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Post by nw611 on Jul 17, 2012 8:12:51 GMT -8
Next month, Intermountain will be announcing HO ES44ACs in the ten NS Heritage paint schemes (click on "IRCModelersClub" on the right side of IM home page). In the meanwhile Fox Valley Models announced Intermountain ES44ACs in Virginian & Ohio and Allegheny Midland paint schemes. I was under the impression that these two masterpieces of free-lancing did not exist anymore. In any case, better V&O and AM than the ficticious road names (C&NW, Chessie, Southern, WP, GN, NYC, BN, SP, L&N, EL, D&H, GM&O) that IM has announced lately for ES44ACs. I thought that the poor sales of fictcious models was one of the reasons of the end of Tower 55. Ciao. Raffaele
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Post by onequiknova on Jul 17, 2012 8:37:36 GMT -8
Are they tooling up for the correct phase, or are they going to use their existing tooling?
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Post by middledivision on Jul 17, 2012 8:46:38 GMT -8
Next month, Intermountain will be announcing HO ES44ACs in the ten NS Heritage paint schemes (click on "IRCModelersClub" on the right side of IM home page). In the meanwhile Fox Valley Models announced Intermountain ES44ACs in Virginian & Ohio and Allegheny Midland paint schemes. I was under the impression that these two masterpieces of free-lancing did not exist anymore. In any case, better V&O and AM than the ficticious road names (C&NW, Chessie, Southern, WP, GN, NYC, BN, SP, L&N, EL, D&H, GM&O) that IM has announced lately for ES44ACs. I thought that the poor sales of fictcious models was one of the reasons of the end of Tower 55. Ciao. Raffaele Actually, there are Southern and NYC painted units in service on Norfolk Southern now. And the Intermountain NS Heritage units will sell like hotcakes, regardless of any missing rivets. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2012 9:27:05 GMT -8
Are they tooling up for the correct phase, or are they going to use their existing tooling? IMRC wasn't specific, but it appears they will be using existing tooling. Doing the NS heritage units is kind of an incomplete. Sure Intermountain will put pretty paint and their standard thread bare details on the big GE, but either Athearn or MTH will need to step up to the plate to do the Ace's. At the pace that Athearn is rolling out the UP heritage Ace's they may get around to dribbling out an NS heritage Ace by 2016 or later.... By that time the prototype may be repainted should the brass at NS roll over and have a bad day. |
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Post by arandall70 on Jul 17, 2012 12:01:25 GMT -8
Are they tooling up for the correct phase, or are they going to use their existing tooling? IMRC wasn't specific, but it appears they will be using existing tooling. Doing the NS heritage units is kind of a incomplete. Sure Intermountain will put pretty paint and their standard thread bare details on the big GE, but either Athearn or MTH will need to step up to the plate to do the Ace's. At the pace that Athearn is rolling out the UP heritage Ace's they may get around to dribbling out an NS heritage Ace by 2016 or later.... By that time the prototype may be repainted should the brass at NS roll over and have a bad day. From what I read, I got the impression that they were making changes to the model to reflect the changing features of GE's Evolution series. The one I will be most interested to see is the Monongahela, as it is an oddball, with different features than the other 9 GE units. From the email I recieved: "...In 2005 GE locomotive group began production of the Evolution series locomotives, the dominant mainline locomotive in North America. These locomotives were manufactured to meet Tier II emission standards. During 2008 enhancements were made to the locomotive addressing Tier III standards. Current production meets Tier III standards. From a modeling standpoint there are three variations of these locomotives. The first variation, which was produced from 2005 through 2007 in both ES44AC and ES44DC versions, carried unique detail configurations for each individual owner. The second variation, for which production began in 2008, was noticeably different in appearance. Still more visual changes are being made in current production as locomotives are being built to meet Tier III standards. To the modeler this means that there are numerous models for a number of roads during at least three production periods that have to be produced to meet their modeling requirements. We at InterMountain are making every run of these locomotives detail specific in order to meet your needs and desires in this regard. This requires an ongoing process of tooling changes in order to produce all of the variations correctly. Recently Norfolk Southern announced the production of several "Heritage Series" paint schemes commemorating a number of the predecessor railroads that have been incorporated into Norfolk Southern. These Evolution Series locomotives will include ten unique paint schemes. Next month InterMountain will announce the production of all of the appropriate schemes for these ES44AC's. They will include Conrail, Southern, Pennsylvania, Nickel Plate (NKP), Monongahela, Norfolk Southern, Interstate, Norfolk & Western, Central of Georgia, and Lehigh Valley. ..." Hopefully the ACe's will be along shortly from the other guys, but the schemes I really want will be coming from IM, so I'im content to wait a little while longer for ACe's |
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Post by nw611 on Jul 17, 2012 13:50:15 GMT -8
Middledivision, as far as I know, all the Heritage units (10 ES44ACs and 10 SD70ACes) are now in service on NS. Look at this picture:
"http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=402338".
