40 was lost. New batches of the current aluminium coaches have been produced since the move but I don’t know about any diesels yet.

Unfortunately the market for these locos appears to have shrunk. Certainly supply has seriously reduced over recent years. I’m pleased to see that Charles Ro is still able to produce new models even if they are way out of my price league. I hope this new loco will be a success.
 
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