Atlas SW Series Diesel

Maybe they didn't offer the right road names.

I don't believe they just pull rd names out of a hat when they decide to announce a rerun.Core dealer input and requests from individual customers over a period of time dictate a rerun of a particular model then requests when the model is announced dictate if it is to be made.BTO is the business plan today.

That's my feeling. I would be more than happy to order more SW's if they would offer PRR, Erie, Erie Lack, B&O, Chessie, or a few other from my area. I wasn't interested in any of these offerings so I didn't order. I was planning on snagging an undecorated model for painting, but I guess that is out the window now.

I agree about the road names.  Seems like they are pretty obscure.  I like a couple like that but seems like you would always have some SP, UP, Chessie, Conrail, etc....    

It would be neat if once they just opened up any road names at announcement and see what actual reservations are.  Then announce the ones that made the cut and make those. 

Don

The proposed lines seemed all industrial or short lines for switching and slow-style operations. Lack of interest and cancellation seems to reinforce the stereotype that O gaugers are just interested in running vs operations and slow speed switching.

 

I wouldn't have bought them anyway since I've gone way out of my way to seemingly hoard off the 'net and auction scads of the earlier vintage run with the superior slower operating horizontal drive for my evolving short line and switching basement layout.

 

Actually, cancellation could be a blessing. Switchers need to operate at switching speeds. I'd rather they not release them at all than release an inferior product.  O scale 2 rail deserves better, especially to expand the market to smaller layouts and tighter curves and slower speeds with a larger potential customer base now that smaller. compact layouts are finally getting some press.  Now THAT would be the future of O Scale.

Too bad. I had one undecorated on order. It may be years until they offer them again

Have to agree 100%. When was the last time you saw a video on switching,(if ever). Rather all run bys of the then most popular engine of the day? Over and over.
As one that puts switching and making up a train at the top. I don't see the interest in the videos posted. Maybe we are a rare breed.

Did I miss something? Did they change the drive in the SW at some point? Are they not horizontal motors anymore? *** Edit*** I just checked the Atlas website and it still shows a single dual flywheel motor.

 

FeaturesInclude:

• Prototypical handrail detail
• Die-cast chassis, truck side frames and hood
• Standard or m.u. type pilots as per the railroad
• Scale handrails and cut levers
• Separately-applied grab irons
• See-through steps and footboards
• Detailed cab interior with fully painted crew figures
• See-through etched metal grilles
• Eight wheel drive
• Dual flywheel equipped precision 5-pole can motor
• Accurate painting and printing
• Minimum diameter curve: O-31 (3-Rail)
• Minimum radius curve: 24" (2-Rail)

 

I absolutely love the slow speed operation of the SW that I have:

Actually this would have been the 6th run of some variant of the SW series diesels, in todays market you can only go to the well so many times, the good news out of these cancellations of rolling stock and engines it makes the MFGs produce new products. Hopefully the Fall & Winter catalog will show some new product besides the announced Husky stack cars.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Atlas already published the catalog for this year with all of the new announcements?

 

Normally I would agree with you on reruns of the same engine, but these things are really difficult to find. I for one would welcome a re-run of the Chessie, B&O, Erie, Erie Lack, and PRR at minimum. Especially with the new QSI Titan decoders. I don't think Atlas needs to shelve the SW's. They just need to focus on more popular road names. Just my 2 cents...

The current catalog is Jan to June All Scales Catalog, the next one should post sometime between early July to early Aug[maybe] note it has been 3 months now since last container report. You could be right on the reruns but who really knows how they determine Rd names,this is a marketing dept issue for Atlas.

I know this won't be a popular opinion, but it's how I feel. I think Atlas is out of touch with the market, at least the O gauge market. I've never seen a model company do so little, with so much (RC-GP9's, P&D F Units), as Atlas did. 3rd Rail has kicked their b*tts over the past decade with new plastic diesels with horizontal drives and is now expanding into road diesels (SD9) and later E units. Atlas could have owned that market had they done it right and offered either two drives or broken new ground and gone to a Horizontal drive that would have satisfied both 2 and 3 rail modelers. The SW proved the 3R guys would accept a horizontal drive yet they dumbed down (in my opinion) the best designed, most accurate shells purchased from other sources and chose to install a 50 year old drive. 

 

Regarding the SW's, I think there are more than a few roads that could have been re-run just from looking at what these roads bring on the aftermarket. To be honest, I've written Atlas off and didn't even know they had these reservations open. I'm just not interested in dual motor drives and locos that sit too high. Yes, I know I can lower them and fiddle with decoders to make them run better, but why should I have to do this on a new model. 

