Intermountain 54' mill gon

[FrankCampagna]

I got an NYC Gon from CC about 11 years agao. it said 50' Steel Gondola on the insert and retailed for $6.98. So MTL + Load + inflation equals a $10 increase in price assuming this is not all new tooling.

This is advertised as a 54' mill gon. May not be the same car. Then again, it may be. Plus it comes with MT and a "realistic" load. Also not far out of line with is being charged for many current freight cars. Even older tooling. Yes, Trainman is cheaper.

Frank

[wcfn100]

This is advertised as a 54' mill gon. May not be the same car. Then again, it may be.

It's not the same car.

AFAIK, there is no old tooling that matches this car.

Jason

[sirenwerks]

This is advertised as a 54' mill gon. May not be the same car. Then again, it may be. Plus it comes with MT and a "realistic" load. Also not far out of line with is being charged for many current freight cars. Even older tooling. Yes, Trainman is cheaper.

OK Frank, no smiley face so I gotta call this out - Con-Cor does not get (too many) points for the load using the descriptor 'realistic' - one man's "realistic" may not be for another. It's a very subjective word. If you have one car, the load may be considered realistic as-is. If you have more than one and the fact that all of the loads are exactly the same is apparent they become unrealistic, because the odds of that occurring in real life drop exponentially when you're talking bulk scrap.

And CC can only charge more if it has a new jewel case.  ;D

It's not the same car.

AFAIK, there is no old tooling that matches this car.

Then that's whacked and CC is way out of touch with standard business practices.

[asarge]

Actually, Jason's right.

I just checked my NYC Gon more closely and there are some very distinct differences  between my old one and the new one in the ad from CC. The main difference is the ribs on the new car don't go all the way to the bottom of the fishbelly, they do on the old car. Second, there is one more rib on the new car than on the old car. Either they are completely off on the artwork or it is a new car. If a new car, then CC is back to offering basic equipment we all need at a price we can afford. A win-win.

As for the load, it may or not be "realistic" based on each person's opinion. But we know the old saying about opinios. Basically, the car has a load, no disputing that and it probably only cost them a buck to make it. The MTL trucks probably added about $3 to the price.

I don't blame the wait and see attitude. But it is new tooling at a time when the pipeline is not nearly as full as it once was and it may be awhile before we see alot of new announcements.

[cv_acr]

OK Frank, no smiley face so I gotta call this out - Con-Cor does not get (too many) points for the load using the descriptor 'realistic'

He did put the word realistic in quotation marks...

[Mark5]

So this remains a mystery as to if they used HO images for the artwork which will be applied to the old CC 50' gon or if they are actually tooling up a new car.

I am skeptical about new tooling as Concor of late has been re-issuing old tooling on the freight cars quite a bit (with no newly tooled freight cars this century that I'm aware of).

Here is the HO car, which does seem to match the artwork:



Here's the Concor/Sekisui car:

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Maybe this tooling was sitting on the same pallet as their MP15 and SW1500.

[FrankCampagna]

Doesn't CC have a new owner? If so, perhaps we should not be applying the old standards to them. (I was at an N scale breakfast a couple of decades ago. People booed Jim Conway even back then.) Wait and see. If it's good, I want a bunch of these.

Frank

[Chris333]

Maybe he should just retire already  :

[wcfn100]

Doesn't CC have a new owner? If so, perhaps we should not be applying the old standards to them. (I was at an N scale breakfast a couple of decades ago. People booed Jim Conway even back then.) Wait and see. If it's good, I want a bunch of these.

Frank

Same owner AFAIK.  There was a guy from Tucson at the last GTE in Denver who goes over to Con-Cor a few times a month.  He told me that the 'retirement' was basically selling off all the inventory (he put out a seven figure number) and going more to pre-order like everyone else.


Jason

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Con-Cor, the used Caddilac salesman of the Model Railroad world.

[Mark5]

I've never had a problem with Concor - the story has always been a mixture of good and not so good products. The bad was really bad but some stuff was decent especially compared to the alternatives of the era. You just had to make sure you looked at whatever you were interested in before buying (buyer beware)!

Concor was an important player in the development of N scale - period. It was Concor that first worked with Sekisui (Kato).

Concor was the only serious player for passenger cars for several decades.

I guess some of the new "specialty" trains Concor has released are pretty decent, but I'm not in the game for those.

I try to look at the current recycling of tooling as sort of the "Trainman" approach, but the prices seem a bit "rich".

[learmoia]

Comment Removed.

[FrankCampagna]

I recently obtained a Dec. 1993 Model Railroader. In it is an article about upgrading a Con-Cor 52 foot mill gondola. It looks to be the same car. So, new tooling based on old tooling. Doesn't look to be a bad car. If the price is right, it will find a home on my RR. Whenever it gets built.

Frank

[sirenwerks]

I recently obtained a Dec. 1993 Model Railroader. In it is an article about upgrading a Con-Cor 52 foot mill gondola. It looks to be the same car. So, new tooling based on old tooling. Doesn't look to be a bad car. If the price is right, it will find a home on my RR. Whenever it gets built.

Frank

Same car as what? The undec in Mark's post (old tooling? Or the CR painted new model? The reason I ask is because IIRC the old N scale tooling is only 50', so upgrading an extra 2' onto it would be a curious event.