645 thank you for the awesome link to the Silver Pony! Sam no flogging allowed as you're free to use whatever power you want on the front of the California Zephyr passenger train set :->
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
Jerry Kimble posted:...Speaking of locomotives, David sorry to hear the D&RGW F3 ABBA will deplete your funds for the set, but do remember the F3s aren't going to ship until late the first quarter of 2017 if that will help any.
...
Question for Mr. Kimble: Atlas stated in a related OGR Forum thread that a sample of the numbered metal certificate and the special inner carton design that will come with the GSC Limited Edition CZ train will be made available for viewing. I was hoping that these could be posted on the OGR Forum for review.
I am trying to decide whether to order the GSC edition or the dealer commemorative edition, for me a very difficult choice. One offers these great cars in a limited edition set having the PRR special car, while with the commemorative edition one has great flexibility in ordering car sets among the three railroads that participated in the CZ.
Everyone I know raves about the CZ cars Atlas has released, especially the detail and quality. This train is a true American "native son" and among the most historically significant of American trains. It represents the greatest of passenger train service that America had to offer. I for one want to thank Atlas for making this train and the appropriate motive power of the three railroads available to collectors and modelers. It may be hard on the budget, but an opportunity like this does not come along too often. Well done, Atlas.
PFERDDY,
Thank you for your very kind words about our California Zephyr passenger train as I couldn't have said it better.
In answering your question about the metal certificate and the special inner carton design for the Golden Spike Club 12 car Limited Edition set, we'll definitely post the pictures on the forum once they're ready.
While you mention the PRR special car the "Silver Rapids" don't forget as part of the set also is the "Silver Solarium" which is the signature end of the train Dome-Observation-Lounge Car. Both these cars are back together again and are enjoying a fourth life in charter service that you can read about by clicking on both these links: http://www.calzephyrrailcar.co...s/Silver_Rapids.html and http://www.calzephyrrailcar.co...Silver_Solarium.html . Make sure once you've clicked on each link with your computer pointing device (usually the mouse) and the information has loaded on your computer screen that you scroll down the page just a little and click on another link that says "Download a brief history of the Silver Rapids" and "Download a history of the Silver Solarium", which will download a pdf file to your computer screen giving even more information on both these cars. If anyone wants a hard copy of either of these e-mail me with your request, thanks.
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
JSilver Solarium Dome Sleeper Observation Car
I hope to see samples at York
Has anyone pre ordered the GSC cars?
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but I read this entire thread and it sounds like ordering from a dealer allows me the flexibility to buy 4, 8 or 12 cars, whereas, joining the GSC and ordering through Atlas this way, I am limited and must buy all 12 cars?
If this isn't the case, and I order say 4 or 8 cars via GSC, do they still come with the numbered metal certificate and the special inner carton design that is stated above to come with the GSC Limited Edition CZ train?
Thank you,
Peter
Jeff -- Thank you very much for your reply to my question. Most appreciated.
PJB -- Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the Golden Spike Limited Edition is a 12 car set only. Its is a limited edition 12 car set that will come with the metal certificate and the special boxing. The dealer commemorative editions come in 4 car sets that the customer can order as he chooses. That is my understanding.
PSU 1980
The California Zephyr 12 car set will be running at York along with seminars being conducted to discuss how the train is ordered as we're still finding much confusion over it and yes there have been many orders for the 12 Golden Spike Club Special Edition set.
PJB nailed the answer to one of the many questions we've had on ordering the California Zephyr passenger car sets, which is the Golden Spike Limited Edition is a 12 car set only. It is a Limited Edition 12 car set that will come with the metal certificate and the special boxing. The Dealer Commemorative editions comes in 4 car sets that the customer can order as he chooses.
PFERDDY, you're welcome.
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
Talk to me when you guys do the east coast trains, PRR, B&O, RDG, and O ya that west coast road the ATSF.
Jerry,
Thanks for answering the question. When we spoke at Fall York about these car's you provided some details. The GSC letter and this has helped quite a bit.
Talk at York and I am looking forward to seeing the samples.
Kevin
Jerry Kimble posted:PFERDDY,
Thank you for your very kind words about our California Zephyr passenger train as I couldn't have said it better.
In answering your question about the metal certificate and the special inner carton design for the Golden Spike Club 12 car Limited Edition set, we'll definitely post the pictures on the forum once they're ready.
