Waiting Game Is Over: Atlas Announces Which Walthers Toolings It Will Produce

Published: 2018-11-09 - By: Jenna
Last updated on: 2021-08-13
visibility: Public
The wait and see game is over. In its November 2018 All Scales Monthly Catalog, Atlas announced which Walthers/Life-Like products it will produce unders its Atlas Master product line. In June 2018, Atlas purchased all Wm. K. Walthers n-scale locomotive and rolling stock tooling. This included former Life-Like toolings.

The following models have a Wednesday, December 12, 2018 pre-order deadline with a estimated release date of Q2 2019.
  • Atlas Master® N GP20 Locomotive
  • Atlas Master® N Difco Side Dump Car
  • Atlas Master® N Russell Snow Plow


Atlas Master® N GP20 Locomotive
The GP-20 loco will come in silver (sound ready/ $129.95) and gold (sound enabled/$239.95) versions. Both versions will come undecorated and in a number of road names: Burlington Northern, Conrail, EMD Demonstator, Santa Fe, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific and road numbers.

We have a call into Atlas to find out to what degree the company changed this Walthers tooling for this release and will update this blog once we learn more.

Atlas Master® N GP20 Locomotive (a former Walthers/Life-Like tooling)


Here is a link to the Life-Like GP20 locos on TroveStar.

Atlas Master® N Difco Side Dump Car
Road names for this release ($34.95) will include: Helm Leasing, SCAX, Montana Rail Link, BC Rail, Norfolk & Western, Alaska, Missouri Pacific and Rio Grande.

Atlas Master® N Difco Side Dump Car (a former Walthers tooling)

The product will have truck-mounted couplers. Since the industry trend is to release cars with body-mounted coupers, it would seem that Atlas did not make any changes to the Walthers tooling. Again, once we connect with Atlas on this announcement, we will update the blog.

Here is a link to the Walthers Difco Side Dump Car on TroveStar.

Atlas Master® N Russell Snow Plow
This product ($32.95) will come in 8 road names: Boston and Maine, Chessie, Conrail, Canadian National, New York Central, Chicago & Northwestern, Great Northern and Rio Grande.

Atlas Master® N Russell Snow Plow (a former Walthers tooling)

The product will have knuckle couplers.

Here is a link to the Walthers Russell Snow Plow on TroveStar.

Here is a link to the Atlas November 2018 All Scales Monthly Catalog.