September 2026 Update: Major Projects Closing, Lark & 20th Century Shipping, SOME Harrimans In Stock

From Jay’s Desk

Another month has somehow come and gone, and I feel like I have spent almost as much time on airplanes as I have behind my desk lately.

I just returned from Spencer, North Carolina and the America 250 Locomotive Celebration at the North Carolina Transportation Museum. Seeing so many of the railroads’ America250 commemorative locomotives gathered together around the Bob Julian Roundhouse was something special.

For anyone who loves modern railroading, railroad history, or simply patriotic paint schemes, it was one of those events that will be difficult to duplicate.

It was also especially meaningful for us considering how deeply involved Third & Townsend Models, Sunset Models 3rd Rail, and Golden Gate Depot have become with America250-related projects over the past year. Seeing the prototypes in person, talking with people throughout the railroad industry, and seeing the response from thousands of railfans reinforced just how unique this anniversary is going to be.

Earlier in August, we were also in Edison, New Jersey for the train show. We had a fantastic weekend meeting customers, longtime friends, and quite a few people who were seeing our models in person for the first time.

One of my favorite parts of traveling to these shows continues to be the conversations. You hear what people are modeling, what they want to see produced, what we are doing right, and occasionally what they think we are completely crazy for attempting.

Sometimes those conversations even turn into future projects.

Now I am home for a very short stretch before heading back to China in about a week and a half.

That trip will be an important one. I will be spending time directly at our factories reviewing current production, samples, paint and decoration, and several projects that are moving toward their next stages. As usual, I will try to share as much as I can while I am there through photos, videos, and some candid live updates from the factory floor.

September is going to be a very busy month, so let’s get into it.

SEPTEMBER 6TH — THREE MAJOR PROJECTS CLOSE

This is the most important reminder in this month’s update.

Reservations for the Union Pacific Heritage Fleet, Series I of our America250 Big Boy Excursion Consist, and the O Scale D&RGW Yampa Valley Mail all close September 6th.

Once these reservation windows close, production quantities will be finalized and the projects will move forward.

Our production model continues to be based primarily around customer reservations. We are not ordering unlimited quantities and hoping they sell later. There may occasionally be extras after production, but there is absolutely no guarantee that a particular car, road number, or consist will remain available.

If you want one of these projects, September 6th is the date to remember.

Union Pacific Heritage Fleet Passenger Cars

Click the photo above to be taken to the reservation page

The Union Pacific Heritage Fleet has become one of the largest passenger car programs we have undertaken.

These cars feature an entirely new underbody developed specifically for this project with individually applied piping, brake rigging, air tanks, and other components.

Our goal from the beginning has been to produce an O Scale Union Pacific passenger car that gives customers much of the appearance and detailing normally associated with a handcrafted brass model without putting the finished car into traditional brass-model pricing.

We have also spent a tremendous amount of time studying the individual prototypes rather than treating the Heritage Fleet as a group of cars wearing the same paint scheme.

These cars will move into production following completion of the Lark and 20th Century Limited.

Reservations close September 6th.

PLEASE ENSURE YOUR RESERVATION IS CORRECT IF YOU HAVE ONE PLACED! And if you have been waiting until the last minute, congratulations. We have officially reached the last minute so don't delay!

America250 Big Boy Excursion Train — Series I

Our America250 Big Boy Excursion consist closes at the same time.

Please click the photo above to be taken to the reservation page

Series I includes:

• Promontory Baggage Car

• Walter Dean Dome Lounge

• City of Denver Dining Car

• Challenger Dome Coach

• Lincoln Business Observation Car

• Howard Fogg Power Car

Having now spent time around the full-size America250 railroad equipment and watched the incredible public response surrounding the 250th anniversary, I am even more excited about this program than I was when we announced it.

This is also only the first half of the train.

Series II will follow in 2027, allowing customers to continue building out the larger Union Pacific excursion consist.

For Series I, however, September 6th is it.

Once we close the books, production quantities will be submitted and we move forward.

