Who says PRR steam wont sell

[SkipGear]

Umm, Bachmann has never made an N scale K4.

Umm, who is BLW, outside of Brooklyn Locomotive Works, a very good N scale vendor?

Bachmann has been making an HO spectrum K4 for many years.
BLW is supposed to be BLI which is Broadway Limited who has made quite a few HO PRR offerings.

[pnolan48]

My N scale bias may be showing, and badly at that? Sorry. I admit that I know nothing about HO scale offerings.

I do know that taking an HO scale steam loco and turning it into an N scale loco is not a trivial task in manufacturing, let alone marketing. I believe virtually everything has to be redrawn, even with the most sophisticated software, especially drivetrains.

An argument that Bachmann makes it in HO means they can easily make in N just doesn't hold water with me.

I'll sit in the corner with my dunce cap and shut up for a while.

P.S.: Shouldn't Railwire have the opposite of an a$$hat?

[SkipGear]

An argument that Bachmann makes it in HO means they can easily make in N just doesn't hold water with me.

Bachmann reps will quote that argument....once we make it in HO, expect in in N a few years later as long as it sold well. For them, the research data is the hard part, making the loco is pretty straight forward. Once they have the drawings for the boiler etc in the computer, it is just a matter of scalling the parts with consideration for tooling and materials issues.

[pnolan48]

The Bachmann reps are salespersons.

Salespersons will say anything to mollify a buyer.

When you believe the salesperson, you get an eyepatch.

When you get an eyepatch, you wake up in a gutter. (To spoof a truly awful TV ad campaign)

Or something like that. Shells are fairly easy to scale. Mechanisms are fiendishly hard to scale, I believe.

[draskouasshat]

As much as i would like to say, "everyone would buy Santa Fe steam if it were made in N" thats just not true. I mean, come on guys. Yes we all know people that would buy (name your railroad) steam but i dont think the markets there for the mfgs to actually make it. Ill be honest and say ATSF steam would probably sell better if they produced a 3751 class northern than your PRR stuff and that hasnt even happened yet and it would sell to a broader market! If it would sell, theyd make it. Its simple business for the big companies.

If you want your PRR steam, id be looking into smaller companies at this point. Hell ive lost hope for my ATSF steam and have resorted to working with my buddy jason on resin castings for our ATSF northern and FEF conversions to get what we want.

[SkipGear]

Shells are fairly easy to scale. Mechanisms are fiendishly hard to scale, I believe.

Bachmann has covered most of the bases as far as wheel arrangements and size so far. If you look, most of their designs are modifications of previous mechanisms. At least they use the techniques from previous models to create new ones. They don't scale down an HO mechanism for N scale, thank god. Their HO mechs still use half axle pickup on the tenders and wipers on the drivers. These things don't translate well to N.

The hard and time consuming part is getting the shell and it's details correct. Once the research and design work is in the computer, scaling it to whatever scale you want is fairly easy. The tooling for a frame is very simple compared to that of a boiler with multiple detail parts, rivets, and contors. I scratch build steam, the mechanism is the easy part, getting the boiler to look like something recognizable is a totally different set of challenges.

[mike_lawyer]

Umm, Bachmann has never made an N scale K4.

Umm, who is BLW, outside of Brooklyn Locomotive Works, a very good N scale vendor?

Sorry for the confusion, I meant that Bachmann has been making a K4 in HO for 20 plus years.  Yet, we never have received one in N.  I figure they will release one right after I finish my K4 kitbash using a Kato C55 Pacific mechanism.

I meant Broadway Limited Imports, not BLW. 

[pnolan48]

...The hard and time consuming part is getting the shell and it's details correct. Once the research and design work is in the computer, scaling it to whatever scale you want is fairly easy. The tooling for a frame is very simple compared to that of a boiler with multiple detail parts, rivets, and contors. I scratch build steam, the mechanism is the easy part, getting the boiler to look like something recognizable is a totally different set of challenges.

Tony,

Agree about the shell. It is difficult to get the details into the computer, but once there, it's not that difficult to scale, given manufacturing tolerances, of course. Don't agree about the mechanism. If mechanisms are simple to design from scratch, then OK, I agree. I believe mechanisms are not simple to design, at least for steam, and an HO mechanism will not scale to N easily due to the clearances needed for smooth running, the size and torque of the motor, and the running gear. Since I haven't scratch built any steam, I'll defer to your knowledge. But I do believe that going from HO to N means designing an entirely new mechanism, and then tooling it.

