New DCC Mantua Metals General 4-4-0

Hey gang,
I’m just looking for some insght on these. I’m not sure if anyone can help or not, but I’ll give it a shot. The new General has been on the pre-order board at Walthers (with no price) for some time now. I believe the release date has been changed at least 3 times since I’ve been scoping it out. Is this common? I have to admit being new and also being pretty focused on this train in particular, so I’m not that familiar with the hobby in general. So I was just curious if delays are common, and if this is a good or a bad thing. Also does anybody have a guess as to what the pricing may be. Again, I know it says “$0.00” on all the sites. I’m asking based on your experiences of either Mantua releases, engines that small, or your insider rescources, that type of thing. Hope to get some bites. Thanks in advance.

The former Mantua line is currently owned by Model Power. They announced right after they bought it they would be bringing out the old line products under the name Mantua Classics over a period of time. If you’re not worried about the DCC feature as in your thread title, you can probably find these on Ebay. I have two of these and have no idea where you’d ever get a decoder inside one of them. The motor is in the tender and there’s no room left over. The old Mantua/Tyco General is a die cast metal loco and this weight has given it pretty good pulling power for such a small engine.

To answer the part of your question about delays, this seems to have become quite common. Some companies have even been known to announce a product, possibly just to test the market and see how many advance orders come in, and then cancel production.

I think the longest delay I’ve had on an engine I’ve ordered is 18 months after the originally posted expected delivery date. Always makes me think of the old Model Railroader mag cartoon with two guys in a model railroad manufacturer’s office talking, the one guy looks at a handfull of papers and says “Hey, turns out we got a lot of orders for that 4-8-4 we announced last year…maybe we should think about going ahead and making it!!”

I just heard that Mantua is planing to release it´s new all metal DCC-ready 4-4-0 General locomotives in 5 different road names this year. Does anybody have any other information about that? Is there a date given when they will be released this year?