New HO GATC 2600 Airslide Hopper

Athearn has just announced production of the GATC 2600 Airslide Hopper in HO scale for delivery in February 2012. According to a CMS article that I have the 3 road number are part of an order of 8 cars they placed on January 1, 1961 and has the unique triangular Airside General logo.This car is a relatively new model for them and is in their regular line. It has many separately applied parts and therefore making it a beautiful model. Their will be 3 road numbers and below are the specifics:

87574 - SLSF-Frisco #42253
87575 - SLSF-Frisco #42249
87576 - SLSF-Frisco #42245

The MSRP is $44.98 but we must take into consideration the number of separately applied parts that are on this car. The below referenced link lists them at the bottom.

PDF Format (more detailed)

http://www.athearn.com/newsletter/082311/04_GATC_Airslide_082311.pdf

JPEG Format (less detailed)

http://www.athearn.com/newsletter/082311/04_GATC_Airslide_082311.jpg

When this car was originally announced over a year ago I immediately asked my contact at Athearn to produce it for us and he promised he would. Well, we got into one of the first runs. I firmly believe that it is due primarily to all of you stepping up to the plate and buying their products. I know several of you bought GP15-1's even though they didn't fit your era. Now on to getting our beloved GP7's!

 

Way to go Bob. Ordering mine today. I think that there were airslides under the "SLSF" reporting mark but I need to check. If so, maybe Athearn would consider doing the SLSF version. I won't be able to check until tonight so if someone already knows, pass on the info.

 

In researching this project someone (I believe Ray Wells or Rick McClellan) gave me a copy of an article that I think was in the 9/84 (#40) issue of FMIG that was written by James Rucker about modeling the airslide using the E&B Valley Model. There were 76 cars that carried the GACX markings and they were broken into 6 groups as follows:

42246-42253 8 cars
42413-42424 12 cars
42886-42896 11 cars
43960-43981 22 cars
44059-44066 8 cars
44500-44514 15 cars

 

I would really love to get one of these. But man that's gonna be a tough forking out $45 for a car. For me for now the jury is out on this one. But I bet the detailing will be amassing looking at what Athearn has done to their stuff in the past decade or so.

Ethan

 

I just ordered all three numbers from my local hobby shopo, as well as the three bay window cabooses.

 

Wow! Several people have beat me to the punch in pre-ordering their models! Having said that, I should have mentioned in my initial post that the pre-order deadline for dealers is 09/16/11. I have already received a couple of emails from ones that I deal with announcing the cars and their corresponding pre-order discount level. Unlike others, I have never known Athearn to pull the plug on an offering but I assume that they will base their production levels on the number of pre-orders that they receive.

 

Whole trains did not list them, but toy train heaven lists them here:

http://www.toytrainheaven.com/.sc/ms/cat/HO Cars Athearn Group 1--GATC 2600 Airslide

You will need to scroll down some, they do not have a picture posted yet on them.

Looks like it is TTH or a LHS

Ethan

 

Wholesale Trains has prices that are hard to beat, although their shipping charges can be on the high side. I checked today and these cars are listed on their website.

Due to a suggestion from Karl, I order from Caboose Hobbies as well. They have excellent customer service. They also have these cars listed.

 

Adding to this discussion, Wholesale Trains has probably the lowest price out there and they are good to deal with. Having said that, several of us have been buying freight cars lately from Spring Creek Model Trains located in the tiny town of Deshler, NB. They are a full service hobby shop but make the majority of their sales at train shows and by word of mouth. They are always at the Oklahoma City Train Show and Turkey Creek for example. I suggest you check their website to see if their coming to a show near you.

Their normal walk-up discount is 20% but they do offer a bigger one of up to 30% for pre-orders placed before the manufacturer cut-off date and they don't require a deposit or charge a cancellation fee. They can't set the exact discount until the product is shipped because the amount they receive from the manufacturers varies.

The cut-off date for the Athearn Bay Window Caboose and Airslide Hopper is next Friday 09/16/11 but thy have informed me they will probably place the order a day or two earlier. I plan to place my order on Monday.

The owners are David and Debby Zucker. They do have a website http://www.springcreekmodeltrains.com/ but if you want to place an order you will need to either call (preferred method) or send them an email. Here are the specifics:

Contact Information
You can contact us via:
Snail Mail: Spring Creek Model Trains, P.O. Box 304, Deshler, NE 68340
Telephone: 402-365-7628.
E-Mail: customerservice@springcreekmodeltrains.com

In conclusion please understand that I am only posting this information because others have asked in the past as to where some of us buy from.

 

Does anyone know how long the SLSF used these GACX cars? The Frisco started receiving their own airslides about 1963.

Thanks.

 

Tony LaLumia (Friscotony) called me yesterday morning asking about the fact that the artist renderings of the Athearn offering of this car show it with a black roof. I need to verify if this is correct. The photos that I have look like the roof hatches are indeed black but not the overhang or sill at the edge. Can anyone help with this? It may or may not be too late to contact them to correct it.

 

Hopefully not. The Athearn car #'s are 42245,49,& 53.

 

No surprise, with Athearn. Airslides during the period used black roof paint, which was a tar based paint, which then whilst wet received a sprinkling of sand for grip. Therefore you get the phenomena of black vetical parts of the rib appearing more black (and weathered to dark grey) while the rest of the roof is a grey colour.


Nick Molo

 

First and foremost, it looks like the MSRP listed on the Athearn website is $44.98 which is the same as when they were announced. In answer to your Ebay question, I have seen this before and it means that the dealer knows they are in route and by
the time the auction is closed he anticipates having them in hand.