There are some new pics of it on the site, looks like their best yet. I love how front class lights are red on the engine and the marker lights are also red on the tender. Very nice touch in HO.
When you get yours, can you please post videos or pics? Thanks.
When the engine is running in reverse and not pulling anything, the front class lights become markers. That is the only time they should be red.
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
My expectation is that the Hybrid Q2 will be a true blockbuster in the HO steam world. It is all brass, with the exception of brake shoes. To get factory sound and DCC in an all-brass engine weighing 1.75 lbs for $540 is pretty darned impressive. And delayed only three months!
-Crandell
selector My expectation is that the Hybrid Q2 will be a true blockbuster in the HO steam world. It is all brass, with the exception of brake shoes. To get factory sound and DCC in an all-brass engine weighing 1.75 lbs for $540 is pretty darned impressive. And delayed only three months! -Crandell
My thoughts exactly Crandell
Cheers!
Blockbuster? What's that? You think "everyone" wil buy one?
I'm sure its very nice, but only 3 out of the 30 or so modelers I hang with are PRR modelers, and I bet only one of them buys one.
Yet I could sell a dozen of the B&O Pacific's BLI never made to that same group, maybe two or three dozen if they offered them "as built", "modernized" and unlettered in both of those versions.
So I'll keep my $500 and buy three or four Roundhouse Pacific's if they turn out to be any good.
And maybe an Athearn MT-4 or two when they get here, without sound or class lights.
Seems to me the market research is defective/non existant.
Sheldon
I could have used a better word, Sheldon, I agree. How about if I word it this way: It will turn out to be a quickly sold-out engine for a number of reasons, one already stated...it's all brass and for half the cost of a typical brass engine. Did I mention it comes with a sound decoder? I know you have no interest, but clearly some of us do.
Secondly, there will not be another run, at least not as a hybrid series of brass/plastic, or all brass as this one is. So, just as a hot movie sells out if it is highly desired by enough people, I am pretty confident this engine will do very well.
I hope you get your Pacific, and it would be great if it turns out to be a Hybrid. BLI doesn't seem to be too keen at the moment, but.....keep hoping.
A short video of it is up on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bj4yAR9It0
ATLANTIC CENTRALI'm sure its very nice, but only 3 out of the 30 or so modelers I hang with are PRR modelers, and I bet only one of them buys one.
Oh I don't know. I'm strictly C&O, and I'm even tempted to buy one. A beautiful engine is a beautiful engine.
*still has fingers cross for a B&O EM-1, 0-4-0 docksider (A good one) along with C&O H-7 and 4-8-4 someday*
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
rjake4454 A short video of it is up on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bj4yAR9It0
Hmmm.. The chuff goes in and out of sync, but the wheels do not. Fascinating.
I looks super! I can see a red wire behind the headlamp, so that will have to be taken care of. But it looks super. Not sure about the whistle.
DigitalGriffin ATLANTIC CENTRALI'm sure its very nice, but only 3 out of the 30 or so modelers I hang with are PRR modelers, and I bet only one of them buys one. Oh I don't know. I'm strictly C&O, and I'm even tempted to buy one. A beautiful engine is a beautiful engine. *still has fingers cross for a B&O EM-1, 0-4-0 docksider (A good one) along with C&O H-7 and 4-8-4 someday*
I understand, but personally I'm not a collector (neither are most of my friends), I don't have any shelf queens or stuff with no purpose on the layout. No GG1's, K4's, GS4's, BigBoy's, Triplex's, FEF's, Challengers, N&W "J"'s, etc, etc.
But since I model B&O, C&O, WM and my freelanced ATLANTIC CENTRAL, I would go for all of your hopeful choices. I still say the market research that keeps giving us PRR and UP is seriously flawed.
I used to collect several road names. Now I pretty much stick to PRR. What can I say, its where I grew up. I will always love the Pennsylvania Railroad.
It goes even farther than an obsession with the PRR and UP. It's an obsession with the big engines of each. We have Big Boys coming out the wazoo, but where are the Harriman Consolidations, Pacfics and Mikes? You can get a Pennsy Q2, T1 or J1, but where are the H8's, L1's or G5's?
Anybody wanna bet if MTH or BLI ever do a Northern Pacific steam locomotive it will either be a Z-5 2-8-8-4 or one of the 4-6-6-4's of classes Z-6/7/8?
Andre
If you think about it models like the Q2, J1 and T1 are quite rare in the hobby, I certainly don't think they have been overdone like the Big Boys. If anthing the PRR J1a is under represented in the market, despite the fact that it was one of the best performing coal haulers of all time. Excluding brass, only one company makes the J1a, and after the first run, its impossible to track these down now. They are all sold out.
