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Volume #3 Issue #7 |
July 1999 |
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News from the National Train Show in St. Paul: The attendace for the weekend show was 19,200. Below are a few notes I took:
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RoadRailers®: deLuxe was showing the resin cast
versions of these. They have finalized the design and the final tooling
is currently being made. Production will start very soon, look for these
this fall in Triple Crown. Other companys that had RoadRailers®
(i.e. deLuxe has not commited yet to doing all of these): Swift, Amtrak,
BNSF (DuraPlate version). Now accepting reservations on the Road Railers,
click here for part numbers. New York Central 1944 AAR Box Cars are next up. New woodchip car will be a Northern Pacific Repaint, details will be posted as they become available. New Coalporter car is a mineral red Conrail restenciled for NYC. For a picture of the prototype click here. Details will be posted as they become available. Another New Coalporter car is SATX - City of Public Service Board San Antonio. Now taking reservations, click here for part numbers. Next 20' Container - Evergreen. Now taking reservations, click here for part number. Next 48' Container - Santa Fe. Now taking reservations, click here for part number. |
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Announced the August Monthly Releases, including a new body style (50' steel side, 15 panel, fixed end gondola) and two Special Edition cars; Smokey Bear and Pepsi-Cola. |
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Kato announced their intentions for the next year:
Only the first item (70 Ton covered hoppers) have they formally announced with part numbers, road names, prices, and delivery schedule. The remaining items have not had any details discussed as yet. Only that they intend to move forward with these over the next year. Please don't email me asking for more information, I have shared with you everything I know here. I will post more as it becomes available. |
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Their latest kit is a 1930
Model A Pickup. I also had the opportunity to see their new Engine Conversion Kit, Northern Pacific Z8 conversion for the Con-Cor Challenger. They had a completed model and it looked fantastic. |
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I have now actually seen the DZ121 decoder.
It is tiny at 0.36" x 0.575" x 0.16" in size. Retail price
is $44.99 with our price being $35.99. They claim to be shipping around
the first part of August. We are now accepting orders (DIG-DZ121). This
decoder has a new surprise, it has an on-board transponder that works
in conjunction with a new block detection system Digitrax is developing.
The system will consist of three components; block occupancy detectors,
transponding receivers, and transponders. Why would you want a transponder?
Well a traditional Block Occupancy system only tells you that a particular
block is occupied or vacant. With the advent of the transponder you can
now tell which piece of equipment is occuping the block. This is pretty
cool, because now you can tell which engine has entered a block. And by
adding transponders to other equipment such as caboose's you can tell
where the end of the train is and also which direction it is traveling.
Zana of Digitrax stated that several of the software vendors were working
to add features to their products to utilize this.
Below is a list of the new products Digitrax is developing (please note that these products are not yet available, we are taking orders for them): BDL16: LocoNet Universal Block Occupancy Detector for 16 blocks. Expected retail price will be $125.00 (less than $8 per block), our price is expected to be $100.00. This is a traditional style of block occupancy in that it tells you whether the block is occupied or not. RX4 & RX8 Transponder Receiver: These are add-ons to the above Block Occupancy Detector in 4 and 8 block units. Retail price is $49.95 and $79.95 respectively with our prices expected to be $39.96 and $63.96. Transponders: The DZ121 will be the first decoder with the transponder built-in. Expect to see future decoders incorporate this feature. They also are going to produce an add-on transponder to put in your existing engines without having to replace the decoder. The TD-1 (retails for $16.95, our price $13.56) is very small at about 3/8" x 3/8" x 1/8" with two wires to be hooked directly to track power. Also, a TL-1 which is the same device as the TD-1 but also has a lighting output for coach lights or FRED's and will retail for $18.95 with our price being $15.16. PM4: Power Management System - this product takes the output of a single booster and divides its output into 4 sections. Each section is capable of Auto-Reversing and will also protect the other sections when a short occurs. Now if your layout and operating characteristics don't exceed a single booster output (5 amps) this will eliminate needing to purchase expensive boosters just to get the auto-reverse feature. Also by segmenting your layout into sections a short in one will not kill the entire layout and should also make trouble-shooting shorts easier. Retail price is expected to be $79.95 with our price expected at $63.96. PS515: Power Supply, finally a pre-built 5 amp power supply for your DCC system. This is a fully enclosed power supply with a standard 120 volt power cord going to the outlet and a pair of wires to your DCC booster. Retail price is expected to be $49.99 with our price at $39.99. |
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| INTERMOUNTAIN RAILWAY CO. |
For InterMountain
the big item was their HO Scale F7 shells. They had several of the A units
and a couple of samples of the B unit. These are incredible, we can only
hope they decide to move into the N Scale engine market. They continue to work on the N Scale version of their flat car. Again, in HO Scale this is a beautiful model, so we will continue to pester them for this product. Two new cars for July, a new 4750 cubic ft. covered hopper lettered Frito-Lay Inc. and a new tanker labeled Stauffer Chemical Co. |
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The
Second Run of the GP20's are supposed to ship the last week of July
to distributors, so we expect to get them in 2-3 weeks. Life-Like was showing samples of the third run of the SW9/1200 Switchers. These are due at the end of the year (October/November). We are now taking orders. |
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Atlas was fairly quiet in their booth, they did hand out an ATLAS NEWS which listed the road names for the next Classic Locomotive Releases of the ALCO RS-3 and ALCO RSD-4/5's. |
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The newset Micro Structure, Fire Engine Co. #2, was on display. Also they were showing off a project they are developing, a working Drive-In Theater in Z Scale. Not only is the projection/snack bar building provided, entrance/ticket booth with lighted signage, but the screen contains an LCD display hooked to a DVD player. I watched a portion of Star Trek First Contact while looking at this excellent model. The N Scale version will have a price of about $1,500 including the DVD player. |
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Blair Line
had their latest kits on display: One Car Garage Wood Loading Ramp Section Car Toolhouse Company House Truck Dump Blairstown 2 Story Depot (most recently new) For pictures of the above click here. |
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| N Scale Supply has attempted to provide accurate information within this newsletter. We cannot be held responsible for typographic errors, omissions, or other mistakes. Quantities may be limited, please call or email for availability. Prices may change without notice. |
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© Copyright 1999 by Solution Development, Inc.
N Scale Supply is a division of Solution Development, Inc.
Fire Engine Co. #2 Building Kit