While you mention the PRR special car the "Silver Rapids" don't forget as part of the set also is the "Silver Solarium" which is the signature end of the train Dome-Observation-Lounge Car. Both these cars are back together again and are enjoying a fourth life in charter service that you can read about by clicking on both these links: http://www.calzephyrrailcar.co...s/Silver_Rapids.html and http://www.calzephyrrailcar.co...Silver_Solarium.html . Make sure once you've clicked on each link with your computer pointing device (usually the mouse) and the information has loaded on your computer screen that you scroll down the page just a little and click on another link that says "Download a brief history of the Silver Rapids" and "Download a history of the Silver Solarium", which will download a pdf file to your computer screen giving even more information on both these cars. If anyone wants a hard copy of either of these e-mail me with your request, thanks.
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
JSilver Solarium Dome Sleeper Observation Car
Download a history of Silver Solarium
Download a history of Silver Solarium
Hi Jerry,
I plan on purchasing a set of or two. Out of curiosity how many individual CZ cars or 4 pack sets will Atlas make in this run? And does this number include both 3 rail and 2 rail O?
Thanks,
You know, I probably sound like a shill, but here goes:
I own no Atlas passenger cars and thought the price of the CZ set was steep. And then on top of this, I don't have the layout for 12 scale cars, so was looking closely at the dealer CZ offerings, as you can do 4 or 8 if you prefer. Unrelated and in parallel, I was deliberating hard over whether to preorder the Lionel UP Excursion train. I then took a really close look at both offerings and started comparing.
It seems the Atlas cars have a much higher level of overall detail and accuracy. And, Lionel no longer installs passengers so this "plus column" check mark is now gone. And, street price for the UP 4 car set is almost the same as vendor pricing on the 4-car CZ set. Also, if I were to buy all UP excursion cars, which is a total of 7, street price would be around $950 - or more with shipping. The GSC price for CZ cars is around $1,600 - but for 12 CZ cars and this includes shipping. Finally, buying through dealers is, on a per CZ car basis, more pricey than via GSC, and who says I must run all 12 cars at once? The one item in favor of the UP cars is the RS car, which should be really cool. So, to me, who isn't beholden to a particular road, it's a no-brainer.
Peter
George,
For the Dealer Commemorative Sets there are nine 4-packs available or 36 cars from the three railroads partnered on this train with no overlap of names. If you include the Golden Spike Club 12 car set it makes 48 car names we're using of the 77 cars purchased by the railroads to have 6 train sets to cover the schedule of this train again without any overlap of car names. What's unique about the Dealer sets is that as long as you order any combination of an A, B or C set you'll be prototypically correct for a 12 car California Zephyr train passenger train that would've had these mix of cars sometime in its 21 year and 2 day lifespan. It's highly doubtful that these combinations of CZ cars will ever be offered again by another manufacturer or ourselves because as I've explained before this has be a complex project to put together by Atlas. No other manufacturer in any scale has offered this flexibility of ordering the California Zephyr probably because of the complexity involved in doing it. Yes these sets do include 3 and 2-rail offerings. I'll be doing in depth seminars at York on the nuts & bolts of ordering these CZ sets with a brochure handout to those attending. Please know we've set-up the Dealer sets so that if you decide not to order a Golden Spike Club 12 set (the only way you can get it) and you want to go through a Dealer the Dealer can price a 12 set at exactly the same price as the Golden Spike Club set and be profitable. The Dealer advertised price is called M.A.P which stands for Minimum Advertised Price and is our way of trying to help the Dealers maintain a profit on their sets (long story no room to go into it here).
Peter, you're correct in that to purchase one of these sets is a no-brainer if the budget will allow it, thanks.
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
PJB posted:.... So, to me, who isn't beholden to a particular road, it's a no-brainer. ...
When I purchased Lionel's new Texas Special 21" passenger cars earlier this year, I showed a side-by-side picture here of a Lionel coach next to an Atlas-O CZ coach. The difference in detail is like night and day. For the price, you will not find a better passenger car on the market today than Atlas-O's. They are close in detail level to cars from GGD, but GGD's are aluminum and you're paying a premium for that.
David
Sam
I will be joining you with pulling these great cars with Williams power. I ordered a mix of CB&Q DRGW WP 4 car sets (Silver Bronco DRGW pack for sure) and will be pulling with Williams CB&Q E-7, DRGW Alco PA, and WP F-3 ABBA.
Jerry....thanks for your input on the forum. Atlas has amazing products. Great to see a manufacturer with such good communication with its customers also!
Scott,
You and Sam are prototypically correct in you choice of power to pull your California Zephyr passenger train/trains. Thank you for your purchase and kind words about our communications on the "Silver Lady" as it's a pleasure.
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
If budgets allow, I will certainly upgrade to some Atlas power for the Zephyr cars at some point. For now, I am thrilled to be getting the cars though.
