I really like what I see as an old detailer from way back, but it seems when I visit the site there are photos, but no explaination of the applications. I would really like to see some kind of text on this explaining what the different frames fit and what all the measurements of the frames apply to. It's pretty sketchy, and I think he would have much more success with this if he explained things a little more. As a person that makes and sells items for the diecast car collecting hobby, I find that explaining things helps sales. Not trying to be an antagonist here, I'm trying to help plus find out what's going on with this myself, as I'm very interested. One major mistake a person that makes and sells items to the public can make is having the impression that everybody else knows what you know. Thanks!
Randy, I'm with you on this. I make no secret about my enthusiasm for Railflyer. You could even go so far as to call me an "evangelist" of sorts for Railflyer's products and concepts. I'm not an employee or a consultant, though, just someone who sees something groundbreaking and wants to help the venture achieve success.
I have followed Railflyer's product development closely for some time now, so I'm very familiar with what you see in the photos. I know that Railflyer is basically a one-man operation, with the help of some volunteers collecting and presenting prototype information. Because Christopher, the "one-man" behind the company, is so busy creating products, performing QA, keeping vendors in line, etc., there is something of a vacuum in terms of documentation. I find that I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to this problem because I'd rather see more products than more documentation!
Christopher has prepared the first of some PDF documents that will help bring the concepts into focus a little better, but there is room for improvement in these documents. I'd suggest that you have a look at what he's put together so far on the Railflyer website under the heading
References.
That should get you started. I can go a little more in-depth on this for you here, though. Instead of creating a new locomotive (and reinventing the wheel, so to speak, as Life Like and Athearn have been known to do), Railflyer is designing a modular locomotive building system, which will allow the customer to build the locomotive of his or her choice using the appropriate components, much in the same way the real locomotives are built. If you think about it, the hood doors on a GP38 are the same as those on an SD45-2. The cab is the same, air tanks and fuel tanks are the same, the blower duct is made modular-style of lengths of duct material. What Railflyer is doing here is creating the parts-stock for you to grab each item "off the shelf" to build your model, whether it's a GP38, a GP40-2 or an SD40-2 (or any model in between).
The modular locomotive building system is a work in progress. That's not to say that Railflyer is releasing halfway-designed products or poorly though-out kits that won't work with future offerings. Christopher is meticulous and has a knack for traveling down several mental avenues during the design process. He has an inventor's mind, you could say.
The first "kit" in the modular locomotive building system is the walkway module. The two versions offered represent EMD/GMDD Dash 2 GP and SD frames and can be customized to represent virtually any GP or SD locomotive in the Dash 2 line simply by providing a railroad and unit number, along with a photo or photo link of the desired prototype.
EMD and GMDD General Purpose diesels have shared the same wheelbase frame since the GP38, GP39 and GP40 came on the scene (with a few variations and exceptions). This frame design continued through the Dash 2 line up to and including the GP49 and GP50. Similarly, the SD diesels share a common frame, though it was lengthened with the introduction of the Dash 2 line to accommodate the larger trucks. The frame was again lengthened when the SD50 series was offered (although a short version, the SD50S, was offered on the standard Dash 2 frame), and the frame length has varied a few times since.
The Railflyer walkway module gives you the ability to create everything from the hood bottom down to the railhead for any EMD/GMDD diesel from the GP38 to the GP50 and from the SD38-2 to the SD50S. As I explained to Josh above, the pre-Dash 2 models, including the SD38, SD39, SD40 and SD45 can be built by shortening the walkway module fore and aft of the fuel tank to give a total length of 40 feet, bolster to bolster. Four sawcuts and some styrene cement, epoxy or CA gets the job done.
The next line of kits are cab/subbase and nose kits. Some have said these duplicate the Cannon line of cab kits, but the first of the Railflyer releases, the Canadian wide cab (comfort cab, wide nose cab, safety cab, whatever you want to call it) is not offered by Cannon. It does duplicate the efforts of two other companies, but those companies that have produced it have not attained the level of quality associated with Cannon cab kits. The Canadian cab kit can be seen in the photo above, and in the photo gallery I posted the cab and walkway module can be seen together.
In addition to a seemingly endless variety of detail parts associated with the walkway module and cab kits, the next step of the modular locomotive system has been announced on the Railflyer website. It consists of hood side kits, which enable the kitbasher or scratchbuilder to bypass the traditional method of cutting and splicing shells together or of accumulating numerous packages of Cannon door kits (and in some cases, kitbashing individual doors) and building a styrene "frame" to place the doors in. With the hood kits, you get a set of photoetched layers (door base, door frames and the doors themselves) and injection molded "knuckle buster" door latches. For example, all the doors you need to do a GP38-2 are included in the GP38-2 set.
Small production locomotives like the GP39-2 are now possible (and on the horizon in the form of these hood kits). Until now, there's no way Athearn or Atlas would offer a GP39-2. Why? Santa Fe had at least four distinct versions of them, and that's just one of the railroads that bought them. If Athearn or Atlas choose the Delaware and Hudson version, they don't make their Burlington Northern fans happy since BN used the late version and only a small portion of the Santa Fe fleet can be modeled because they had less than 20 of that version. Choose the late Santa Fe version and the D&H and CSX guys won't be interested.
So, you build your walkway module, add the cab kit, build the hood sides and apply them to a hood "core" (in the concept phase now), detail, paint and decal and you have a road-specific, phase-specific,
number-specific model with detail unparalleled by Atlas, Kato, Athearn or even Overland brass. See why I'm fanatical about this concept yet?
Even if you don't want to build the whole modular model, any of Railflyer's detail parts from the most minute details to the correctly contoured fuel tank will improve any EMD model. Just having photoetched step kits to represent some of the unusual step arrangements you'll see out there was a giant leap forward. Where Railflyer's obsession for prototype fidelity has taken the product line today is amazing when you consider this is the work of one guy in two years' time.
If you model any EMD or GMDD diesel, from simply adding ditchlights or steps to building the whole thing from scratch, you owe it to yourself to check out Railflyer. And if you don't model HO scale, first of all, I'm sorry, but there's a cure for that: switch scales.