3rd Rail E8/E9 Second Chance

Oh,  anyone interested in demonstrators for the second run?

At what year did ATSF add the nose grab irons on their E Units? And then, at what year did they have them painted yellow?

Update:  

SFWB PAINT SCHEME:

TYPE / RESERVED / PRODUCED / REMAINING

2RE8A / 21/ 21 / 1

2RE8B/ 5 / 5/ 0

3RE8A / 21 / 21 / 0

3RE8B / 15 / 15 / 0

A good customer decided to jump at the chance and we are sold out of SF E Units.

Scott Mann

I knew posting that photograph would end up like this.  I hesitated and hesitated but in the end I made a mistake.  Scott was right in not posting any photographs before delivery.  90% of the people who bought them would never notice the difference unless an "expert" pointed it out. 

I disagree, it would be really hard to not notice the yellow grab irons.  I am not an expert and I did not need an "expert" to help me see them.  I leave it to the experts to debate whether or not they are prototypical.  In my novice and humble opinion they detract from the asthetics of the engine and are therefore an unwelcomed detail.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and apparently hinges upon which years of an engine's life they model.  To each their own.

TM Terry posted:

At what year did ATSF add the nose grab irons on their E Units? And then, at what year did they have them painted yellow?

There was an ICC mandate in 1958 that all cab units by 1960 must have a means to access the cab windows.

But, there might have been perhaps a "voluntary" mandate issued around 1951 or so.  I've found a fair amount of photo's of CB&Q E-units with grab irons taken in the early and mid 1950's.

Rusty

I too want to thank Jonathan and Scott for all their efforts to produce such awesome models for us to enjoy! And to applaud their open and direct communication to all the queries and even the criticisms.

We each have our own areas that we focus on with model trains. For me personally, the mechanical and electrical performance of the models is of more importance than the colors, since the colors are the things that we modelers can correct if needed. However, trying to correct a flawed mechanical design is orders of magnitude more difficult and more costly. 

Jonathan

The criticisms in this thread are baffling.... childlike really. It saddens me. I hope none of this non-sense will discourage Scott and his team to keep producing these beautiful models for us.

I like to read the criticisms on these models, as it's very educational no matter how they're expressed. I find the combination of the grabs with the ladder rest (learned about that from Ed Rappe during a recent Atlas F7 post) actually more jarring than the color contrast, which seems to be an easy fix.

At least these look like E8s, have you seen the freakazoid abominations Lionel tries to pass off as E8s? 

It always seemed to me that it would be a lot easier for the importers to do their runs in "as built" trim and let any buyer who wants a specific "snapshot" in time, do their own mods.

Simon

They did sell out.  Hard to argue with success.

In real life the grab irons are what?  Maybe 1/2 inch diameter.  Scaling these down would make for very thin wire, too thin to be workable.  What's there then approximates the real life engines in a reasonable way.  Nothing wrong with that.

bob2 posted:

They did sell out.  Hard to argue with success.

Huh? I thought it was built to the number of orders received? How could they not sell out? 

SANTIAGOP23 posted:

The criticisms in this thread are baffling.... childlike really. It saddens me. I hope none of this non-sense will discourage Scott and his team to keep producing these beautiful models for us.

After some analysis, here is a list of what is available from the first shipment. If anyone is interested, let me know quickly so we can secure your order.  Those holding out for the 2nd Run, don't worry, we are working on it. Some of you will be notified that we have availability in the first run.

Scott,

Just emailed you about a ATSF unit in 3 rail. Please mark me down for one, yellow grab irons and all!

Thanks,

Jason

Hudson J1e posted:

bob2 posted:

They did sell out.  Hard to argue with success.

Huh? I thought it was built to the number of orders received? How could they not sell out? 

Well, look at it this way... they had sufficient orders to send the project into production.  So perhaps that's a decent way to indicate some success.  As for not being 100% "sold out" at times, I would surmise there are always a cancellation or two for one reason or another.

David 

I bought some and im not even going to check if they're right or wrong, Im going to run em and love em

Didn't someone post a picture of the Union Pacific version here.  I can't find it now.  It looked to be a real winner by the way. 

Thanks,

Butch

Severn posted:

In real life the grab irons are what?  Maybe 1/2 inch diameter.  Scaling these down would make for very thin wire, too thin to be workable.  What's there then approximates the real life engines in a reasonable way.  Nothing wrong with that.

Not really; that's about 0.012" and workable - I have used that and 0.015" brass wire and also steel wire in the latter size - all perfectly workable.  The HO guys can do it.......

Well... I came up with .5 / 48 = .0104xxxx  and just took that at 1/100" ... and looked this up in gage chart and came up with AWG 30...  found some unsheathed spools of it on the web and thought:  "Ok that looks like something I'd bend in about 2 seconds when lifting..."

But I could be wrong.

Also It would be good to figure out the diameter of grabs...  I just eye balled it at 1/2 inch -- could be a little more -- a little thicker and it would help.

 "Ok that looks like something I'd bend in about 2 seconds when lifting..."

Learning how to pick up O scale engines and cars will go a long way to avoiding damage to quality models,   Some still think everything is cast iron still. I almost took a stirrup step off the one reefer I'm building the other evening but after I got through mounting it with some nbw's, it's on good,

Every time I pick one up, something breaks off!  On the train I mean...

(also I have 2 small kids, I have to think about sturdiness.  My son took a hammer to an old lionel the other day.  One bonk before I got it back.. Not a scratch!  That's quality... or something)

Anyway ... not that important.  Perhaps they could have scaled the wire diameter.   It's hard to think of everything of course.