Ciao. Raffaele
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Post by drolsen on Jul 17, 2012 23:43:16 GMT -8
From what I read, I got the impression that they were making changes to the model to reflect the changing features of GE's Evolution series. I heard the same thing on another forum, I believe from someone who talked with an Intermountain rep about the announcement. I think that's a great move for them. The NS Heritage units will obviously sell very well (maybe even to people like me who don't model the contemporary era!), and tooling the different production variations allows them to offer correct versions of other railroads' standard units. With as many GEVOs as there are on the rails these days, that will only help Intermountain sell more of them. Dave |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2012 3:47:07 GMT -8
Will be interesting to see how long it actually takes them to hit the shelves. 2013? early 2014? Intermountain says they are going to expedite the production, but we all know that China has the final word.
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Post by middledivision on Jul 18, 2012 9:00:11 GMT -8
Yes, I know. I just listed the two roads in your post. |
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Post by conley4760 on Jul 18, 2012 10:20:12 GMT -8
The reason Tower 55 went away was due to a legal matter with naming rights. There is a radio/remote controlled R/C company (not sure what they make) that basically forced Brian out of the name. Not sure of the money side of things, but it must have been better to let it go than have to pay royalties.
This was from a conversation I had with him at the OKC train show a number of years back.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2012 10:35:03 GMT -8
Not sure of the money side of things What cost Overland so much in the Tower 55/T55 was they had to totally re-brand. Labels, advertising and anything that had Tower 55 on it had to be changed. You could write a paper on the how's and why's OMI's T55 project failed. The naming was just one of many icebergs that struck a giant hole in the project. |
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Post by nw611 on Jul 18, 2012 12:56:07 GMT -8
Middlevision, I understand your point. Intermountain, however, just pre-announced the NS Heritage ES44ACs, but also officially announced ES44ACs in 12 other fantasy schemes (items # 49757 to 49768), the ones I listed in my original post. The Southern fantasy scheme is tuxedo (black/aluminum), used by NS for its Savannah & Atlanta unit, while the real Heritage Southern ES44AC is in green/aluminum. The fantasy NYC ES44AC scheme (lightning stripes)is instead similar to the real Heritage scheme, with the little difference that the real NYC unit is a SD70ACe. If you go to the Intermountain website, you will find the fantasy schemes, but not yet the real Heritage schemes, to be officially announced in August. I hope I was clear. English is not my first language. Ciao. Raffaele
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Post by atsfan on Jul 20, 2012 11:48:10 GMT -8
Tower 55 did not go away because of the name. They could have changed it easily.
It went away because their first product was junk. It "looked" great.
But it had some sort of POJ decoder sound system in it (MRC?) which was lousy and did not start making noise until after the engine started moving.
For $300 people stopped buying them or returned them. I know a large dealer who shipped 12 back and got into an fight over money and payments and refunds.
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Post by valenciajim on Jul 20, 2012 14:00:07 GMT -8
I just looked on Intermountain's website and it looks like AM and V&O units lack sound/dcc. How hard is it to add a sound ecoder to them?
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Post by valenciajim on Jul 20, 2012 17:00:05 GMT -8
I hope that Mssrs. McClelland and Koester are getting paid royalties on these.