Scott,
You'll find the Atlas motive power to be smooth running and reliable along with being stunning in appearance. I certainly hope you're able to achieve your future objective in adding some Atlas motive power to your fleet for the California Zephyr.
I'm leaving for York tomorrow and I probably won't post here until after the event because the days are long with set-up for the show and doing seminars. Speaking of seminars if you're attending York we certainly invite you to stop by our booth which is LL5 in the Orange Hall to see a 12 car Silver Lady run on our layout as well as to attend one of four seminars we'll be conducting on the CZ.
The seminars are being held - Thursday April 14, 2016 at 1:45pm - 2:15pm and 3:00pm - 3:30pm. Friday April 15, 2016 at 11:00am - 11:30am and 3:00pm - 3:30pm. There is no charge for any of these seminars and we're overriding our rule that you have to be a Golden Spike Club member to attend. A door prize will be awarded at each seminar. Please make sure you check in with Patricia as early as possible if you plan on attending as seating will be limited, thanks.
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
Jerry,
Look forward to the seminar
Looks like I will be purchasing the Golden Spike Club car. The only place I can run all 12 at one time will be at the Hirailers club.
Now - What engine?
Rocky Mountaineer posted:PJB posted:.... So, to me, who isn't beholden to a particular road, it's a no-brainer. ...
When I purchased Lionel's new Texas Special 21" passenger cars earlier this year, I showed a side-by-side picture here of a Lionel coach next to an Atlas-O CZ coach. The difference in detail is like night and day. For the price, you will not find a better passenger car on the market today than Atlas-O's. They are close in detail level to cars from GGD, but GGD's are aluminum and you're paying a premium for that.
David
David,
I recall seeing that thread but from memory, I don't remember seeing photos of the interior in order to assess the level of detail. If fact, if not too much trouble, it would be much appreciated to see photos of the Atlas car's interior, given I own the Lionel 21" ESE cars but no Atlas passenger cars.
Peter
PSU1980 posted:Jerry,
Look forward to the seminar
Jerry,
For those of us who cannot be at the seminar (which is likely most people), would appreciate if Atlas would give thought to filming it and posting to your home page or your YouTube page. Would be of great benefit.
Peter
PJB posted:...I recall seeing that thread but from memory, I don't remember seeing photos of the interior in order to assess the level of detail. ...
Peter,
I wasn't referring so much to the interior of the cars... rather just the overall appearance per se. The Atlas-O cars just seemed to have more attention to details that could be seen when viewing the cars trackside... general details, window blind details, skirting, undercarriage, ride height, etc...
As I mentioned in my thread, I'm quite happy with the Lionel Texas Special 21" Cars... but I'd be even happier if Atlas-O had produced them.
David
PSU 1980 it's great to here you're considering purchasing the Golden Spike Club 12 car Special Edition California Zephyr set. You can read about what to power the train with by clicking on this link: http://calzephyr.railfan.net/locos.html .
Peter we will be videotaping the seminars and posting that information to our Facebook page as well as YouTube, thanks.
Jerry Kimble Atlas Model Railroad Company
Jerry and Atlas Team.
Due to a business emergency I can't make York. Will you be emailing data to GSC members on how to purchase the CZ cars? Will you be making the presentation available to folks that can't make the event?
Kevin
Hello all,
I am arguing with myself (for now...perhaps with my wife later if I decide to buy!) about getting the GSC complete set of cars. People mention the 21" length of the cars and how they'd "fit" on a layout. I have an 072 outside loop with an 063 on the inside. I assume these cars will be OK on the 072 loop, but would there be such overhang that it would interfere with the 063 loop? I also have a set of 18" passenger cars. If I run those on one loop with the CZ 21" cars on the other, would the difference in size look weird?
Thanks for any opinions! I have loved this train for so long (when I dabbled in N gauge a decade ago or so, the only train I bought was the KATO Zephyr), but I don't want to buy it and then have to just keep it on a shelf.
Peter
Kevin,
Sorry you were unable to attend the spring York TCA event to see the California Zephyr passenger train run, which it did for 2 and a half days with CB&Q and Western Pacific (WP) power without missing a beat.
We did send information to all Golden Spike Club members on how to order the sets, which perhaps you were missed. We'll send you another information package with that information in it.
We plan on having the video link to the seminars and the CZ passenger train running posted by Friday of this week when I'll chime in again to let you know where, thanks.
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
Jerry - how are we doing with getting the videos uploaded?
Peter
Peter,
Thanks for your follow-up. I saw the mostly completed version of the York TCA seminars and operation of the Atlas California Zephyr passenger train late yesterday. The final cut of the video will be used for a Dealer promotion first and then will be uploaded to OGR, our Facebook page and YouTube on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest.
