Just got my Athearn news letter -with 29 new items + a shirt!!! There are 4 N scale, the rest are HO, and the 29 count is just the basic models, not counting road names and numbers! One of the box cars has 3 paint schemes + 2 road #'s each for UP!! I guess Athearn is expecting an upturn in the hobby!![:D]
Now the question is will they be able tom ake them without delaying them several times over, like those F45s?
The news letter had a full amount of items compared to their past two months of releases, but I find it curious that the T55 merchandise is not even talked about in any fashion. They advertised and showed a great picture of the MT4’s in the latest Model railroader but they are not due for a few months.
Lets hope the Gevo’s and SD70Ace’s are being worked on also.
CZ
I need a re-run of RS-3’s in Reading as-delivered.
Both MR and RMC show a fairly healthy series of offerings from Athearn–whether it’s over the next month or over the next several months I don’t know, but it looks pretty positive to me.
And okay, maybe this sounds like wishful thinking on the part of this Old Fart, but I sure wouldn’t mind seeing Athearn do a re-issue of some of their old super-detailed metal freight car kits (with updated techniques, of course) from the "fifties. They were neat to put together, despite their six zillion parts, and just about all of the ones I built back when I was a teenager are still running on my MR, and can still pretty much stand up to the detail of the newer plastic ‘craftsman’ kits of today. Plus, they’re one HELL of a lot sturdier.
Just a wish, mind you.[:-^]
Tom [:)]
Just got the MRR newsletter. It seems that most of the Athearn releases are going to be for June 09. THAT’S TOO FAR AWAY!!![xx(]
I don’t expect to see any of the former T55 models released by Athearn until the last quarter of 09, considering the lead time required for them to let contracts to have them manufactured in China, and then the actual production and shipping delays that always seem to occur with any new model.
…anything that says shipping in June '09 says to me maybe Sep '09, grumble grumble…[|(]
Well dream on Tom, although one sees the 1980s-era Menzies reissues of the Athearn metal cars at swap meets from time to time. I was able to lay in a supply of parts before Menzies went under. The box car doors are virtually scale thickness. Indeed all the basic parts, ends and sides and roof, were close to scale thickness.
Dave Nelson
Most Athearn releases seem to be from the more modern era, practically nothing for us steam to diesel types. 
I was disapointed by the GP40-2’s. Very boring BN, Chessie CP, same crap they have put out before except different road numbers. They need to retool the GP40-2 and do some more interesting stuff. I like athearn but they need to retool their Geeps to compete with Atlas.
[:P][^]
More “Green” containers in HO…yum!