The J1 can't in any way be compared to something like the S1 which was an absolute failure (despite being one of my favorite art deco locos), apples and oranges.
I do agree though that we need some Atlantics.
ATLANTIC CENTRALBlockbuster? What's that? You think "everyone" wil buy one?
My goodness, Sheldon. Do you wait up in a tree for someone to make a statement/express a thought so that you can then jump all over it and tell everyone why you won't buy one...or what you would end up removing from it, if you did?
Here's the term, according to Merriam-Webster:
blockbuster (bläk-ˌbəs-tər) n. 2. one that is notably expensive, effective, successful, large, or extravagant - e.g. a blockbuster movie
So, by sheer definition of the word, the term blockbuster as "notably expensive...large, or extravagant" - even before a single person has purchased one - accurately describes the BLI Q2. All that's left to determine then is whether or not BLI's newest release is "effective" and "successful". I think that is all that was meant by Crandell's use of the word, Sheldon; one that I've always took as "wildly successful" - i.e. whether I buy one myself or not.
Please quit looking for a hockey game every time you go to a fight...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
rjake4454 If you think about it models like the Q2, J1 and T1 are quite rare in the hobby, I certainly don't think they have been overdone like the Big Boys. If anthing the PRR J1a is under represented in the market, despite the fact that it was one of the best performing coal haulers of all time. Excluding brass, only one company makes the J1a, and after the first run, its impossible to track these down now. They are all sold out. The J1 can't in any way be compared to something like the S1 which was an absolute failure (despite being one of my favorite art deco locos), apples and oranges. I do agree though that we need some Atlantics.
That's not the point. The point is that LARGE engines are represented far out of proportion to their actual numbers. Not only that, there's often more than one manufacturer doing the same engine (Van Sweringen Berkshires, the thrice accursed Big Boy and the N&W J come to mind right off the top of my head).
Pennsy had 574 L1 2-8-2's vs. 125 J1's. The Mikes could go places where the 2-10-4's couldn't. A 2-8-2 is a much more layout friendly engine. In any case, the J1 was a Pennsyfied copy of the C&O T-1. If it was one of the more successful coal haulers, it was no thanks to Pennsy engineering. The design kudos should go to the Advisory Mechanical Committee (or perhaps more correctly to A.G. Trumbull) of the Van Sweringen roads (NKP, C&O, etc.).
Models of large engines are not rare in the hobby. It's small to medium sized engines that are rare. That's part of what everyone's complaining about. I might have moaned if BLI had done a Pennsy H8/9/10 simply because it's just another Pennsy engine, but at least such an engine wouldn't overwhelm a layout and Pennsy did have something like 1500 examples of the 3 classes. Were I a Pennsy fan, an H8/9/10 would be a much more useful engine than a 2-10-4 or a 4-4-6-4.
Well... my understanding is that one of BLI's best selling models was the T1 duplex. So I don't think it should be a surprise that they might look at the Q2! It's what a friend of mine refers to as the "Lionel Factor" - that certain locos are just so interesting and outside the norm that "people just have to have them".
Now, on the other hand, given that the I1sa (which is not an enormous loco, and is rather mundane as far as looks go) was a roaring success (sold out within a couple of weeks), I think BLI might be more willing to make some locos for the operators rather than collectors.
I have heard that one of the issues they've had in the past is that people expect smaller locos to be proportionally cheaper than their larger counterparts - it just isn't so, because they have approximately the same number of parts and complexity, and that's what is the deciding factor on price, not raw materials, which may be a buck or two different between a 2-10-0 and an 0-6-0.
andrechapelon Pennsy had 574 L1 2-8-2's vs. 125 J1's. The Mikes could go places where the 2-10-4's couldn't. A 2-8-2 is a much more layout friendly engine. In any case, the J1 was a Pennsyfied copy of the C&O T-1. If it was one of the more successful coal haulers, it was no thanks to Pennsy engineering. The design kudos should go to the Advisory Mechanical Committee (or perhaps more correctly to A.G. Trumbull) of the Van Sweringen roads (NKP, C&O, etc.). Models of large engines are not rare in the hobby. It's small to medium sized engines that are rare. That's part of what everyone's complaining about. I might have moaned if BLI had done a Pennsy H8/9/10 simply because it's just another Pennsy engine, but at least such an engine wouldn't overwhelm a layout and Pennsy did have something like 1500 examples of the 3 classes. Were I a Pennsy fan, an H8/9/10 would be a much more useful engine than a 2-10-4 or a 4-4-6-4.
I am wondering why we are ending up with the same large locomotives as well. I know about the idea that they sell. I also know that there is a market for them. I also know, though, that there is an underground market for those "plebian" small engines that did the switching and the branchline duties all over North America.
