There is a report "on another forum" that they are arriving at shops now. Standing by! 

You forgot T&NO and the NWP. They're also covered by UP's licensing.

BNSF licenses all of their predecessors, too. You think they're going to let red/silver out into the wilds of "public domain"? No way.

(I know A LOT about this licensing crap. Too much, really - sort of like knowing what's in the sausage. My overlooking B&O was a mind fart, forgetting that CSX was just being CSX, the road I love to hate for their corporate shenanigans.)

Interesting... good point. I just checked their licensing docs, and CSX is in fact protecting B&O (and everything else theirs) to the tune of $1 for each model. I would not be surprised, however, if they granted the major makers a waiver or low-fee up-front license just out of the economy of not having to administer it.

Actually, in the reading it, CSX's current license is pretty draconian relative to the others better known for it, at least the fee schedule is. The others have backed-off per-unit pricing.

Now you make me wonder whether the McGinnis scheme has any protection. Hmmm.

At risk of asking to spoil a possible pleasant surprise... 

Mr. Bach-mann: do the Centennials happen to be in the same container with the 44-tonners?

Quote from: rdrnnr1971 on April 21, 2009, 07:21:50 PM
Anyone know if they will be offering the 44 ton in the Rio Grande scheme, like they are in HO scale??

Doubtful. I noticed a while back that all of the schemes being offered don't require image licensing. D&RGW would be a UP-owned appearance. It's not that licensing is expensive (fortunately), it's just a hassle which requires management attention.

I really do wish that they (the Bachmann "they") had offered the 44-tonner in true unpainted/undecorated. That would make for less effort for those of us modeling licensed-image roads to do our own thing, as it were.

IOW, welcome to model railroading in the corporate oligopoly era. 

Minimum radius is ~9"... and of course it looks ridiculous on it. 

They run OK considering that only one truck is powered. I discovered that the retaining ears which keep the trucks in the frame are fragile, so it's maybe a bit too easy to turn it into a non-runnable "yard queen".

OOooooooo... 

This is good news. My edu-analysis is that these are live production samples express-shipped ahead of the rest of the production being loaded into a container, and we mere mortals get to wait for the boat. The handrails on the yellow one are all askew because somebody probably didn't pack it right; kudos to B'mann for pix of the real thing even tho' it wasn't perfect.

Guess is probably 3-5 weeks 'til hitting dealer shelves.

Thanks for the detailed response and the nice photo. I'll add 6922 to my notes.

One special spotting feature of the "mid" run Centennials is the sharp-but-slightly-bold outlining of the lettering, and the yellow is not paint - that's the plastic the body is molded in. This was a technique used by some HO manufacturers back in the '60s that was usually associated with toy-quality brands (like Tyco), but it is clear from the two I have that there was a quantum leap in finish quality. I daresay the final appearance is worlds better than the first Bachmann version (I also have two of those).

These things are stump-pullers because like the prototype you have two locomotives in the same body. Then, the extra length adds about 20% more weight than you would have by coupling two "lesser" conventional model locos together.

Two downsides, one you'll have to be on the lookout for, the other you can choose to ignore. These mid-gen Big Jacks have a tendency to spontaneously crack axle gears. You'll hear it in a "click-click-click-..." which gets worse with load. Both of mine have it, and, like yours, they were recently acquired new, from old stock.

The second issue with the second-generation rendition is, while they look great in isolation or next to another of its own kind, couple them to any other current N scale locomotive or compare the model to a photo of the real thing, and suddenly you're scratching your head in the realization that it's quite an approximation. The hood is 20% too wide, and the nose proportions are all wrong.

The latter stuff is a big issue for my rivet-counter-ness and is primarily why I'm hanging around here micromonitoring the process on the new release. From preliminary photos the most glaring bugs seem to be addressed. You see, the 40X's for most of their active life were run as DDA40X-SD40-DDA40X sets. These 8000-series SD40's had special high-speed gearing to match; we called these lashups "Fast-Forty Sandwiches". Anyway, in any effort to model the heyday, as soon as you plop a Kato SD40 in the middle of a pair of 1st- or 2nd-generation Bach 40X's, the proportion problems jump out and bite ya'. 

I agree. There is a relatively foolproof way to tell - if it is truly a new locomotive (even if from old stock) and therefore hasn't been repainted or relettered, the road numbers are unique for each production group:

6926 - original production from the mid-'80s.
6906, 6938, 6941 - "Plus" and "Spectrum" versions, mid-'90s to around 2004.
6915, 6927, 6932, 6943 - 2008 announced version that we don't think has been shipped yet.

I may have missed a number for the middle release, but for certain if it is not 6915, 6927, 6932, or 6943, it is not the new release.

Quote from: jwoj69 on March 15, 2009, 06:31:49 PM
thidrail post it that intermountain will come with cab forward next month, any idea on pricing?

Estimated MSRP is $329.

Quote from: jwoj69 on March 14, 2009, 01:33:46 AM
I DO NOT THING MANY PEOPLE LIKE MY IDEA OF BACHMANN PRODUCING 4-6-6-4 ( EVEN THEIR PRICE PROBABLY WOULD BE LESS THAN HALF OF ATHEARN)...

Apologies to the others, but I can't let this pass...

You clearly don't have a realistic (or, possibly, current) notion of what it costs to commercially produce a model, and how the startup and tooling costs - tens of thousands of dollars - have to be recovered in the retail price. Half? Less than half? For a very complex new model with new tooling? No way. Absolutely no way. B'mann might be able to produce it, but MSRP is still going to be in the $300 ballpark.

The only "mistake" that Athearn made is not offering the Challenger in a soundless version. That adds roughly $100 to the sale price due to multiple technology licensing issues. Maybe your tack here should be to prevail on Athearn for exactly that - no sound, knock a Ben Franklin off the price.

Again - you want a Challenger, buy the Athearn. Let Bachmann add to the variety by offering other prototypes.

Patience. The recession and money-flow woes have disrupted a lot of production schedules. There are only a couple of factories in China producing N (and I think one just bought the other), so the schedule slippages are clobbering everybody.

The delay situation on the DDA40X and 44-tonner is nothing, anyway. I just canceled a moderate advance order (non-Bachmann) because the importer pushed the delivery estimate back for the fourth time, and is now a year delayed since first promised. Now that's ridiculous.

Bachmann does steam well, at a reasonable market price. But so does Athearn. Even if Bachmann pared the development expenses to the bone, you're still talking about a $275-325 end result. Also, the Challenger has been over-done, with two plastic versions and at least two brass versions over the past three decades. The Athearn model represents the apex of the craft at this point.

With less variance these days between producers, duplicate products benefit nobody and actually damage the market because it takes longer to recover the fixed costs.

So... want a Challenger? Buy the Athearn. It's good... really good. Prevail on Bachmann to make something different. Like an FEF-3.

I have secondhand reports from the Springfield show that the new DDA40X looks great! Very much looking forward to release of this model.

Now the question becomes... "Bachmann, are you ready for the avalanche of Spectrum Centennials with broken gears needing warranty swaps?" 

Springfield, MA. The Amherst show. http://www.railroadhobbyshow.com/