 

I vote with my pocketbook and 3rd rail has gotten a lot of money from me in the past few years. 

 

Butch

I can certainly understand your point of view Butch. I too have given 3rd Rail a lot more business while Atlas floundered. It is amazing to me that Atlas can't get an engine with existing tooling out for 5 years, but Scott can turn them around in 12-24 months with new tooling.

I'm with you here Jonathan. Plastic, die-cast or brass...it doesn't matter. I purchase what I need for my period, operations, and design parameters. Sunset's website gets a lot of attention here....their production output PLUS quality is impressive.

Was it Bill, who passed a few years ago, the man who ran the O scale div. of Atlas models well and then it floundered since. This buying from other companies models that have been on the market for years and had their runs with the public I feel narrows the future sales structure of those models. I was not interested in the SW but wanted others and newer offerings that Atlas seems against doing. Heck, they have been talking of the 8-40CW for yrs. now and can't produce. It seems the word can't is getting to be a big word in their vocabulary. It must be they are really  worried about failing with a model and I can't blame them as I don't think they have deep pockets or the manufacturing behind them for O scale line anymore. I get this feeling as models seem to always be late or put off for extended lengths of time. case in point the CZ cars and the 8-40CW as mentioned. I still like the Atlas line as it was the line that brought me to O scale and am just upset they are leaving me and I not them. 

Jim Weaver was the Atlas O coordinator, who died a few years ago.   The EMD SW 8 or 9  has been an Atlas offer since around 1998. First with Dallee electronics, 2002 switched to TMCC electronics. Today's offerings have ERR electronics.   (17) years, there have been a lot of new paint offerings. Also note that a lot of early offerings had delrin plastic parts that were later upgraded to metal.   Ever time it was offered, they also made available non-painted models. They also did model specific, pilots/handrails, etc. There were also SW 12's and MP15's very close cousins.   Everything has an end including you and me.   

No question the late Jim Weaver was the driving force behind Atlas O, unfortunatly the collapse of the MFG Sanda Kan where Atlas had a 100% investment for their O guage line caused major problems in moving mfg elsewhere especially acquireing the tooling and dies back. At that time I believe overall O sales were beginning to slow down and production runs were getting smaller, I spoke with Jim at the 2008 Chicago meet and until this year that was ther last appearance in Chicago BTO has taken over for the Importers/mfgs today Scott is fortunate at this time to have his own MFGs and seems to have established a good market for his products.Bear in mind his runs are much smaller per model than the big 3, it remains to be seen if Atlas can get motive power production up to a better level,JMO

I would have signed up for the EMD demo model rerun of the SW8. I also would like to see atlas o make an EMD demo model of their mp15 along with a rerun of the popular Conrail unit.

 

Auto correct Sucks with my driod phone.

What is an "end demo model"?

Does he mean EMD?

Butch,

Once Jim Weaver passed from the Atlas scene they may have lost much of their "train knowledge." I know a number of folks who Scott Mann relies on for product intelligence (many are OGR forum members), and these guys are modelers as well as real train enthusiasts who can steer Scott in the proper direction regarding projects and paint schemes.

 

One other thing in Scott's favor is his willingness to add paint schemes/road names to announced projects. The E8/9 project already is being modified from the original announcement a week ago.

Your right, Jim Weaver was the driving force in Atlas O and he left a hole that has never been filled IMHO. It was Jim's choice to go with the vertical motors for the Atlas locos. We had several strong discussions about this as we were polar opposites on this point. I guess possibly if Jim were still alive Atlas would have done more and done it more quickly, I still don't agree with their choice for power. But, it's not my company and that choice fortunately left the door open for Scott.  

 

The E8/9 project already is being modified from the original announcement a week ago.

 

I can imagine, there are a lot of differences between E-8's and E-9's plus difference in the specific locos themselves. Single or dual headlights, square or round sand hatches, dynamic and non-dynamic brakes, roof piping, fuel tanks, etc, to name just a few. It will be a challenging project I'm sure. 

 

I wrote to Scott asking him to produce the UP versions of E-8's and E-9's in either as delivered or early in their life. NO beacons, no strobes, no firecracker antennas, no nose MU receptacles. I don't care if it's pre or post 1959 when the Union Pacific name went below the top headlight, just no 1960's detail. 

 

Snow hatches would be nice but that is asking a lot since the UP was the only road to use them to my knowledge. 

 

Butch

I'm thinking Kate Upton in a bikini....

