Athearn has announced production of the SD40-2 in their Ready-to-Roll line which means that they will be moderately to highly detailed, DCC Ready and at a reasonable MSRP of $99.98. There will be three road #'s produced and they ae as follows: Stk #95254 Road #953 Stk #95255 Road #955 Stk #95256 Road #950 They will have upgraded tooling with separately applied grab irons and other features, but more importantly they will have road specific details meaning that in the case of the Frisco units an 88" nose, nose gyra-light, and roof beacon. Last, but certainly not least, by looking at the bulletin they have finally gotten the color right. http://www.athearn.com/newsletter/012009/05_SD40-2a_012009.jpg http://www.athearn.com/newsletter/012009/05_SD40-2a_012009.pdf Bob Hoover FriscoFriend
Alright, looks like birthday money will be going towards one of these babies. It'll go nicely with my B30-7.
Bob - Good deal! Hope you are right in thinking Athearn has figured out a correct shade of red/orange. The bulletin rendering looks pretty good. Neat that they will do the gyralite! That's good news, as, to me at least, adding the Utah Pacific gyralite to the GP/SD nose is a real pain. I wish the other manufacturers would have done this earlier. Hope the SD40-2 is a success for them. Any chance we could talk them into doing the SD45 for our favorite road? The L-window would be a problem. That BNSF color scheme gives me a headache! Ken
Try Tony's Trains: http://www.tonystrains.com/locomotive/athearn.htm or Pacific Western: http://www.pacific-western-rail.com/ho_in_stock_locomotives.php?Page=22&PrimarySort=Price DESC&
Thanks Keith, Right after I posted this I got a reply from a hobby shop that had 2 of them with different number so I scooped them up. Larry Winfrey