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Post by atsfan on Jul 20, 2012 17:28:44 GMT -8
I hope that Mssrs. McClelland and Koester are getting paid royalties on these. I don't. No offense to them, but we don't want UP charging royalties, so why would be want modelers to do so? Besides what is so unique with the letters "V" and "O"? I would hope they would get a free engine or two as a good will gesture and be happy others recognize their work. |
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Post by calzephyr on Jul 20, 2012 20:06:05 GMT -8
IMRC wasn't specific, but it appears they will be using existing tooling. Doing the NS heritage units is kind of a incomplete. Sure Intermountain will put pretty paint and their standard thread bare details on the big GE, but either Athearn or MTH will need to step up to the plate to do the Ace's. At the pace that Athearn is rolling out the UP heritage Ace's they may get around to dribbling out an NS heritage Ace by 2016 or later.... By that time the prototype may be repainted should the brass at NS roll over and have a bad day. From what I read, I got the impression that they were making changes to the model to reflect the changing features of GE's Evolution series. The one I will be most interested to see is the Monongahela, as it is an oddball, with different features than the other 9 GE units. From the email I recieved: "...In 2005 GE locomotive group began production of the Evolution series locomotives, the dominant mainline locomotive in North America. These locomotives were manufactured to meet Tier II emission standards. During 2008 enhancements were made to the locomotive addressing Tier III standards. Current production meets Tier III standards. From a modeling standpoint there are three variations of these locomotives. The first variation, which was produced from 2005 through 2007 in both ES44AC and ES44DC versions, carried unique detail configurations for each individual owner. The second variation, for which production began in 2008, was noticeably different in appearance. Still more visual changes are being made in current production as locomotives are being built to meet Tier III standards. To the modeler this means that there are numerous models for a number of roads during at least three production periods that have to be produced to meet their modeling requirements. We at InterMountain are making every run of these locomotives detail specific in order to meet your needs and desires in this regard. This requires an ongoing process of tooling changes in order to produce all of the variations correctly. Recently Norfolk Southern announced the production of several "Heritage Series" paint schemes commemorating a number of the predecessor railroads that have been incorporated into Norfolk Southern. These Evolution Series locomotives will include ten unique paint schemes. Next month InterMountain will announce the production of all of the appropriate schemes for these ES44AC's. They will include Conrail, Southern, Pennsylvania, Nickel Plate (NKP), Monongahela, Norfolk Southern, Interstate, Norfolk & Western, Central of Georgia, and Lehigh Valley. ..." Hopefully the ACe's will be along shortly from the other guys, but the schemes I really want will be coming from IM, so I'im content to wait a little while longer for ACe's This is good news if they are going to update the tooling to be correct for the new units. Larry |
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Post by nw611 on Aug 3, 2012 12:12:53 GMT -8
With upgraded tooling the Intermountain NS Heritage GEVOs will certainly be more appropriate than the similarly painted Athearn AC4400s. Ciao. Raffaele
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Post by Donnell Wells on Aug 4, 2012 8:22:47 GMT -8
Tower 55 did not go away because of the name. They could have changed it easily. It went away because their first product was junk. It "looked" great. But it had some sort of POJ decoder sound system in it (MRC?) which was lousy and did not start making noise until after the engine started moving. For $300 people stopped buying them or returned them. I know a large dealer who shipped 12 back and got into an fight over money and payments and refunds.
However, just as Athearn, Bachmann, Intermountain, and now Walthers went to Soundtraxx for factory-installed Tunami sound, I believe T55 would have most likey lead the charge due to the backlash against the use of the Digitrax sound.
The locomotive may not have appealed to you, but it was far from "junk."
Donnell |
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Post by valenciajim on Aug 4, 2012 13:40:01 GMT -8
Donnell, I agree with your assessment of the T55 stuff.
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Post by atsfan on Aug 4, 2012 15:20:35 GMT -8
Tower 55 did not go away because of the name. They could have changed it easily. It went away because their first product was junk. It "looked" great. But it had some sort of POJ decoder sound system in it (MRC?) which was lousy and did not start making noise until after the engine started moving. For $300 people stopped buying them or returned them. I know a large dealer who shipped 12 back and got into an fight over money and payments and refunds.
However, just as Athearn, Bachmann, Intermountain, and now Walthers went to Soundtraxx for factory-installed Tunami sound, I believe T55 would have most likey lead the charge due to the backlash against the use of the Digitrax sound.
The locomotive may not have appealed to you, but it was far from "junk."
DonnellIt was a beautiful model. Stunning looking. But it had major issues with it's DCC unit and sound. I know for a fact many were returned. I would say that if it was so great, Tower 55 would still be around with a new name. |
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Post by calzephyr on Aug 4, 2012 16:33:40 GMT -8
Donnell, I agree with your assessment of the T55 stuff. I agree also that the body was good, but the sound was poor. Larry |
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Post by diburning on Aug 10, 2012 4:53:29 GMT -8
The sound was a Digitrax decoder. It sounded nothing like the real thing.
The Intermountain GEVO is basically a clone of the Tower 55. Placed side-by-side with each other, I can't really tell the difference between them.
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Post by middledivision on Aug 10, 2012 9:06:55 GMT -8
The sound was a Digitrax decoder. It sounded nothing like the real thing. The Intermountain GEVO is basically a clone of the Tower 55. Placed side-by-side with each other, I can't really tell the difference between them. The ditch light housings on the T55 were the size of walk-in closets! ;D |
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