Actually the last new model motive power that Atlas announced and made was the Tman U23B back in 2008, I think Scott has had a wide open field for engine choices.Atlas based on their predominantly 3 rail market has been committed to the twin vertical motor drives, the SW series drive was a one time engineering change to their standard practice and I suspect cost was a factor in not going further,Jim had to justify the product his company was selling when discussing twin motor drives.JMO

Great points made by all.  It still remains to be seen if Atlas will be able to deliver their products in a timely manner.

 

Norm

Butch, the one other mistake I think Atlas made right from the get go was to go with Lionel style trucks/bolster instead of the Weaver truck/coupler/bolster system. If they had designed their freight cars to use the typical standard 2 rail truck like Weaver did and then just add a 3 rail coupler on top of the truck like Weaver did it would have been so easy for folks who wanted to upgrade to a more detailed truck. Instead doing it the way Atlas did it they made it difficult to upgrade trucks and some (not all but some) of their rolling stock sits too darn high. There is nothing wrong with the way Weaver did it. It works great. A friend of mine who is 3 railer had 3 Weaver 2R boxcars that I converted to 3 rail for him (I added weights and Weaver die cast couplers) and they run great. The reason I say this is because I absolutely love Atlas rolling stock and this one change would have made the product as close as we get to perfection in this hobby. Just my opinion.

 

I'm glad this run got cancelled because I already have 4 Atlas Raritan River SWs and the run had two more in it. However, I am up to my limit with what I have on order so I only ordered one of them. I know they sold well in the earlier runs but I guess everyone who wanted one has one. I know prices go up over time and this new run had DCC/Sound in it but I bought the earlier SWs at slightly less than MSRP which was $225 for the plain DC version. This new run had MSRP @ $499. Seems like a lot for a switcher.

 

On the TCS WOW thread Johnnyspeed said he might start hording the Atlas SWs. I started thinking the same thing but this may be a little more difficult that we thought as I checked that auction site last night and could find only one Atlas SW and it was 3 rail.

I think you are correct. I always suspected that the reason they choose to go with the 3 rail drive system was cost/profit. They are in it to make money so I can't blame them but I think it would have helped them out now to have the drive system that most 2 railers prefer.

Following posts by Atlas-O representatives on these forums & from talking to them at the most recent Chicago March meet, I get the impression that they are so concerned about their competitors duplicating their offerings that they are not transparent with their customers & it is my opinion that this lack of updates can be disadvantageous to both Atlas & to their customers. For example, last month before the preorder deadline for their Trainman RSD-7, a potential customer wanted to know if the Pennsylvania version would have the antenna on top of their locomotive. Another hobbyist was able to produce old photos of the prototype locomotive with these antennas but according to the Atlas-O representative it was already too late to provide this missing feature that was critical to the customer. So even before the deadline was past, it was already too late to correct this mistake & they lost the opportunity for a preorder.

These are just my opinion,

Thanks,

Naveen Rajan

That would put a nice end to the discussion.

I certainly can't speak for the rest of you but I'm so glad I bought a used O scale 2-rail Overland SP MP15 recently from Bill Davis of American Brass Models. I'd been searching for an MP15ac for many years hoping Atlas would rerun their SP MP15's and now they've decided to cancel the their production rerun. In truth I liked Atlas's products in the past and still do but I'm no longer interested in pre-ordering from them only to have it canceled and for the record I never could understand their selection of obscure RR's.

 

For me Sunset 3rdRail is a much more responsible company and Scott does a great job listening to his customer's preferences. I think its time for a corporate 'shake-up' at Atlas before they completely loose their customer base and depart the scene!

 

Atlas based on their predominantly 3 rail market has been committed to the twin vertical motor drives, the SW series drive was a one time engineering change to their standard practice and I suspect cost was a factor in not going further,Jim had to justify the product his company was selling when discussing twin motor drives.

Just an FYI, the Horizontal drives were used in the :

SW8/9 Diesel Switcher

MP15 Diesel switcher and the

AEM-7 Electric locomotive.

 

 

 "the SW series drive was a one time engineering change to their standard practice"

 

  Actually the SW drive was their standard practice at the time but the 3 rail crowd complained too much about it's lack of high speed and loud sound so the next Atlas product was made like the typical 3 rail trains of the day. The SW was a sweet bit of engineering much like a Kato HO loco or the old SHS scale switcher drive......DaveB

Dave is correct - AtlasO had a home run from the performance perspective in their SW series locomotives but their 3 rail customers were less than impressed with the sound quality - it didn't come up to Lionel or MTH standards, perhaps due to constrained space for a larger speaker.  AtlasO's second motive power offering, the AEM7 electric, also featured their smooth single horizontal motor drive. The twin vertical motor "China drives" came later.

 

Ed Rappe