My wife bought me the Athearn HO scale Amtrak California EMD F59PH for Christmas. It’s great. Heavy engine, not too fast, but one of the strongest engines I have. I didn’t get any passenger cars to go with it, so I had it pulling frieght trains for a bit just to play with it.
I’ve posted here before about looking for the Phase V superliners, and finding that the only ones made were overland brass, and I don’t have $1200 to pay for toys. So what’s a guy to do?
I called con-cor, and ordered two undecorated sleepers. They arrived quickly, and for being as old as they were, they were in pretty decent shape. I would have like to have ordered the Walthers, but my train budget for the year (2007) is already nearly shot. I paid 1/4 for the concors as I would have for the Walthers, and that includes the concor shipping.
I have very easy access to seeing the Amtrak California cars live. I live less than a mile from the line, and we have at least 4 trains a day that I see go by. So taking my live pictures of the prototype train, I was able to do the models. I had to sacrafice a set of doors, as the Phase V have two double doors on each side, and all the cars I had access to only had a single door per car. I need to get the decal sheets that have upper and lower case letters, (I’ve only been able to find the uppercase), and the cars will be finished.
and for those of you who haven’t seen them, this is the prototype. Credit to Matthew Mealer for the photograph.
See Superliners in the right paint are an OK substitute for real California cars. I wonder why Walthers hasn’t tried a Superliner coach painted in Amtrak California, or Surfliner colors? They have the exclusive right with Amtrak for certain paint schemes, so Walthers would likely be the one to do it…I think this is why the planned Con-Cor Superliners painted in Surfliner colors never made it. Although it makes me wonder about the Athearn AmCal, Surfliner, and Cascades painted locos as well as the Atlas AmCal locos.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen phase IVb Superliners from Walthers yet. They are really dragging their feet with this exclusive license. I know of a few companies that would gladly release decals if it wasn’t for this license.
Again, nice job and your Northern California HO layout residents must be happy to have such a fine looking commuter train.
For decals you might want to try Union Station Products. They currently offer HO California Car kits and I believe they come with appropriate decals.
Nice paint work on the Caltrak cars, despite the door issue. If you want better trucks look into Train Station Products replacement trucks, they have some that are a closer match to the prototype than the stock Con-Cor trucks.
Regional bias. Most manufacturers are located in the East or Midwest and don’t think it’s worth their time to make passenger cars from “Out West.” Which is why you see Acela models but no Caltrak, Surfliner or Cascades cars.
Maybe Athearn (based in California) should make a stab at it!
Caltrain, coaster, WEST coast express, metrolink, rail runner, and sounder are a few west coast trains they did. Except, not amtrak califonria (cascades, surfliner, san jouqins, capitol corridor).
That looks like a cab control car that might be remotely using the engine on the rear as a power unit. It has enough stuff that a driver might actually run the train properly backwards.
I think the trucks are a dirty grey/Black they dont appear blue in that particular photograph.
I think that this is a fine example of a project where someone made do very well without spending 1200 dollars for a copy of one brass car. Who knows? there might actually be a seed of a new company on Ebay cranking out these cars using Con Cor Undecs as raw material.
Regarding licenses, I was part of a video game testing where they had to remove a Military Humvee from the product and built a virtual look alike to work around Licensing requirements. A little bit of a uproar over that. I dont see the need to license stuff that we use everyday ala Union Pacific. That is probably one reason those wonderful Mack Trucks are 20 dollars apeice instead of 10.
The Bombardier coaches have the opposite problem. You can get the ACE train (Altamont Commuter Express) Coaches, in Athearn RTR sets, but you can’t get the ACE train f40ph in ACE paint.
Yep, control cab. California cars have MU run through capability so the Cab Car controls will operate the trailing loco in push pull mode.
You are also right about the truck color. However they were originally delivered in dark purple blue. They just got dirty over time and some have been replaced with non purple trucks as well. These cars are getting old quickly, as they are run in rough stop and go commuter service every day.
Note to modelers, in my area (Southern California) the Surfliner cars are looking real dirty on the outside. The stainless steel portion, if not recently cleaned, has a dull tan tint. Superliners typically also display this color if not washed. So be sure to weather your Amtrak equipment appropriately.
As a side note on the MU run through. How can Superliners be used on these push pull trains? I’m not aware of any MU specific plugs on Superliners. However I’m wondering if the Communication ports would provide MU capabilities? They use the same size cable.
Coll looking Cars ya got there Davy,Although yours look different then the Pic Soutwest Chief Posted.Did you get the Correct ones cause the ones ya got don’t have 2 Doors on teh Side.I am not putting you down or etc just noticed the difference in yours. Good Luck too ya.
"I had to sacrafice a set of doors, as the Phase V have two double doors on each side, and all the cars I had access to only had a single door per car. "
I know the doors are missing. Union Station is the only people that make non-brass amtrak Cali. cars. I wasn’t going to pay $40 a car for this set. Concor and Walthers only make Phase 1-4 cars. Amtrak Cali is Phase V. My set residents will just have to cram through one door. Fortunately for them, there are only 6 current residents on my set, and 3 of them are heading to the golf course!!
If you live in the ACE corridor, then sabotage the F40s when they’re not in use during the weekends. This will make ACE buy F59PHIs and likewise Athearn will make them…problem solved
I think maybe just writing Athearn or Atlas and asking them to produce that model, or buying an undecorated and painting it might be a better, safer, and much more legal solution.
Not quite. F59PHIs are no longer being manufactured. So ACE, after obtaining appropriate remedies after the sabotage, would have to get one of the MPI commuter locomotives such as the MP36. And we all know no one is making this loco in HO scale…perhaps a brass version is coming soon if not already released…but wasn’t a main purpose of this post to show that most people can’t afford brass [(-D]
Hope you didn’t think I was talking about the Athearn version…this is still being produced.
But real F59PHI’s have ceased production since around 2000 or so. Something to do with crashworthiness and emission standards that took effect in 2000. Hasn’t anyone noticed why all the commuter companies are now going with the MPI ugly ducklings and not the classier looking F59PHI?
But what doesn’t make sense to me is the MPI locos use EMD prime movers. So I would imagine EMD could redesign the F59PHI to comply with crashworthiness standards and use the newer “cleaner” prime movers. They just need a good solid contract, and I don’t see that coming any time soon with all the new orders going with MPI.
