Hi. This recent thread may give you some help, and you can always resurrect it by replying to it with a question of your own. msowsun or someone else should pipe up quickly.
http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1197780/ShowPost.aspx
Isn't that President's Choice 2-10-2 a model from IHC? If so, it must really be made differently than those sold in the U.S. The tender was "DCC and sound ready" on my Santa Fe version by having a NMRA DCC socket and speaker cutouts. The tender has a multi-wire connector that plugs into the back of the locomotive on mine.
Yes, it must be different because the CDN$99 price tag yields a rather nice loco, but to me not the same in looks as their newly offered 2-10-2, several cars, some track, and a power pack! I wonder if they are repackaging some much older stuff just to pay some bills, or to stay in the market.
I was seriously considering getting the loco last Christmas...it looked quite nice, but I had another coming for a gift. I am curious at to see what will appear on the shelves this year.
As IHC enters a contract to supply the train sets to Lowlaws (Parent company of President's Choice) I would doubt very much that IHC would fulfill the contract with substandard equipment.
I myself would like to try to support the President's Choice annual trainsets if possible. There certainly are not many companies trying to promote the "Canadian" identity. While the units them self are more or less generic and the Canadianization being the labelling of either CP or CN it is a start.
I think if prudent to realize that given the number of sets ordered and that Loblaws is trying to bring in a season product - toy trains for Christman - that in order to keep bringing in the sets a profit is required. Hopefully the quality of the sets will meet the expectations of the buyers and the sets can be unique enough to be accepted as Canadian prototype's.
As I commented before, at least it is an attempt to promote Canadian railroads.
Agree, agree!
The big question is - what will they bring out this year ???
For myself, I wouldn't at all mind seeing something old and small - but with the same quality as the Santa Fe.
I notice that they have a AT&SF version of the 2-10-2 out with a multi protocol decoder for the European market - I wonder if that will show up here
As far the the new PC train set is concerned...
old & small - 4-4-0, 2-6-0, 4-6-0 (YES!!!)
Mehano has already done the 4-4-0 and the 2-6-0 - a Prestige quality 10 wheeler (low drivered) would be really nice - although I would not turn my nose up at a Prestige quality re-do of any of the aformentioned types - preferably with a cars typical for the very early part of the last century.....
Wishful thinking I know!
Villy
Mehano has historically relied heavily on what works, and that is, so far, their standard line-up with the recent addition of a somewhat improved 2-10-2. So, unless I am quite mistaken, you can count on receiving the underbelly of something that they have sold for years, and perhaps the costs of a new top covering will be nicely paid for by the terms of the contract...I mean, they sell all but a very few of them, and we never see them again. Think of that weird Hudson of 2005!
I have an uneasy feeling that this years set will be based on IHC's new premier train set series and that it will be a diesel engine.
I am not surprised that the PR's 2-10-2 did not have the plug in for DCC as that would be an item which could quickly be deleted to lower the cost per unit.
The one thing I noticed is that while there were a few diesels that there has never been a passenger version. I would assume again that on a cost per unit the freight cars are cheaper to produce than the passenger cars.
What I wonder about most is how "Canadian" will this years set be? While I do not expect a cab replacement for the steamers to the Canadain enclosed cab it would be nice if there was something other than the paint job to make it Canadian.
I don't know how close - but there were a lot of different 2-10-2's in Canadian service - more than there appeared to be when I started looking.
I even found a picture of a Hudson with the ugly elephant ears - I can't remember if they curved in or not though. I also think that is was one of a very few (maybe only one) that given the ear's as an experiment.
It would be nice if Mehano would go back and refresh their earlier products with some of the features from the 2-10-2 - sprung drivers for example....
As I said earlier - a nice low drivered 10 wheeler would be very nice... (IMHO anyway)...
When these PC units came out last year I was interested and researched the various 2-10-2's that CN and CP had. There were 2-10-2's by IHC, Proto, Bachman and BLI available.
The pic's I managed to locate seemed to indicate the other 2-10-2 available then the Bachmann spectrum model was closer in resemblance than the IHC model.
As the PC unit was not available to me in the Northern part of the province I opted to buy a Spectrum unit in CN markings instead. While it is a great engine on its own merit I realized that I had simply got caught up in the new 2-10-2 models and now I have an engine that is too large for my layout. Oh well, I will just file it away and perhaps with my next layout I could justify such a large engine.