Looks like Athearn is on a roll with big articulated steam engines.
Next up is the HO Z-7 and Z8 of the Northern Pacific and the Spokane, Seattle and Portland.
All new tooling and premium sound from Tsunami.
Msrp $629.00
Looks interesting.
Here’ a link to it:
http://www.athearn.com/newsletter/042216/01_Genesis_Z8_update_042216.pdf
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Don’t want to rain on the parade, but the news about the Z-8 is over a year old.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/245951.aspx
Now, if it’s already here…
Nope.
Andre
Andre,
That link is an update…stating ETA Sept.2016…We will see…
I don’t need or want any…so that’s fine with Me, whenever they show up.
Take Care! [:D]
Frank
Wierd, the announcements went up April 22 and are only now going out via email. That’s a couple weeks old now.
These was the May announcement not Aprils.
In April they announced the early UP challengers.
Would much prefer seeing small/smaller steam. Not enough of them get released, IMO.
Tom
Well, I just got an email from Athearn entitled May Anouncements and they all are dated April 22 and I saw them two weeks ago in April. Just sayin …
Ditto. More affordable too!
Which Tsunami? The going out of production Tsunami, the Economi, or a “light” version of either?
Thanks for passing this news along. I like how we can access old Athearn news to zoom up to see rolling stock bld dates. That makes life a bit easier for me, and other rivet counters.
This is an updated announcement, apparently actually the second update, because the first was about April 22, after pre-orders had closed. The original pre-order deadline was the same as for the early UP Challengers, except that at that time only a line drawing was shown for the NP and SP&S Challengers, so you had to pre-order based upon just a drawing.
Now they have added more information.
Had the information been available prior to the pre-order deadline, I might have ordered one. Oh well. Too late.
John
Good question. Very probably, completeley new decoder, the new “premium” line of Soundtraxx sound decoders, which should (hopefully) very soon replace old, good Tsunami (which is not manufactured any more, it is on sale at Licthfield Station, btw. - I received an e-mail from them, they sell them for 65-75 USD “while supply lasts”). Ok, not so good in some aspects (motor control), but still, for the age of it, very good.
Hrvoje
For me, motor control comes first - then sound. If a sound decoder doesn’t have good motor control then I’m not interested in it.
Hopefully the new “Economi” decoders have made some improvements in that area. I’ll wait and see before purchasing one though. In the meantime I’ll stick with Loksound and TCS.
Tom
From what I have read on Soundtraxx new group, motor control has been considerably improved with Econami. It would be a disaster to launch a new decoder that cannot match current decoders on the market.
TCS has great motor control (I have two WOW sound decoders), but it is not manually adjustable (as opposed to ESU or Soundtraxx), which can be problematic with older motors, or with coreless motors. But with high quality motor (five pole, skewed armature), motor control is superb. I installed one in Trix Big Boy, and this is the most incredible, absolutely the smoothest drive control I have ever seen. It is not possible to observe transition between any speed step (while stopping or starting) – or at least, I was not able to see it.
Hrvoje
That’s great news, Hrvoje! I might look into one at some point. Along with the motor control, do you know if Soundtraxx addressed the anemic horn on the diesel sound files?
Tom
At some point, I think it’s time for Athearn to fire up another run of those Roundhouse 4-4-0’s, 2-6-0’s and 2-8-0s. And this time please give some of the lesser known railroads a chance like “Sierra”, “Illinois Central”, “Lackawanna” and many more.
As far as sound is concerned, I concluded from all discussions that sound has been improved too. I do not know the details for specific whistle, though.
But, I think Econami is a great value for money if you are not too demanding (in features).
If more is expected, than I would consider WOW diesel decoder. It has very nice, innovative feature “Auto nothing” which depends on motor load (decoder uses self calibration feature for that).
There are some videos about that feature, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WznyqC-rKOk
But ESU is also not “sleeping”, see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k-MfiBY7eQ&feature=youtu.be
Therefore, I am really curious what Soundtraxx has to offer with their (expected) new Tsunami.
In any case, we can enjoy the fruits of competition on the market[:)]
Hrvoje