Today I received MTH's new PremierLine 20-20838-1 Rocky Mountaineer GP40 #8019. As you can expect from my forum screen name, this loco's road-name is very near and dear to my heart. Here's a quick iPhone photo...
Please excuse the poor kitchen lighting. I no longer have the wall shelves mounted in my train room (where there's much better lighting), as that room is going through a huge transition right now in preparation for a new layout. (More about that at a later time.) But hopefully the above photo does the loco's paint scheme some level of justice. It's a real eye-catching paint scheme, IMHO.
Now HERE's the real question: What are the chances that MTH will announce a Rocky Mountaineer PremierLine train set with another GP-40 locomotive along with a string of bi-level cars in a matching paint scheme -- perhaps even in the next MTH catalog? Wouldn't THAT be cool? Since MTH appears to have had sufficient interest to produce this locomotive in its own right, I gotta believe they'd follow up with more Rocky Mountaineer products. Right??? I mean really... what would be the point of offering an admittedly niche road-name just as a locomotive -- without the cars to make the entire train? And in real-life, there are often TWO locomotives heading up the train -- and sometimes three, because the train heads out of Vancouver... and then at Kamloops some cars go North to Jaspar, while others head east to Banff and Calgary.
Note: I found it a bit interesting that this ala-carte locomotive was delivered with road # 8019. Yet if you look very closely at the image of this loco on MTH's website, it shows #8016. Could this be a hint that another GP-40 will be announced either as another ala-carte offering? Or perhaps -- even better yet -- as part of an entire Rocky Mountaineer passenger set?
If I'm not mistaken, MTH usually releases a new catalog around York, correct? So that would be their 2018 Volume 1 catalog. Has anybody heard anything about this yet with York being just 2 weeks away? Hopefully, some very exciting times ahead in MTH-land for Rocky Mountaineer fans. Let's hope MTH won't make us wait too long!!!
David