Product news and photos from Springfield

[Packer]

I'd love to see some 80's era automobiles.

x2. and not just cause I agree (I'm in HO, so roughly twice the size) Would like to load my open bi-levels with mid to early-80's pick ups.

[mcjaco]

Dunno about you guys but the pickup method on the tender appears to be a giant leap backwards. Appearances can be deceiving though.

Honestly guys, the pre-production one Matt let us run on Modutrak, had no electrical pickup issues.  It ran like really well. 

[Bob Bufkin]

Is it going to have a dropin decoder like the Gevo's?

[Nato]

      The Kato model is of an Amfleet II car notice I said II(Two). These later series Amtube(Fleet) cars have been used alot on the Florida Trains,and yes they feature the old style arrangement of doors at one end only.There were lounges and coaches that are configured for long distance service.                         Nate Goodman (Nato).

[H Lee]

Deluxe: ......... The awesome news: 40’ container production is coming back to the USA! As tooling is retrieved from SK in China, it will find its way over to Bowser for production. There may be a small price increase (10%) due to the move,.....

Did this info about Bowser come from Dave or someone else at Deluxe -- the info I have from previous shows is that the 20' containers were done by someone other than SK in China and that Deluxe was moving the SK production to this un-named company.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The first round of 40' containers were molded in house a long time ago and are being painted and decorated in the US. As the 40' container tooling gets removed from the SK factory, it will be moved over to Bowser for production. The 20' containers will be staying in China as the cost to make two small 20' containers in the US is too high. Straght from Dave's mouth.

[Dave Ferrari]

Deluxe: The bad news first. Don’t be expecting the GHQ/DI spine. The awesome news: 40’ container production is coming back to the USA! As tooling is retrieved from SK in China, it will find its way over to Bowser for production. There may be a small price increase (10%) due to the move, but that’s nowhere near as bad as the 20-30% increases we have seen from China. Some containers will stay in China such as the 20 footers. The concern is no one will pay over $17 for such a small item.

And the super awesome news: containers will see some updated tooling. Did you know the doors on the containers are a separate plate in the die? Different containers will see different styles of doors as a result. Newer, better detailed roofs will also be implemented. And to lift those containers onto flats, Deluxe will be producing a new container lift in plastic. This will be made in kit and RTR. The kit will feature trailer lift fingers.

Hello everyone,

I just want to clarify what Daniel has posted.  First, the DeLuxe J/A 53' spine car has been temporarily put on hold pending release of the BLMA spine car. I want to get a feel for what the market is for them after the BLMA cars hit. We had some issues with the GHQ joint venture and I had planned on doing them as a die-cast model on our own so it will be more expensive tooling. We must be more conservative with our tooling expenditures in this environment.

None of the tooling now in China will return to the US, as the molds are released from Sanda Kan they will go to a company called Yongde. They do have model train customers right now but I cannot tell you which ones. There are 4 container bodies that are molded here in the US. The owner of the mold shop in California that ran these containers passed away last year. Unfortunately, that means that these molds are behind schedule getting to another shop here on the East Coast. With a little luck, they will be here by the end of February. Select runs on 3 of these bodies may be produced for us by Bowser. Nothing is definite yet and we have to be aware of the relative pricing between our US and Chinese sources. The MSCo/Gold 40' hi-cube container 2-pack (#20141) that we are shipping now was decorated by Bowser and molded here in the US before that mold was sent to China. We sent the RoadRailer trailer mold set to China because of damage to the bodies in shipping and the 40' hi-cube runs in the same mold base so it moved too.

There will be more on our Factory Update web page very soon.

Dave