TCA Fall ‘06 Open House - Recap Part 3
Atlas O and Lionel had plenty to announce at the open house. First up was Atlas O’s Jim Weaver. He ran down all the interesting and new offerings for each of Atlas O’s three product lines.
Atlas O Master Series:
- Atlas O’s first steam loco will be an USRA 0-6-0 switcher. See my post here for more info. Initial road names will be Pennsylvania, Burlington, Jersey Central, Union Pacific and unlettered. Locomotives will be detailed specific to each road name. Shipping is scheduled for April ‘07.
Click on the link below to read on
- A series of F Units were announced. Locomotives in F2 & F3
Phase One versions will be released first. 6 different road names each
detailed specifically for the road name. Road names include 3 names
with A units only - Burlington, Rock Island, New York Central. 3 with
A & B units - Southern (black paint scheme), Lackawanna, Boston
& Maine. Available in 2 & 3 rail versions. Scale couplers
included. Minimum radius is O-36. Atlas O plans to eventually release
all versions of the F (F2 through F9) but not in any particular order.
Atlas will most likely release one per year. Each unit will be sold
separately. - New "corn syrup" tank cars were announced.
Trainman
- New RSD 715 Alco locomotives were announced in high and low nose
versions. Each RSD 715 includes a locomotive stand for displaying.
Initial road names include Santa Fe (low nose), Pennsy (High Nose),
C&O (High Nose) Southern Pacific (Low Nose Gray & Red). - A new 44 ft high cube boxcar will be produced. It will have
rotating bearing caps. Initial road names will be Union Pacific, Santa
Fe, Rio Grande, and Northern Pacific (dark green). Shipping next month. - New 3 bay PS2 covered hoppers will be produced. They will also
have rotating bearing caps. Initial road names will be Burlington,
Chessie System, Bakelite and Union Pacific. 2 road #’s for each.
Shipping next month. - New AAR 70 ton 3 bay coal hoppers will be produced. 2 versions -
arched and flat ends. Rotating bearing caps. 2 road #’s for each road
name.
Industrial Rail
- Atlas will improve all existing Industrial Rail cars with better paint. Boxcars and a tank car were shown.
- The original Industrial Rail caboose did not fit Altas’ needs
because it was too small so they developed a new caboose for the
Industrial Rail line. - Industrial Rail locomotive has been announced (wasn’t shown).
New frieght cars and track system will be coming out shortly. The
track system will be compatible with existing Atlas O track. Track
will have tubular rails, be built in 0-36 and higher curves and will
have a realistic profile. - Industrial Rail street car is being redesigned (moving rollers). Trolley will be offered in protypical paint schemes.
Next up was Lionel. Unfortunately I had to take a call from my real
job a few minutes before the start of the Lionel presentation so I lost
out on getting a good front row spot and hence didn’t get a chance to
snap any good photos. Most of the items Lionel had to display were not
available after the presentation so I snapped shots of the few items
that were available.
- Lionel will have displays in Fortunoff’s and be in Grand Central Station this year.
- Quite a few pieces of "K Line by Lionel" will be in the next catalog.
- TMCC2 Legacy will not be demostrated at York. They are not
demonstrating it because it is not ready for production yet. Lionel is
working hard to get Legacy out by end of year. Demonstrations in the
future will be conducted as small focused demonstrations around the
country. Clubs and dealers will host most of the demostrations. - Discussed UP licensing agreement. Lionel will produce an
"offically licensed" version of the UP Heritage series locomotives. 6
locos will be delivered in ‘07 and ‘08 and appear in the next catalog.
An unmentioned "surprise" will also come about as a result of the
UP/Lionel agreement. - Irene’s diner (from most recent catalog) is chrome plated and will have a fully detailed interior.
- A Pennsy Mikado that didn’t make catalog but will be produced.
- Birney trolley car has been modified with more roof details and
will be re-released. 3rd Avenue Railway system will be first road name. - James from Thomas the Tank Engine was shown. Additional Thomas items will be in the 2007 Volume 1 catalog.
- The Polar Express elf hand car was displayed. It looked cool and will be a must have for Polar Express fans.
- Lionel will be producing heavyweight passenger cars in S-Scale.
- The C&O George Washington locomotive and passenger cars were shown. Both were very impressive.
- Hiawatha Obeservation car was shown and it was fantastic. Great detail on the "beaver tail" end of the car.
- GGI Silver "Congressional" loco was shown. Very nice. Lionel will also produce the Congressional passenger cars.
- New Sante Fe F7 shown. It will have a different color LED that is more realistic (less blue color).
- Lionmaster Cab Forward was shown. It will operate on O-36 radius curves. A very nice piece.
- R-27 subway cars were discussed but no pre-production model was
shown. The subway train will feature TMCC2 Legacy with opening doors
and detailed route lights. The railsounds will include the subway
operator announcing the location of the Lionel headquarters since it
was near the subway line that is being produced. - A pre-production model of the Big Boy was shown and Lionel still
expects to ship it at the end of the year with the included TMCC2 Legacy system. - Lionel Century Club is in "hiatus" and at this point in time and Lionel hasn’t decided on the future of the club.
- K-Line Super Streets will be produced next year.
- Tinplate "prewar set" will ship at the end of the year.
That wraps up my recap of the Fall ‘06 TCA open house. Sorry for the
delay of Part 3 but a little thing called sleep got in my way last
night and then I spent all of my time today at York.
Dave
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One Response to “TCA Fall ‘06 Open House - Recap Part 3”
You should have had your phone turned off.
Posted by: Mark | Oct 19, 2006 at 10:57 PM