O Scale D&RGW Yampa Valley Mail

Click the photo above to be taken to the reservation page

Also closing September 6th is our O Scale Denver & Rio Grande Western Yampa Valley Mail.

This is another passenger project that will be entering production after the Lark and 20th Century Limited move out of the factory.

The Yampa Valley Mail is exactly the type of train Golden Gate Depot was built around, historically significant passenger equipment that allows modelers to recreate a specific train rather than simply assemble a collection of generic cars.

If you have been considering the Yampa Valley Mail, do not let this one slip past the deadline.

Reservations close September 6th alongside the UP Heritage Fleet and America250 Series I.

Southern Pacific Lark & New York Central 20th Century Limited Shipping From China

Here is the update many of you have been waiting for.

Our Southern Pacific Lark and New York Central 20th Century Limited are scheduled to ship from China in approximately two weeks.

Both projects are now at the point where the focus is getting completed production packed, prepared, and out the door.

These have been two enormous passenger train projects, and I know many customers have been patiently waiting to see them finally make the trip across the Pacific. We are equally ready to see pallets of them showing up at our warehouse instead of looking at production photos from several thousand miles away.

Final Payments

If you have an outstanding balance on either your Lark or 20th Century Limited order, now is the time to begin making arrangements for final payment.

Our payment portal is open for customers who would like to pay their remaining balance or spread the final payment over the short period before arrival.

As always, completing payment before the shipment reaches our warehouse makes the fulfillment process considerably easier. Once the container arrives, clears customs, and inventory has been inspected, paid orders can move directly into the shipping queue.

With the volume of passenger cars involved in these two projects, anything customers can do ahead of time helps us keep boxes moving out the door.

We will send additional shipping and arrival updates once the shipment is officially underway.

HO Scale 80' Harrimans — In Stock & Ready to Ship

Click the photo above to be taken to the product page

After spending much of the summer shipping customer reservations, we now have select HO Scale 80' Harriman Passenger Cars in stock and available for immediate shipment.

Not every road name or configuration remains available, but we do have inventory on several versions.

If you missed the original reservation period, this is your opportunity to pick up cars without waiting for another production run.

The Harrimans have been one of our strongest HO passenger car releases, and the response since they arrived has been outstanding.

These are physically in our warehouse.

No preorder.

No waiting for production.

Order it and we can ship it.

Check the website for the road names and configurations currently available, as inventory will continue to change as cars sell.

September Production Update

September should be particularly interesting because I will actually be in China reviewing several of these projects myself.

O Scale EMD F7

Click the photo to be taken to the stand-by reservation page

The F7 program continues moving toward completion.

This has been a massive project with an equally massive number of road-specific variations, paint schemes, details, and configurations.

Developing an F-unit is easy if every locomotive is treated like the same locomotive.

That is not how we approached this project.

There are differences between roads, eras, body configurations, details, and decoration that our team and factory have been working through throughout production.

I will be reviewing the F7s while I am in China and expect to have considerably more to share directly from the factory.

N&W M Class “Mollies”

Click the photo above to be taken to the stand-by reservation page

Our O Scale Norfolk & Western M Class Mollies are also making excellent progress.

Chassis painting has been underway and tender bodies are moving through the paint shop as the locomotives work through the final stages of production.

I expect to see the models firsthand during the China trip.

This will give me an opportunity to inspect the finish, assembly, detailing, and overall presentation directly with the production team rather than reviewing everything through photographs and shipped samples.

Oh yeah, we'll have the samples at York and will be running them at the Lower Susquehanna Modular Railway Club every night...

Also, expect plenty of Mollie content from China.

C&O / Virginian Alleghenies

The Allegheny project continues progressing behind the Mollies and is moving toward the stage where we will have much more to show.

These locomotives are enormous, both in the prototype world and in O Scale, and there are a tremendous number of individual components involved in assembling them correctly.

We will continue sharing progress as production advances.

The Next Round of Closing Dates

Once we get through September 6th, there are several more projects right behind them.

O Scale GP30 & FL9 — Closing Around October 1st

Our all-new O Scale EMD GP30 and EMD FL9 programs are both currently scheduled to close around October 1st.