It looks more like there may have to be a split market--much like the split from the "toy train" market from the more craftsman model HO scale.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
The operative word has to be "successful", otherwise the expense and extravagance mean nothing other than a waste of time, effort and money.
Personally, I'm hoping that the Q2 is about as successful as the movie "Ishtar" which was notably expensive and extravagant and a total flop. Maybe BLI and MTH need a couple of expensive flops to get the message.
To quote a line from an old MASH episode "We want something else!! We want something else!!
Hmm. Maybe we should be banging Army mess kits while we're yelling that.
I have heard that one of the issues they've had in the past is that people expect smaller locos to be proportionally cheaper than their larger counterparts .....
Well, people need to get their expectations in line with reality. There are N scale brass locos out there that are beginning to approach $1000 a pop. The material is not where the cost is, it's the engineering and design coupled with the estimated number that can be sold.
If people expect smaller locos to be proportionately cheaper, surgical removals of heads from the place where the sun don't shine may be necessary.
andrechapelon I have heard that one of the issues they've had in the past is that people expect smaller locos to be proportionally cheaper than their larger counterparts ..... Well, people need to get their expectations in line with reality. There are N scale brass locos out there that are beginning to approach $1000 a pop. The material is not where the cost is, it's the engineering and design coupled with the estimated number that can be sold. If people expect smaller locos to be proportionately cheaper, surgical removals of heads from the place where the sun don't shine may be necessary. Andre
I'm finding a lot of excuses---er---reasons for going large sized but the one about smaller sized locomotives being proportionally cheaper is new to me. Where did this one come from? Besides the question of tooling and etc. there really has been no one that I talked with even suggesting this.
Those who want a smaller locomotive to run the branchlines, yards switching et cetera are STILL part of the MR hobby market. Even if that market wants to ignore it----
Have to face the fact that those of us who know there have been more versions of some of these huge locos made than actually existed (or even CARE for that matter) are NOT the majority in this hobby. If this were not true, then these companies would either not keep making the oddballs, giants, and one-offs or they would be out of business. Obviously enough people buy these that they keep on makign them.
Once in a while they do something useful - the Reading T1 isn't exactly a small engine, but it alo had a huge career on both the Reading and PRR, then on the Ramble excursions, Chessie STeam Special, AMerican Freedom Train, and then excurions in the 80's. Depending on era modeled, pretty much anyone doing a railroad east of the Mississippi could justify one of the variations. This si what we want more of, time will tell if we get it or just more of the oddballs. I'm not hodling my breath.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
selector I looks super! I can see a red wire behind the headlamp, so that will have to be taken care of. But it looks super. Not sure about the whistle. -Crandell
The whistle is pure PRR. My Q2 is on its way to the dealer. I did notice the BLI 4-12-2 has been moved to the TBD on the schedule. That is not good.
CZ
Eddie_walters Well... my understanding is that one of BLI's best selling models was the T1 duplex. So I don't think it should be a surprise that they might look at the Q2! It's what a friend of mine refers to as the "Lionel Factor" - that certain locos are just so interesting and outside the norm that "people just have to have them". Now, on the other hand, given that the I1sa (which is not an enormous loco, and is rather mundane as far as looks go) was a roaring success (sold out within a couple of weeks), I think BLI might be more willing to make some locos for the operators rather than collectors.
The I1sa was a great model for PRR modelers for sure and is coming out again soon. It does seem that the PRR model locomotives always seem to be at the top of the list for most manufacturers, but that is good for many of us who model the PRR. The Q2 like the T1 should be a great seller also. I already have it in brass but did purchase one of the BLI Q2's since sound is included and it is a brass model.
I have to believe that any brass model done well with sound at this price is a bargain. Yes, I would like for BLI to make the G5, E6 and L1 also. They seem to be doing a lot of PRR and those might be on the future lists.
As for the NP locomotives that have been mentioned, Sunset just came out with the Z6 with QSI sound and it is very nice for less than one half of the price of last year's Z8 without sound by DVP.
My thought is you have to buy what is available and continue to email BLI, Atlas and Athearn or anyone out there that will listen to our wants in the future. Some have actually come true.
Anyone know what the differences are between the "prototype" 6131, and the production versions?
I see what looks to be a differend configuration of the rear sanding line, and can't quite tell if the valve gear is different.
Anyone know more?
I've got one on order, but I'd trade it for 2 or 3 H10s of powerhouse/Paragon quality like the USRA 2-8-2!
I guess what I am saying is that there are already at least 3 companies (Bachmann Spectrum, MTH, and Broadway) making Mikados, which is fine, considering it was such a widely used loco, but so far Broadway is the only company to step up to the plate and make the Pennsy J1a. I am not demanding at all that more companies should produce J1a's or Q2's, I'm simply saying that it is a pleasant surprise that at least one company does, and as a Pennsy fan, I welcome Broadway for satisfying this segment of modelers.
