So Athearn released a picture of a SDP40 in HO scale right before the annual NMRA show, however their website does not say anything about this model coming? What is the word on the “street” is there finally going to be an HO SDP40F on the market? An Amtrak phase II would be a great addition to my layout.
Yes I forgot the F in the subject line.
I had posed this question here a few weeks ago.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/257487.aspx
Still no news, just a “hint” of a CAD drawing on their face book page which you can access from their home page.
The video posted by James (jlwii2000) also shows a test shot shell but there is no mention of the SDP40, just a pan over it.
Go To 6:00 for the end of the Athearn interview.
I guess they really want to keep this hushed until the “official” release or, like the car manufacturers in years past, keep suspense high.
Usually, Athearn updates their newsletter at the end of the month, so maybe we will hear something this week?
I hope it is worth waiting for…
Ed
A Genesis SDP40F should be worth the wait; I am very interested in a pair myself having ridden behind them on a couple of trips in 1976 on the Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr between Sacramento and Denver, and between Osceola Iowa and Sacramento.
AFAIK, with the test shots displayed at the NTS, thats good enough for me that the that diesel is in the pipeline for production; I expect it will be part of official announcement in the coming weeks. That being the case, delivery will likely be mid-late summer 2017.
When I read the title of this thread…I was wondering why Athearn came out with this engine again…I have two of them…one from the 60’s, without flywheels and one from the 70’s with flywheels…then realized Your talking about SDP40F’s, You left off the ‘‘F’’ in the thread title. LOL…Too new, for My era!
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
I guess one might think that in a vaccum. I didn’t really know the FP45 Athearn painted in Amtrak Phase I pointless arrow was a foobie - it looked about right to my untrained eye. That sure seems like a long time ago.
RioGrande, understandable as a good number of modelers back in the day didn’t pay much attention to the visual differences between the 1960’s FP45 and the 1970’s SDP40F (I’m guilty as charged) until the details were pointed out to me by a friend. When I stared at photos of prototype units and got past the nose and windshields, I quickly noticed the differences. Laughingly reminds me of how so many “non-sports car” people back then would mistakenly call a Pontiac Firebird a Camaro (and a Z28 a Trans Am). A few visual similarities yet, many significant differences externally and internally.
Here are a couple of illustrations from “Wills Train Art” website.
Part two of MR’s report from the show mentioned it, and said this:
“Electro-Motive Division SDP40F diesel locomotive. Amtrak. Twin steam generators, flat- and peaked-nose versions, low-profile roof details, illuminated Gyralight and emergency light, detailed cab interior, and Leslie S4T and SL4T air horns. Direct-current models and models with dual-mode SoundTraxx Tsunami2 decoders will be offered. Additional features, release date, and pricing to be announced. Genesis series. Athearn Trains”
It’s definitely coming, but I suspect Athearn is waiting for a more complete sample before making the official announcement.
Looks like the impossible just became “possible”. [:D]
Thayman,
Thanks for posting that info. One prototype tidbit regarding the horn though is that while the Leslie S4T / SL4T horns were sweet sounders (I remember!), they fouled easily and required more maintenance than typical multichime horns on the market during that time period. Amtrak replaced most of them with Nathan P5a horns by the late 70s (see my photo below). Since Soundtraxx already has a decent sounding P5a recording, hopefully that option will be included as one of the available horn sounds.
That is the trick since the decoders included with past Genesis loco’s have been a stripped down version of the full Tsunami and was missing a number of the horn options. For example, the Genesis D&RGW GP9 did not have the correct horn for the version the of their GP9 (M3). Hopefully that won’t be the case for the upcoming SDP40F.
Agreed.
I’m looking forward to seeing the video reviews. As a friend of mine (who is the local DCC guru in my area) pointed out we will still have the option of purchasing the non-sound version (which will be DCC ready and have space for a speaker) and install a Loksound V4.0 setup.
Loksound already has a Nathan P5a horn scheme, which is what Amtrak replaced most of the S4T/SL4T horns with.
[(-D]Antonio, Don’t forget if you model SCL, the SDP40F’s were restricted to slower speeds on passenger trains b/c of having too many at speed derailments. [(-D]
The only thing I liked about them were the 4 chime Leslie air horns they had.
Well, I was around then and from what I remember, the speed restrictions were on some curves, especially in L&N railroad territory. But on the “A-Line” stretches (ex-Atlantic Coast Line) those cruisers opened up and they looked impressive! On the post above where I posted a photo, I was a friends with the engineer. Wonderful guy, J. Randall Hodge (r.i.p) enjoyed running them. I rode SDP40F hauled Amtrak trains several times on SCL rails and in looking out the window, I certainly didn’t get the impression that we were on speed restrictions![8D]
Regarding those 4 chime horns, yes they were sweet music makers. I still have a recording on a cassette tape that I took with a tape recorder back then. I could be mistaken but from my cobweb laden memory, that horn was basically a Leslie S3K with a #55 trumpet (bell) added on. Certainly had a very pleasant “trill” sound to it. But they sure sounded rough when they fouled and Amtrak was notorious for being slow on maintenance issues that were not considered to be an immediate safety risk.
On this video, you can hear the horn fouling on the first SDP40F. On the 2nd train, it’s normal but the engineer is holding back on blasting all 4 chimers.