Aster 1:32 FEF's Are Shipping!

Absolutley incredible!

Thanks for sharing.

Very nice; don't they make electric anymore?

...and I thought O gauge was expensive; $10,000 ea for ready to run and sold out!!!

Amazing.  I spent hours looking at those pictures and watching the videos.  Cool stuff.

i will wait to pass judgement on the FEF kit until i hear reports, but one thing for certain, they better have improved from the last UP Challenger kit.  after having nothing but praise for the first two Aster kits i built, the NKP Berkshire and the GN S2, the Challenger kit turned out to be an incredibly horrible experience.  unlike their previous kits where parts fit together nearly perfectly, i doubt if i went one or two steps in the Challenger assembly without having to file or in many cases, drill and retap holes to get parts to align.

as for selling out, Aster's policy now since the Challenger kit, is to take a non-refundable reservation and only make that number of kits and RTR models.  i'm not sure how many people like me passed on this model, but i can imagine the RTR option may have been more popular this time (letting Aster handle the assembly problems).  as for the still available kits (guessing they had to at least make a certain number of kits to have the project prove viable) i will strongly advise, buyer beware.

cheers...gary

Gary,

How many hours do you estimate to assemble one of those prior locomotives you built?

When looking at the FEF kit, I thought there'd be a ton of time in it-if all went together smoothly.

Thanks!

Thanks for posting.I was amazed at the Aster website showing all the details of the model.

Beautiful models, I seriously though about getting one of the the FEF's or S2's but since it would be first live steam train I figured maybe id better get something a little simpler

I spend half a year of hobby time (couple of hours a week) when building an Aster BIGBOY kit. The GN S2 took me about 100 hours. I am not a fast builder.

Regards

Fred