Click the photo above to be taken to the reservation page

The GP30 uses completely new tooling and is being engineered around individual road-specific variations rather than simply putting different paint schemes on one generic locomotive.

Click the photo above to be taken to the reservation page

The FL9 is one of the more unusual locomotives in American railroad history and exactly the type of prototype we enjoy doing, distinctive, historically significant, and instantly recognizable with all new tooling revisions from Run 1.

Both projects are approaching the point where we need to begin finalizing production quantities.

If either has been sitting on your “I’ll order it eventually” list, eventually is getting pretty close.

HO Scale Mollies & Southern Pacific AC-9, Closing Around October 15th

Click the photo to be taken to the reservation page

Our HO Scale steam program is also approaching its next major deadline.

Reservations for the HO Scale N&W M Class Mollies and HO Scale Southern Pacific AC-9s are currently expected to close around October 15th.

Click the photo to be taken to the reservation page

Both are major new HO steam projects for us and represent another expansion of the Sunset Models program into highly requested prototypes that have traditionally been difficult to obtain.

We will have more updates on both projects as we get closer to the closing date, but October 15th will arrive quickly.

What Happens After the Lark & 20th Century?

Getting the Lark and 20th Century Limited out of China opens the door for the next major group of passenger projects.

Production attention will begin shifting toward:

• Union Pacific Heritage Fleet

• Union Pacific America250 Big Boy Excursion Cars

• O Scale D&RGW Yampa Valley Mail

• O Scale Heavyweight Cars & Extra Trucks

Meanwhile, development continues across the rest of the catalog, including our HOn3 D&RGW passenger equipment, HO Southern Pacific 70' Head-End Cars, SD70ACE, Amtrak NextGen Acela, O Scale Pocohontas, O Scale Alco RS Project, many more, and several projects that we have not shown publicly yet.

One advantage of being physically at the factories this month is that I can sit down with the engineering and production teams, go through projects one by one, and solve things at the table instead of exchanging photographs, drawings, and emails across a 14-hour time difference.

It usually makes for a very productive week.

And probably not very much sleep.

Looking Ahead

Fall is going to move quickly.

We have the Lark and 20th Century Limited preparing to leave China, F7s and Mollies moving toward completion, three major passenger programs closing September 6th, the GP30 and FL9 following around October 1st, and our HO Mollies and AC-9s following around October 15th.

Then, of course, Fall York will be here before we know it.

We are also continuing to invest in the team behind all of this growth. Over the next several weeks, we will be bringing on a Vice President of Design, along with an additional customer service team member. As our catalog grows, production increases, and more models move through the pipeline at the same time, adding experienced people in these areas allows us to keep improving both the models themselves and the experience our customers have with us.

And I want to be clear about something: nothing is changing, we are just getting better. I am still here, still directly involved in the products, still traveling to the factories, and probably still doing more live streams than I should multiple times a week (but I do truly love them). We are simply building a stronger team around what we have already created so we can do more of it, and do it better.

I will be sharing updates throughout the China trip, particularly as I get my hands on samples and production models.

Social media continues to be the fastest place for those immediate updates, while these monthly newsletters bring everything together for customers who prefer a more complete overview.

Until Next Time

Thank you to everyone who came out to see us in Edison, everyone I had the opportunity to talk with in Spencer, and everyone following these projects from home.

There is a lot happening right now, and sometimes even I have to look at our production schedule and remind myself how many different projects are moving simultaneously.

That is a good problem to have.

For now, the biggest message is simple:

September 6th: Union Pacific Heritage Fleet, America250 Big Boy Series I and O Scale Yampa Valley Mail close.

Approximately two weeks: Lark and 20th Century Limited ship from China.

Around October 1st: O Scale GP30 and FL9 reservations close.

Around October 15th: HO Scale Mollies and Southern Pacific AC-9 reservations close.

And select HO Scale Harriman Passenger Cars are in stock and ready to ship now.

I’ll see everyone from the factory floor in China shortly.

— Jay