Update: SFWB Is now sold out. Thanks guys.

Severn posted:

Every time I pick one up, something breaks off!  On the train I mean...

(also I have 2 small kids, I have to think about sturdiness.  My son took a hammer to an old lionel the other day.  One bonk before I got it back.. Not a scratch!  That's quality... or something).

Childproof is something that few scale models are going to achieve; they have enough trouble making them adult-proof!

I dropped that same reefer while I was adding one of the final grab iron on the one end and after it rattled about - no damage!  Surprised me as I figured something would pop off or break.....

I am updating the web page with remaining units from the first run as they are sold.

http://www.3rdrail.com/Diesel-SuperSale.html

Regards,

Scott Mann

mwb posted:

Childproof is something that few scale models are going to achieve; they have enough trouble making them adult-proof!

Or, has been recently noted, "Stout Auctionproof"! 

Phil, 

When you accept orders without deposit, and offer worry free cancellations, there are about 10% of folks within a year's time that change their mind, move, die, divorce, leave the hobby, have an accident, surgery, cancer, to either themselves or their spouses or families, and then we are left with their order to sell to someone else.  We send everyone with reservations 3 to 4 notices, first by email, then we mail those that don't respond, then lastly we call.  Most of the time, the call isn't necessary as the phone number is out of order, or the customer is no longer with us.  ;(

If we don't hear from a customer and they have other models on reserve we mark them as inactive, and their reservations are no longer counted for the next project production.  If they contact us and assure as they are on board for the next project we reinstate. 

I don't want to take deposits for these projects. It drives too many customers away.   If we do, and we are late, then people get cranky. What? You said it would be here before my birthday, or Christmas, or whatever the important date is to them. Today especially people expect instant gratification.  Amazon's success is a testament to that. But  people also expect this of the mom and pop shops.  It's a big shoe to fill. We do our best, and over time, our customers understand our limitations and relax a bit.

Without these pre-orders, we wouldn't have the financial forecasting to plunk down 100s of thousands of dollars in tooling and production to make these models. 

So again, I will say THANK YOU to all of you that participate in this madness, and deal with the little disappointments with finesse. You are truly the life's blood of this hobby.

The E89 project container docks on May 26th. We should be shipping these by June 5 to June 10th. Very excited about it.

Cheers,

Scott

Looking forward to my ErieLackawanna units.

Scott, you are, IMHO, the MOST customer-focused, communicative, sincere, pithy, patient, fair, and responsive executive in this special nook of the hobby.  It is a management quality and performance to be emulated.

Realizing the time and effort you personally have put into the success of your business, I can only hope that, for the benefit of younger generations to follow, you have been grooming someone(s) to follow in your footsteps when you truly tire of the global trekking, wrangling, and nit-picking that's endemic to your specialty biz in this hobby.  Your product efforts are incredible.  

And kudos to your supporting staff, too!

Scott, David, and everyone else. I wasn't trying to complain or be negative about this process or Sunset in any way. To my knowledge the term "Sold Out" means like a rock concert at a 20,000 seat arena and every ticket is bought. In this case Scott or who ever the manufacturer happens to be takes pre orders to see if it is worth it to go ahead with production and based on those numbers they make the decision. I totally get that and I have no issue with it. I would never expect Scott or anyone else to go ahead with a project without the knowledge that there is enough interest for the project to be financially successful. Nowadays on high end pieces like this number manufactured is very close to the number of pre-orders so how could it be anything but a sell out? That's all I was saying. I didn't mean to sound negative. It is still successful and that's what is really important. I feel that O gauge manufacturers are in a tough spot since (by all accounts) the number of O Scale and O gauge enthusiasts is dwindling. It's very sad to hear that a few of the cancellations are because someone passed on. I'm very happy that Scott took over the business from his Dad to give us these wonderful models. I love my GGD passenger cars and I plan to someday (when I build a layout-hopefully next year) double head my E7 with the new E8 to pull those passenger cars. 

I like Scott, and admire his business skills.  No way could I do what he does.  I have done magazine reviews on many of his models, and still recall being stunned with the quality vs price on the Alleghenies, the UP and NP articulateds, and the phenomenal 4-12-2 and SP Berk.

I don't do plastic (irrational, but so is this hobby) but I am delighted to see such gorgeous models arriving to populate O Scale and Hi-Rail railroads.

I have way too many trains, so I am not supporting any suppliers with my bucks, but I am in Scott's cheering section.  I think those grabirons are neat!

I'm super excited! Got cb&q E9's comming

Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:

I'm super excited! Got cb&q E9's comming

You mean CB&Q?

Hot Water posted:

Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:

I'm super excited! Got cb&q E9's comming

You mean CB&Q?

I'm sorry I ment QB&C

Laidoffsick posted:

At $600 I shouldn't have to "FIX" squat! 

Improve, upgrade, sure....no problem, but not fix/correct errors on something marketed as road specific details.

For the roughly double price of a Key unit you won't have to fix squat. Considering the tooling cost alone of these units $600 appears to be a bargain.

Or, you can buy a Lionel A-B set for $930 and fix it.

Laidoffsick posted:

You should probably take a look at some more photos and see "exactly" what was painted on the nose grab irons. Mandated safety yellow, yes.... the entire grab iron including the bolt detail? Ummmm, NO

See photos half way up this thread, center shot of the trio ;-)

shops when repainted did what the wanted, so yes bolt heads would be included. if not they would use black on the bolt and yellow for the nut. In other words who cares.

Bob

Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:

Hot Water posted:

Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:

I'm super excited! Got cb&q E9's comming

You mean CB&Q?

I'm sorry I ment QB&C

You mean QVC?