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
Hi everyone,
I posted this a week ago and am bringing it up again in hopes of getting some responses. I'm especially curious about my concern that the 21" cars on the 072 loop might interfere with trains on the 063 loop. If folks could take a look at my original posting and offer some comments, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
Peter
Hello all,
I am arguing with myself (for now...perhaps with my wife later if I decide to buy!) about getting the GSC complete set of cars. People mention the 21" length of the cars and how they'd "fit" on a layout. I have an 072 outside loop with an 063 on the inside. I assume these cars will be OK on the 072 loop, but would there be such overhang that it would interfere with the 063 loop? I also have a set of 18" passenger cars. If I run those on one loop with the CZ 21" cars on the other, would the difference in size look weird?
Thanks for any opinions! I have loved this train for so long (when I dabbled in N gauge a decade ago or so, the only train I bought was the KATO Zephyr), but I don't want to buy it and then have to just keep it on a shelf.
Peter
Hi Peter, I agree those cars sure look nice. The answer to your question about overhang on your inner loop depends on your distance from center rail to center rail. The only way to know for sure is take a 21" car on the outer loop and your largest car on the inner loop and hand run them around the curves checking for clearance. You may be OK, you may need to move one of your loops a bit to provide extra room.
If you don't have a 21" car you can always make a mock up by adding length to your longest car that you currently own, or borrowing a 21" car for testing.
I can't pull the trigger on these beautiful cars and somehow know I will kick myself down the road, but I made the decision to stick with 18" cars. Hope this helps.
Paul
Peter,
Your question is probably over my head, but I'll jump in to say that I think this is a non-issue. Assuming your 072 is the outer curve and the 063 is your inner curve, and that you Are going to run the 21" cars on your 072 curves - any overhang would be on the outside of your 072 curve, so it should have no effect on your inner 063 track. If you're asking about the side of the 21" car, between the wheels, bulging out toward the inner track, this occurs with my 21" ESE cars, but not very much and nowhere near enough to interfere with my inner curve activity, even when I've got my VLBB on the inner track. Only caveat is that my tightest sea level mains are 081 and 072. I will say that I use Atlas track and leave over 5 1/2" between mains at every curve apex - but again, the "bulge" isn't anywhere near interfering with the overhang of the VLBB.
In terms of how 21" and 18" cars look together - when they are on the same train, I am not a fan of the look (but I'm an artist at heart and aesthetics are very obvious to me). But if they are operating next to each other, it's not an issue. Even the passenger trains used in my local (real-life) excursion trains aren't the same length.
Peter
Jerry,
Stupid question: Don't seem to be able to order online.
I go to this web site:
http://www.atlaso.com/ogsc-cz-set.htm
and it only shows 'order forms' for the limited edition 12 car set (which has to be mailed in)!
I so a search for item number 3007020S and it says not found!
thanks,
Sam
samparfitt posted:... and it only shows 'order forms' for the limited edition 12 car set (which has to be mailed in)!
I so a search for item number 3007020S and it says not found! ...
Call Atlas-O. The order form has a handful of phone numbers for Atlas-O customer service reps you can call for ordering assistance. If you plan on paying with a credit card, they'll probably just take the number for now and charge the card when the sets ship.
David
Sam,
The online link has been a problem due to the item number being for the CB&Q Limited Edition Golden Spike Club set. Call Patricia at 1-908-687-7122 or myself at 1-908-687-7118 and we'll be delighted to take your order and we apologize for the problems you've experienced in trying to order the set online.
Jerry Kimble
All,
In case you haven't noticed the video of the train running at York along with the seminar is at the top of this OGR page or you can click on the link below to view it. By the way the curves on the Atlas modular layout are 99 on the outside and 90 on the inner one. Remember May 4th is the deadline to order, thanks.
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
I have 16 of these great cars. I run the cal z and the RGZ. The necessary removal of the radio antenna from the silver sky and silver banquet was made on one set to run the RGZ . Roof detail was revamped on diner and marker lamps and covered tail sign on the SKY was made. The Grande made several changes to tail end of the SKY during its time on the RGZ. Also the name boards were removed on all cars
Mike,
Thank you very much for your purchase of 16 California Zephyr passenger cars and sharing how you modified some to fit into being the Rio Grande Zephyr.
I'd also like to thank everyone in advance of Wednesday's deadline for buying this piece of American railroad history. The orders have been amazing both from our Dealers as well as for the Golden Spike Club sets!
Jerry Kimble - Atlas Model Railroad Company
