Atlas keeps it simple
Posted on November 20th, 2008 in Railways |
A Penn Central Alco… sign me up!
I HAVE A dislike of Atlas’ Trainman philosophy that borders on the pathological, but when the New Jersey-based firm recently chucked out its Alco RS32/36 in Penn Central colours, I had to get one.
The infamous 1970s railroad rostered 25 out of the 35 the 2,000hp RS32 (DL721) locos built, all being acquired via the New York Central. Constructed between 1961-62, Nos. 8020-44 were all delivered without dynamic brakes, following usual NYC practice. They were renumbered 2020-44 on the PC merger.
What I don’t really get about the Trainman range is exactly who it is aimed at. The specification suggests kids, hamfisted modellers and people who only care about operation. It certainly isn’t great value. This RS32 was exactly the same street price as an Athearn SD40T-2, which is a C-C trucked loco, and sports bells, whistles and much more, especially now that Athearn has tightened up the quality control on the mechanism side of its models (not that I’ve ever had a bad one).
What you get for your $60 is fairly well detailed non-dynamic body with moulded everything. Look at that awful air cylinder, for example (the fuel tank is completely wrong for PC’s RS32s anyway), as well as irrational stuff like windscreen wipers that would have been better left of entirely, but thankfully no grabs… Drilling dimples were campaigned for and delivered on the earlier GP38-2 and this has been repeated here. There are also the chunkiest handrails since the 1970s and a motor and chassis design nicked off the Master/Classic series line locos.
Clearly, with this level of specification, Atlas will be making a killing compared to the ‘added value’ recent locos in the Athearn Ready-To-Roll series. Now I’m seeing why Atlas likes the range so much!
On the other hand, it is difficult to complain too much about the RS32 and RS36 being released as Trainman quality products, as it is just nice to see these fairly uncommon Alcos produced in plastic. Just 70 machines were constructed in total, with the bulk going to the Delaware & Hudson, Nickel Plate/Norfolk & Western, Southern Pacific and Tennessee Central, other than the NYC batch.
Even better is that Atlas doesn’t appear to have made quite the hash of this loco as it did with the GP38-2,. So, with a considerable amount of work, including, unfortunately, enough money to make this project actually more expensive than a Master Series product, this will detail up into an excellent looking model.
Overall, then more positives than negatives, but I won’t be making a habit of purchasing Trainman locos. The EMD GP38-2 was junk, and the later phases of the GP40-2 look to be a much better starting point for those looking for a decent quality GP39-2… It might even be less work!