i heard a while back that athearn said they were doing RTR SD45s soon. has there been any update to this? i know they also said they were gonna do RTR SD40T-2s and i only just saw those show up on the site (yeah i know it’s been a few months). so that makes me wonder if the SD45 is coming soon
I don’t know but if Athearn uses their old blue box SD45 shell it will be too wide and will only sell to neophytes. I haven’t heard of a retooling but that doesn’t mean they haven’t or won’t. Since I don;t stay to current they may already have done that. The Bachman SD45 can be made to run pretty well and is reasonably priced. of course the best one IMHO is the Kato if you can find one.
A upgraded SD45(no kin to the old BB SD45) is suppossely in the works.The new RTR SD40-2 is no kin to the old BB SD40-2 either.
The Bachmann SD45 is ok but,the P2K is superior to the Bachmann…However the best choice is the Kato SD45 if you can find 'em.
I thought it was an SD45T-2 that was announced.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. Like BRAKIE said they said they still have it in the makings. I’ve even Emailed them and they said they had plans for the SD45. But this was a while back. At my LHS I picked up a booklet of there “6 axels” diesels. They didn’t have the SD45 in there, but they did have the SD45-2 and SD45T-2. I really hope they still have plans to make the SD45.
yeah i hope so too. KATO has the best SD45, but the WC one is lame. they used a one-of-a-kind paint scheme
I would suspect that the “retooled” SD45 is probably the old Rail Power Products shell that Athearn acquired when they bought out that line. That is also where they got the new scale-width GP35 shell, and probably others. Can’t say about a timeline for this, unfortunately.
The Kato unit you are referring to is the second run of WC SD45s. I have the first 3 from a while ago. 2 were factory numbered 6585 and 6582 and the 3rd was unnumbered. All are in the normal WC scheme.
Check on idiotbay as they sometimes show up there.
Jim
This is old news. It is only a question of when. Athearn sent notice to the model industry that they could do the SD45 when they did their SD40. The two locomotives share the same frame. This is just a question of when.
are they really that bad? I bought one about 2 years ago (MRL) for 30$ and I’m quite happy with it. granted they are a bit noisy and they aren’t as detailed as my other units, but it still doesn’t look out of place in a contsist. but hey what do I know, I never had anything other then proto 1k/2k and Athearn (for american stock that is) [:)]
The old BB SD45 is a foot to wide and has “old school” tooling with less details…However,for the $30.00 price tag its still a mighty good bargin for a locomotive that will run for hours in the years to come…
yes and no. Athearn engines can be handed down from generation to generation. i purchased my SD45 around 1970 and it is still going. If you can live with the mentioned shell width it will give 25 or more years of service. It comes down to where you are at the moment on the fidelity of scale and faithfulness to the prototype. as I said Irv Atheran was responsibe for keeping the cost of the hobby extremely reasonable at some cost of reporduction of the prototype.
Athearn’s web site lists only an SD45T-2 in the RTR locomotive line.
yeah the SD45T-2 is currently available in RTR and the SD45-2 is available in the genesis line. athearn is doing every EMD 45 series diesel except for the SD45 right now. even the F45 has attention
THEY’RE HEEEEERE!!!
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=SD45+RTR&CatID=THLD&NYA=1
PRR, SP, DRGW, and N&W
…where’s CNW, ATSF, Frisco, BN, and especially WC!!!
I am disappointed they did not do a SOO model[V] Perhaps the next run.
Jim
Jim: SOO Line had a slug of SD40s, but no SD45s. They did host the SD45 demonstrators.
Ed
yeah i’m hoping there will be more paint schemes coming out soon. i’m not sure how many AC44s athearn started out with, but there sure are a LOT of them out now. and more on the way. so maybe we’ll see more SD45s.
i’m emailing them asking if one of the WCs can be 6620. heh heh
Ed, they were relatively unknown but they did have 2 SD 45s, # 6491 and 6492, both ex BN. Sadly they never made it into SOO white or red. They were patched over similar to the way the Milwaukee units were after the purchase. Here are a couple of photos:
http://sooline.dieselrosters.com/photo.aspx?lineageId=481&photoId=988
http://sooline.dieselrosters.com/photo.aspx?lineageId=482&photoId=1453
Jim
Yay. I’m kinda sad they didn’t make a WC one. Like Soo Line fan said, maybe next run.