Atlas Model Railroad Co. acquires Weaver tooling

Thanks Dan...

 

For me at least there is good news for the 20' containers and telephone poles!   Most of the other items are out of my era.

 

 

Agreed.  Would be great to have a master line GP38 series or GP40 series locomotive.

Good news.  If only someone decided to re-run the brass sand tower I'd be thrilled.  I need just one more.

I too am in for those sand towers! Bummer that I missed out on it.

Could be good, could be bad, we'll have to see. Weavers brass structure line is definitely a plus and hope they do it justice. 

 

Butch

Did Lionel get the Weaver TOFC cars and trailers? What they show in the 2015 Volume 2 catalog looks a lot like the Weaver cars to me.

Wonder if anyone from Atlas will be at Indianapolis next week?

I would be truly amazed if Atlas had a presence at the convention.

Likewise, hopeful, but doubtful.  Jerry and his wife did have a booth at the March Meet earlier this year.

So would I, but one might hope given it's supposed to be the O scale Nat'l.......and a venue where they could make some statements about plans, etc.....

 

Nah.............

Norm (at Norm O'scal trains) told me that LIONEL acquired also a part of the WEAVER tooling but I don't know for which models!

I would be happy with a GP40 in Trainman but with Atlas past history, it might be a few years before we might see it.

 

Dick

Now if Weaver had only done a 44 tonner in two rail...

Weaver will survive: that's a good news!

The new Lionel Trailers are 40' long with Horizontal Ribs.

 

The old Weaver Trailers were 35' long with Vertical Ribs. 

 

Andrew

I just like to see them finish offering their GP7 and F3A for the rest of the RRs that owned them.

 

Atlas has done quite well buying the tooling of others, whether it be track or the intermountain or now Weaver cars.

Wonder what "improvements" Atlas will make?

Still waiting for them (or someone) to do an ALCo RS2/3 with the correct handrail mounting. Hope springs eternal.

I am not sure if there would be many improvements once they reengineer the cars to fit their truck style. I would be interested if these cars are for their master line or Trainman line.

If you want to call it improvements, they will most likely put China drives in the locomotives. Stephen

Didn't Weaver change over to "China Drive" quite some time ago?

 

Rusty

Yeah, Weaver caved in and went to this vertical drive system around 2012 to my knowledge. I thought Weaver products were supposed to be "Made in the USA"? Certainly the vertical drive mechanism in their post 2012 locos were not made here in the States?

 

I personally don't think Atlas improved anything with any line they acquired. The 3R crowd got much better detailed locomotives and cars, forcing MTH and Lionel to compete or lose market share, but making a P&D shell, with arguably the best "F" unit detail in O gauge, into a high water pants, china drive loco was only good for 3Rers.

 

But, we've been down this road many, many times and it is, what it is. Atlas had to go where the money was and it's still better to have what they produce, rather than not have it at all. I can live with it. You can always modify it if you are a 2Rer and that is something 2Rers have been doing forever.

 

Butch

Let's see.....we can call the new stuff Watlas and Wionel!

 

Simon

The P&D shell is only accurate for an F9, the headlight is oriented wrong (vertical) for earlier F's, which were tilted back slightly from bottom to top.

 

Agreed that something is better than NOTHING. Seems like when something new comes out, the first thing you hear is all the stuff that is wrong with it. Maybe so, but still better than nothing at all.

 

Simon

 

 

The P&D shell is only accurate for an F9, the headlight is oriented wrong (vertical) for earlier F's, which were tilted back slightly from bottom to top.

 

 

Agreed Simon, if this was a $1800 Key model or maybe even a $600 3rd Rail, but on a kit for around $200 (original pricing from P&D) if was a heck of an improvement to what was available. Headlight can be modified when in kit form, but pretty tough after factory painting.

 

Butch

Butch,

 

I won't argue that! They are probably still the best deal F in plastic, and pretty much any F can be replicated with P&D parts. I don't know why P&D didn't sell a lot more than they did! They also offered a nice horizontal drive and brass Blomberg trucks.

 

Simon

Retool the coupler mounting pads so that mounting a KD will be a project instead of an easy swap?

 

Actually that is one that I would bet that Atlas WILL make... along with making trucks that look right for O scale. 

I like to see improvements in "fidelity" kind of issues but they are low on the priority list and thus don't get the $$$ spent on that side of things by Atlas.   Pity, because it was fidelity issues that killed the Atlas 2-rail USRA 0-6-0.

 

I can't comment as to how accurate the Atlas 0-6-0 is to the prototype. I actually liked the locomotive. in my opinion the one bad design flaw is the drivers. For some reason Atlas made the treads extra wide like what you would typically see on a 3 rail locomotive and the flanges are not gauged properly. The locomotive runs very well and is geared for slow speed operation and switching. A long time ago I was part of a modell RR cluub and when we publicly complained on this forum about these "flaws" Jerry Kimble and an associate actually came down to our club to see the locomotive in action. Would you believe it ran good while Jerry and his associate was there? We later figured out that it will run fine through Atlas track and switches but a handlaid turnout built to NMRA specs will cause it trouble. In this picture I am trying to push it through a Signature Switch turnout and it gets jammed at the guard rails.

The pic above shows the locomotive at the point where it gets "stuck". 

 

This is pic shows the gauge of the flanges.

 

 

In the above pic you can clearly see how wide the tread is on these drivers. 

 

IMHO, had the drivers been made like typical 2 rail drivers this locomotive would have been very popular with 2 railers due to its good slow speed performance. 

 

I was was hoping that Atlas was going to do another run of these with corrected drivers and sell the drivers separately for people who have the out of gauge version Because I don't know what I am going to do with this locomotive. It won't go through Signature Switch turnouts, Old Pullman turnouts, or Fast Track turnouts. I do have some Atlas switches but I have planning to use mostly other brands of turnouts due to the sizes I need. 

 

Another pic pic of the treads. They are roughly double what they should be. I didn't have time to measure them. 

One other thing I didn't like about this locomotive is connecting the tether is a real pain in the neck. I can live this though But I hope if Atlas ever re-runs it or offers the Weaver 2-8-0 that they redesign the tether. 

 

Disclaimer: I like Atlas products, I have bunch of their locomotives, cars, and track. I have two F units on order. I'm not trying to bash them in any way. I just wanted to put the facts out there as I know them so that a fellow hobbyist can make an informed decision. 

 

OK. Back to the topic at hand. I just wanted to answer Mister Lee's question. 

Hope ATLAS will re run soon the Pullman Bradley coaches...