Someone over on nscaledotnet has a blurb that Uncle Irv and company is going to have a Big Boy out by Christmas; the last time I got this excited was when I read in the paper that Monica Lewinski might move to Phoenix!!!
I have waited for this news for so long; I never thought that anyone would ever offer these but here they are; sure as shootin’. Why I was so thrilled at this news that I immediately put in my reservation for twenty-six of these; I want to model the whole fleet!!!
Got any pics?
Poteet the UP only had 25 of the Big Boys: #4000-4024. Are you doing one of the locos twice?
The extra one’s for Monica…
You Big Boy fans sure are a rabid bunch. I could see one or two, but…[%-)]
For your sake, R. T., I sure hope that whoever manufacturers them turns out a good product. Otherwise, your gonna be one unhappy Big Boy owner 26 times over.
Tom
I hope they release a GP-38 too!! Those things are hard to find![;)]
Party Pooper!!!
Not being familiar with that particular side of the family, who is Uncle Irv?
The late Irv Athearn.
You, sir, are obviously not observant of satirical reverence, are you? Surely you would not wish to lay upon me the wrath of the model railroading community - proscription and deportation, shunning, perhaps even stoning and burning at the stake in the most extreme of circumstances - where the name Big Boy is hallowed above all others and before which one must show obsequious obligation; second in this pantheon of deference is the great God Cab-Forward before which one must also lower one’s eyes to the floor and kowtow. There will be great jubilation within the (N Scale) model railroading congregation if, in reality, Athearn does bring forward a Big Boy and Intermountain does offer a Cab-Forward.
Me? I will raise great hosannas to the host that first offers an (affordable) Allegheny on the market particularly if, like Athearn’s recently offered Challenger, it’ll pull a decent length of train. I am 67 years old and I suspect that I will have to live to the age of 117 so see such a thing come to pass.
Noobie noobie! Veterans of the HO model RR hobby know Uncle Irv as the former owner and president of Athearn Inc. God rest his soul. Of course Athearn’s company has made some HUGE leaps and bounds since it went under new management, but it was a good company before then for its time provided modest priced good quality HO trains.
Well, Uncle Irv’s descendants had better start scoring some home runs, and quick. With all the complaining threads about the company’s recent locomotive offererings (not all of them, no, but too many for my liking), they need to hang on to their corner of the market. I hope, for R.T.'s sake, that this smaller version of the Big Boy is a grand slam…they really need it.
R.J.
Here’s to you, fellah. Now if I could only find 16 more Missabe Yellowstones to go with the two I’ve already got, I’d be one very happy camper. Oh yah, and 19 more L-131’s, too.
I’ve already got my 257 SP AC Cab-Forwards. Can’t remember how many duplicates, but hey–
Tom [}:)]
I would like to add something to riogrande5751’s comment: Irv Athearn was not the first to use styrene plastic as a modeling medium for HO Scale locomotives but probably more than any other he made it acceptable; some manufacturers, like Bowser - with the exception of their Stewart Models line, of course - have continued to use white metal as a modeling material. There were still companies casting locomotives in brass when I first got in the hobby in the early-60s but Uncle Irv was doing a land office business with his $12.98 diesels cast in - horror of horrors - plastic. I can’t immediately recall their names but most locomotive manufacturers from that era have long since departed the scene.
R.T.
Thanks for the clarification. Actually, I’ve heard even stranger and more bizarre things come from folks here on the MR forum than what you satirically proposed. So I wouldn’t have been too surprised if you had reserved 26 Big Boys for your arsenal. And I guess I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t observant…
Tom
I hope you DON’T believe everything you read as gospel on forums…If so wanna by a ocean front house in Arizona?
It is interesting that a locomotive so overproduced in HO scale would just now be getting to N-scale.
Well, I guess the cat’s outta the bag now! R.T. has some DEEEEEP pockets!
I wouldn’t mind having 25 BLI big boys… That’d be fun. I’m 12… and can only afford one.
R.T. is buying 26 of them so he can model #4005 in both its coal and oil-burning incarnations. [:-,]