I'm not saying that large locomotives should in any way dominate the hobby, but its nice that at least some exist at somewhat affordable prices, and these are ready to run, as they should be.
Lets face it, the PRR was an amazing railroad and its here to stay, at least in HO scale !
That being said, it would be great to see some Atlantics and more Consolidations. Why can't we have the best of both worlds? We can still be modelers and collectors at the same time. The two terms shouldn't be contradictory. Lets all work together in communicating with the manufacturers and appreciate each others interests at the same time.
tstageATLANTIC CENTRALBlockbuster? What's that? You think "everyone" wil buy one? My goodness, Sheldon. Do you wait up in a tree for someone to make a statement/express a thought so that you can then jump all over it and tell everyone why you won't buy one...or what you would end up removing from it, if you did? Here's the term, according to Merriam-Webster: blockbuster (bläk-ˌbəs-tər) n. 2. one that is notably expensive, effective, successful, large, or extravagant - e.g. a blockbuster movie So, by sheer definition of the word, the term blockbuster as "notably expensive...large, or extravagant" - even before a single person has purchased one - accurately describes the BLI Q2. All that's left to determine then is whether or not BLI's newest release is "effective" and "successful". I think that is all that was meant by Crandell's use of the word, Sheldon; one that I've always took as "wildly successful" - i.e. whether I buy one myself or not. Please quit looking for a hockey game every time you go to a fight... Tom
I need not respond, Andre covered every point I was leading to, except one - I will continue to lobby for non sound/non DCC versions from ALL manufacturers.
1948PRR Anyone know what the differences are between the "prototype" 6131, and the production versions? I see what looks to be a differend configuration of the rear sanding line, and can't quite tell if the valve gear is different. Anyone know more? I've got one on order, but I'd trade it for 2 or 3 H10s of powerhouse/Paragon quality like the USRA 2-8-2!
The most noticable feature is the wide down the front cylinders stream lining skirts below the running boards. It was the only one to have that wide side plate and the rest are the normal for the group. I am not sure if it was ever modified, but I would venture a guess it probably was at some time. Most of the other appliances were about the same overall. You can look at both versions on the BLI web site. The 6131 did get the extra sanding line running back to the booster in the trailing truck later on. I am not sure if the BLI has this or not.
rjake4454I guess what I am saying is that there are already at least 3 companies (Bachmann Spectrum, MTH, and Broadway) making Mikados, which is fine, considering it was such a widely used loco, but so far Broadway is the only company to step up to the plate and make the Pennsy J1a.
Bachmann Spectrum Mikado? - you mean that 1980's China piece? I don't model China or the 1980's. How does that help anyone actually modeling the steam era in North America? And Broadway and MTH Mikados are of the same loco, USRA light. While it is good that it is a medium sized "work a day" locomotive, we still are suffering from multiple companies making the same prototypes - WHY? And they might be the only two USRA lights out there right now, but how many times has that been done? The idea is DIFFERENT prototypes - that are not big, are not PRR or UP and have not been done 6 times already.
rjake4454That being said, it would be great to see some Atlantics and more Consolidations. Why can't we have the best of both worlds? We can still be modelers and collectors at the same time. The two terms shouldn't be contradictory. Lets all work together in communicating with the manufacturers and appreciate each others interests at the same time.
I have nothing against those who collect, but I only have so much time, money and space and the goal of building a realistic operational layout is WAY more important to me than simply owning a lot of model trains - no matter how famous, popular, powerful, big, or whatever that they were. I have purposely narrowed my interests to an interrelated set of goals that I can acomplish.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL I have nothing against those who collect, but I only have so much time, money and space and the goal of building a realistic operational layout is WAY more important to me than simply owning a lot of model trains - no matter how famous, popular, powerful, big, or whatever that they were. I have purposely narrowed my interests to an interrelated set of goals that I can acomplish.
I am not arguing against that.
I'm not even a true collector myself, for instance I don't have a single Big Boy, GS4, Challenger. I don't have the Acela, or any Amtrak locos either. However I am glad that these models are made for those that desire them, whether for collecting purposes, or if these are essential for their layout.
My interests are actually a lot like yours, I only buy engines from about 3 east coast road names, (in my case, the PRR, NYC, and N&W), and I focus my layout on a single theme, the 1940's steam mostly. I don't have the money, space, or other resources to collect other road names for the most part and more importantly I don't want to get distracted from my goals for my layout.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel lucky that my favorite engines are being produced, but that doesn't mean other models shouldn't be made for fellows like yourself.
I think Crandell a few months ago said that Broadway should look out for the other guys, the non PRR guys, I feel the same way as him, even though we are both PRR fans.