Anyone who’s followed me on these forums knows that I have been begging for someone to put out Superliners in the newest Amtrak Phase IVb scheme. I sent emails to Walthers’ product suggestions email address but always got stock responses. A year went by so I decided to write CEO Phil Walthers directly. I finally got ar response–not from Mr. Walthers but from a marketing manager.
I was told that Walthers is currently negotiating with Amtrak about securing permission to release Superliners in Phase IVB. [I took “permission” to mean a discussion of how much money Walthers would have to pay in licensing fees]. She wrote that the hope was to release these cars in 2006 or 2007.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge but what is IVB? I understand that the IV means 4th phase but what about the B?
If it is the same or not, I would love to see Walthers come out with the California Surfliner cars. I have an Athearn Amtrak West F-59PHI just waiting around for some cars.
Phase IVb is a variation of the Phase IV livery but with a different shade of blue (lighter), different order in the thin red and white striping, the removal of big “SUPERLINER” titles for Superliner cars, and the removal of the old “Amtrak” titles for the new Amtrak logo.
It came into being apparently when the goofy blue and teal swirly Acela scheme–which made it to a few Amfleet cars–was vetoed by CEO David Gunn.
I’d love to see California cars too in HO scale. I paid out 1600 dollars for an Overland Surfliner set. But their Amtrak California cars (Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin) are out of production. AS Models was supposed to do a set but they went out of business and never got that far along. I am afraid that because they are so specialized, the best you can hope for is for Overland to open the production lines again.
To be honest with you my plans was to just except that nobody was going to make the California Surfliner, so I was going to take it upon myself and paint them myself. Then customize the lettering to spell out Surfliner. It’s on my list of todo things.
I just looked on the Overland Website at those Surfliners, Man those are nice, but I was unclear if they make the cab car. Do you know?
Yes they did do a cab car–but that said, I am not sure if it’s in production. I bought my set about a year ago. Believe me, it was not an easy purchase–they were very expensive. But at the time, I feared Amtrak intercity would go bankrupt and as my layout is modern day, I wanted some passenger cars to run. The president of Overland told me that there stocks would not last forever. The nice thing about the cab car is that it has directional lighting so its ditch lights light up if you run it cab forward.
Boy, those Overland cars sure did look nice and it’s very tempting to spend a hell of a lot of money for them.
Being from San Diego, I was thinking of modeling the Oceanside to San Diego line which would entail quite a few of the Surfliner trains but I don’t think I’m going to (Too many building to model, plus mostly Coasters and Amtraks run those tracks) but Spending over $500 bucks for one HO car to run, just doesn’t seem logical.
Now for a collector item, well they wife just wouldn’t approve of that.
What brings magic to this hobby is creating something from nothing and creating the California Surfliner from nothing would sure make be a happier, better modeler then spend over $500 bucks for a car that if to get a scratch or ding, I’m punching holes in walls or kicking the dog over.
I can totally understand. I got my set for about 400 a car and I told myself that was the last time I would make such an outlay for one set of cars. That said, they are gorgeous and always are a conversation piece.
BNSF4ever…can you post some pictures of your OMI Surfliner models?
Thanks,
Sean
I thank AMTRK14 is on the right track. I too would love to see some pictures.
I had taken some about six months ago. If I can find them I’ll try to post them here.