October 2013 York: Atlas-O CZ Update!

You beat me to it Dave, a great announcement of the dome obs. Can't wait for it to arrive. 

What else in the way of new info did they comment on? are the new 25,500 tank cars still on target? Thanks for info.

Those tankers were on display in the booth, but that's all i know.  Looked very nice.  

I primarily stopped in to attend the CZ seminar.  But I can say that it appears Atlas-O is finally breaking through its logjam of a backlog with recent rolling stock deliveries from its new Asian supplier.  I just picked up a CSX Gunderson set from one of my LHS's earlier this week, and it sounds like a CZ dining car will be enroute to my house shortly.  

David

The Diner, and The Dome Observation, will complete my Twin Cities Zephyr train, Now I need to finish adding TMCC to my old Smith & Sons E-5

Fantastic news David, thank you for sharing.

Looking forward to the diner and sleeper within the month and then more cares within 5 months, its going to be like Christmas all year. Perhaps by Christmas 2014 the CZ will be fully up and running.

Best,

Jason

Great news, thanks for posting.  Did Atlas mention if any new roadnames (besides Amtrak) are in the offing after the CZ is done? 

Nothing that they would publicly talk about in terms of specific roadnames, but I got the distinct impression they'd like to recoup their tooling costs wherever possible. 

Quite honestly, the CZ cars are so nice, I'd be happy to see them re-issued in, say, the NP North Coast Limited paint scheme -- especially with all the dome cars.  Obviously, the dome car tooling is done, but Atlas-O is also set on doing things very close to prototype.  So I'm not sure how the CZ cars compare to the details of the NP cars, for example.

As I said, I wouldn't care if Atlas-O just took the CZ cars and repainted them in NP colors!!!    But I know some folks here who'd throw a conniption fit if something as much as one rivet was slightly out of place.    You know who you are out there.    And it all comes at a cost.

David

I missed you there today Dave, next time.

That is HUGE news!!! Can't wait to get an observation dome! Oh yah!

John, I was only there on Thursday.  I seriously thought about driving back Friday, but I was afraid I'd buy too much stuff!!!    The deals were too tempting, and I'd already done some damage this year.  Gotta stick to my budget -- or at least give the appearance that I tried.  

David

I actually didn't get anything big, just some parts and supplies.  I'm saving for the Vision Line Big Boy, it was certainly impressive.

That is great news, now I can complete the set!

Hopefully Atlas production and deliveries are much improved for 2014, they seem to be getting better this year although motive power has been lagging. Despite the optimistic outlook by their reps at the venues they attend recent years deliveries have lagged well behind there estimates. Notice Sunset is taking reservations for the FT diesels, Scott is not wasting any time getting a jump on the market.

I'm pretty sure that it was 2011 when Atlas-O lost their primary supplier in China, and it's been a tough road lining up a new supplier to produce goods.  However, the CZ production run containing the dining cars was announced in January 2013 with an ETA of 3Q2013.  And if the QA checks go as planned this week, we'll likely be seeing the new CZ cars in dealer stores by early/mid-November.  Not too bad at all.

The reps at York were pretty firm on a March/April 2014 ETA for the domed observation and 6-5 sleepers that were previewed at York his past week.  So that will be a good test to see if they're quoting reliable dates.  

Once Atlas-O posts the official announcement on the website, they'll likely have a very short pre-order window if they expect to make a March/April 2014 delivery.  Let's hope for the best.

David