Kato's Anti-Eastern Bias

[wm3798]

Atlas also can demand a higher price, because it offers more specific products.  Kato releases a c-30-7 every 25 years?  and in only a handful of paint schemes?  It has to be cheap, because if I want to have an N&W model, I have wait forever, then I have to do all the work myself, neither of which I am willing to pay a premium for.

With Atlas, my road might be announced or released at any moment, and I have been trained by Atlas (pun intended) to buy it NOW because A) it's an excellent product 99% of the time, and B) It's accurate enough that I will find value in waiting for my paint scheme.

As much as I'd rather not pay the higher price, being a cheapskate... and a broke cheapskate at that... I'd rather pay the higher price to vendor like Atlas who at least makes the attempt to appeal to more segments of the market.

Lee

[CBQ Fan]

Atlas also can demand a higher price, because it offers more specific products.  Kato releases a c-30-7 every 25 years?  and in only a handful of paint schemes?  It has to be cheap, because if I want to have an N&W model, I have wait forever, then I have to do all the work myself, neither of which I am willing to pay a premium for.

With Atlas, my road might be announced or released at any moment, and I have been trained by Atlas (pun intended) to buy it NOW because A) it's an excellent product 99% of the time, and B) It's accurate enough that I will find value in waiting for my paint scheme.

As much as I'd rather not pay the higher price, being a cheapskate... and a broke cheapskate at that... I'd rather pay the higher price to vendor like Atlas who at least makes the attempt to appeal to more segments of the market.

Lee

Ya, but at approx 10 bucks a month increase in each new release would you be willing to pay $120 more for an engine a year from now??

[esa123]

Just curious,

Did anyone bother to email Kato to see what their thoughts on this are?

Erik

[Papa]

This is the reason that there are no Kato engines on my layout. If you know of Kato engines for the Lehigh Valley or Erie/Erie Lakawanna then I would love to know about them.

[Ryan87]

In case you never read it, I said the exact same things two years ago: http://ttamt.blogspot.com/2008/02/katos-iconic-models.html

Exactly what I was thinking... altho I have no better explanation for the oddballs... Maybe Kato has hunches  ;D

[oakcreekco]

Actually, Kato is "playing it smart". They get "ripped" enough for about anything that they do, or announce around here, so they figure "why spend the money" to produce eastern roads, and get ripped even more about "stuff".

Payback is hell :-*

[bbussey]

This is the reason that there are no Kato engines on my layout. If you know of Kato engines for the Lehigh Valley or Erie/Erie Lakawanna then I would love to know about them.

Kato produced the SD45 in Erie Lackawanna.

You can always paint your own.  Scott Lupia has an incredible fleet of EL motive power, many of which are Kato units.

[Big4Man]

This is the reason that there are no Kato engines on my layout. If you know of Kato engines for the Lehigh Valley or Erie/Erie Lakawanna then I would love to know about them.

Your not looking very hard.....there are Erie Lackawanna out there from previous releases of the PA-1 sets & F-7 sets in Kato Factory Paint.

Probably still sitting on a dusty shelf of some Kato dealers near you.  ;D

They also come up on Flea-bay from time to time.


N-Joy

Dan

[Mark5]

Thanks for the Kato E-L flash back to the 1990s!

[sixpakpop]

Amherst Depot, in Florida has the SD-45 AND the F-7 AND the PA-1 in Erie Lackawanna in stock (according to their webpage)

http://amherst-depot.com/

Premium prices, but they are having a 10% sale on ALL of them!

[Puddington]

It occurred to me that the topic of an "Eastern bias" and this thread has a very "Canadian" offshoot... the infamous 1970's "National Energy Program" of the Trudeau government.

It was an offshoot of the 1970's energy crisis. By keeping domestic oil prices below world market prices, the NEP was essentially mandating provincial generosity and subsidizing all Canadian consumers of fuel, primarily at Alberta's expense... and that didn't go over well in Alberta where bumper stickers read...
"Let the eastern bastar@s freeze in the dark".......

Maybe western modelers should think about a bumper sticker of their own......."Let the Eastern Bastar@s run Model Power......" ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Mark5]

Pudd,

Next up is North vs South, I mean GG1's didn't run in the South! (proper South that is)

Mark

[Puddington]

Pudd,

Next up is North vs South, I mean GG1's didn't run in the South! (proper South that is)

Mark

LOTFL...............dang; dem dar Yankees and them cotton pickin wires.........must be a plot from that there Ja-pan I tell ya...............could be a mini series................ ;D

or as Tricky Dick said "you won't have Kato to kick around anymore............."

[Dave V]

I may have been inclined to agree a few years ago that Kato had an anti-eastern bias.  But with 2 Penn Central locomotives and a ton of Pennsy stuff lately, I just can't see it.  Kato has a bias toward the iconic, usually...  although I'm not seeing PC passenger cars as iconic either.

Any company with the nads to release a GG1 (and one of the finest running N scale locomotives ever, BTW) is not biased against the East Coast.

[Mark5]

NEWS FLASH: There were other railroads besides PRR and PC!