Edited Feb 26. See the post below Although this is a Kato unit it is being offered only thru European dealers. It was painted and pad printed by Lemke, a Kato distributor in Europe. This was also confirmed by a fellow N modeler in the UK who picked one up at a train show in Scotland over the weekend. All American Trains in Germany is showing it as in-stock now on their website with a retail price of DM 309. (Approx $USD 145). AAT website was updated Feb 24. Links are provided to a photo of the prototype and 5 different shots of the model. Looking at the couplers, it is definitely a Kato unit. The handrails are all black on the model per Kato current production. It does >not< feature the placards placed on the handrails by UP shop forces showing the names of UP employees who served in the Persian Gulf war. Also missing are the white reflective Scotchlite stripes along the frame sills Until now this unit was available only as a custom painted/decaled unit from BLW and other custom painters. Check out the release info at this URL http://home.t-online.de/home/All-American-Trains/newkatn.htm Courtesy post only No affiliation wth All American Trains. N Joy Don Brown Tucson AZ USA [ 26 February 2001: Message edited by: dbn160 ]
This model is painted by Wolfgang Lemke and Company, one of KATO's European importers. These will not be available for sale in the USA. Lemke is notorious for not wanting to wholesale to US dealers so if you want one you will have to obtain it from a European dealer.
The Kato engine is not the correct phase of SD40-2 for this engine. Kato's engine is a phase Ib. The real 3593 is a phase IIb SD40-2. The difference is the nose length.
i noticed the guy used a snoot instead of a standard sd40-2 for it. apparently he can't get any pics of the unit kinda like atlas and kato since most of their paint jobs are messed up too.......
It looks to me like he used the snoot instead of the short nose due to the fact that the snoot has a brake wheel instead of the lever. I guess this feature was more inportant than the nose length. It would have been rather easy to create the correct length of nose from a snoot just by chopping and rejoining. The join would have been completely concealed by the cab. By the way this could be done with a regular painted model too. No one would ever know the difference.
I think the reason they used the snoot was that the snoots are SOOOOO easy to find, while the undec regular nose SD40-2's are pretty much extinct. I don't like to put down paint jobs and yes, it could be the light, but those colors to do not look right at all. The trucks are wrong, no plackards, wrong nose, etc.
Fellas, For those who want a more prototypical unit, yes,it could have been modeled alot better. The major differnce in the Snoot and 'Straight 40-2' are the grilles. Yes the length of the nose has been discussed before, and albeit tiny is still noticeable to trained eyes. The most glaring era to me is the paint, which should have been 13D highlighted by immitaion aluminum stripping Have to do a give and take on the Katos, correct grilles for the unit pictured, but wrong nose any way you cut it..isn't the nose correct only for ATSF? You can easily fix the rachet type brake lever and replace it with a wheel, just a matter of filling the area with gap filling CA and sanding, then drill out the appropriate location for the wheel. Well I'm crawling back under my rock unitl something SouthEastern happens by. Have a good one, Justin May [ 27 February 2001: Message edited by: Justin May ]
The Kato snoot SD40-2 is a phase Ib. It is appropriate for a UP SD40-2. It has a 116" nose. ATSF SD40-2s have a 123" nose. The nose length is noticable between a phase Ia, which has a 81" nose, and a phase Ib unit.
No one makes the actual engine stock.A custom painter will have to make the engine and then paint it.Some kitbashing goes into this unit butif you get a good final product it is well worth it.
tpw, unfortunately no one does it that is not a custom job. i made one last year and it blows everyone away when i bring it out at shows, i will find some pics of it and post here. it is correct version and detailed to the max, i am toying with the idea of bashing another one and doing an article for n scale rring but up would probably want some kind of kick back on it.
I will due one , pics if you email , I warn you lots of work , and price reflects that take a look at the N scale decal sheet. Dave
tpw here are the pics of the one i did, started with a sd40-2 snoot and chopped the the sd60 short hood to mate, thus giving us the sd40-2 phase 2 grills. the microscale decals completely cracked and dissolved while applying so the dark brown is actually hand painted, and not with model paint so it is not any thicker than what you get with an airbrush, as you can see numerous details where added to it, along with the yellow ribbons on the walkways.
dave sorry but the decal sheet actually fits no where close to proto. after printing over 50 pics of this thing they are much larger than what the proto paint splotches actually are, the freehand i did is actually done from these pics and match much closer than the decals did. not to mention the color is closer, the decals were too dark, not even close to the desert storm camo brown.
I have seen Mitch's engine in person and it is probably the best version in Nscale.I have yet to see the handpainting like he did.It is true that the decals just don't look right either.I saw both versions when he was doing this and the handpainted one is both closer to the real thing and looks better.I have yet to ask him to do one for me because I saw what he went through doing the first one.But I still want one very badly.Hint Hint Hint
I too have seen Mitch's UP engine and since I get paid for knowing such things, will add my two cents. Mitch is correct when he says the decals do not match. This in no way is a slam against Microscale at all as I use their decals almost exclusively. The difference here is that the decals are based on pantones, while the paint Mitch used is based on the Federal Standard color system. A pantone can never fully match a true paint color. Without getting into paint theory, Mitch felt that his model would be more accurate if he painted it. I have found that there are two predominant N scale modelers in the world. Operator: Buys the engine, takes it out of the box and runs it as is. Detailer: Buys undec, details it, paints it and decals it. Mitch, Craig, myself and others are they type who will loose sleep if we see an engine with a Leslie double chime when it should have a Nathen 5P Nothing wrong with either one, as long as it's N scale, its all good