[SkipGear]

Pete,
 You have the idea but oddly enough, a mech in a steam loco is a more straight forward build than a diesel. You have no articulation (for most locos) to worry about. I said that you can't scale down an HO mechanism and I'm glad they don't.

Most of my time spent building steam is researching drawings, photos and any data I can come up with. There are enough mechanisms out there that I can come up with something close enough, the boiler and outward details are the rough part. There are many mechanisms out there that share common parts and design architecture already...

Example:

Bachmann Heavy Mountain is a revised frame from a Light Mountain.
Bachmann 4-6-0 although an all new frame and motor, shares many common design features with the 0-6-0.
Model Power 4-4-0 shares the same drivers and geometry as the 4-6-2. They just lopped off a driver and the trailing truck and redesigned the frame to fit.
Model Power 2-6-0 shares the same drivers and geometry as the 2-8-2. Again, lopped off a driver and trailing truck and put the rest in a new frame.
Athearn Big Boy is a Challenger with two extra drivers, nothing more.

For Bachmann to do a K4, they would have to start from scratch for the drivers because they don't do anything with 80" drivers except the big Northern and those drivers wouldn't work. But they do have the gear design and spacing to work from there.

As I said, the work is in the research and design, not the build. They have the research done for a K4 already, the majority of the work is done, they just need the motivation to complete the task and bring it down to size.

[mike_lawyer]

What is perplexing to me is that BLI can make virtually every class of PRR steam in HO, and seemingly has a market to do so.  Yet in N, there is not any PRR-specific steam (unless you count the 30+ year old Minitrix K4). 

While HO undoubtedly is a more popular scale, is it THAT much more popular that every class of PRR steam could be represented and make a profit, while N is so small that NONE of the PRR steam will sell?  I just don't buy that.  I think Tony is right in that the tooling and research necessary to do an accurate model and the desire to do so is currently lacking.  It is a matter of willpower more than anything.

I just wish that BLI had decided to go forward with the M1 and see what kind of sales they would have, just as a yardstick for the market in N.

[bbussey]

Most likely, if BLI had garnered the requisite amount of M1 advance orders from their distributor/dealer network, they would have proceeded with the project.

[Dave V]

Is it that time of month again for our regar N scale PRR steam thread?

I can't excuse BLI's bungling of the M1.  Were they expecting HO numbers?  The longer they held out, the more people got fed up and canceled (or in my case the hobby dealer I ordered with went under).  It became clear they had no intention of making it after a few years.   Now it's a joke.  Except that the punch line isn't funny; they essentially poisoned the well for any other mainstream manufacturer thinking about PRR steam.

Shapeways-like shell replacements for mass-produced wheel arrangements are probably the only alternative.

[mike_lawyer]

Is it that time of month again for our regar N scale PRR steam thread?

I can't excuse BLI's bungling of the M1.  Were they expecting HO numbers?  The longer they held out, the more people got fed up and canceled (or in my case the hobby dealer I ordered with went under).  It became clear they had no intention of making it after a few years.   Now it's a joke.  Except that the punch line isn't funny; they essentially poisoned the well for any other mainstream manufacturer thinking about PRR steam.

Shapeways-like shell replacements for mass-produced wheel arrangements are probably the only alternative.

Dave -

Do you have any idea how Shapeways works?  I looked at their website, and it is impressive, mostly N and Z scale European stuff.  There were shells for different locos there, including a Mikado shell for a Z scale locomotive.  I wonder if there is any way to submit designs for them to make, and if it would be cost-effective to do so.

[bbussey]

Is it that time of month again for our regar N scale PRR steam thread?

I can't excuse BLI's bungling of the M1.  Were they expecting HO numbers?  The longer they held out, the more people got fed up and canceled (or in my case the hobby dealer I ordered with went under).  It became clear they had no intention of making it after a few years.   Now it's a joke.  Except that the punch line isn't funny; they essentially poisoned the well for any other mainstream manufacturer thinking about PRR steam.

Shapeways-like shell replacements for mass-produced wheel arrangements are probably the only alternative.

I wish it wasn't, since it got old for our five times ago. 

No doubt BLI didn't handle things as well as they could have.  But given that they have released N scale product on a somewhat regular basis, it stands to reason that they didn't have the orders to proceed as opposed to not have the technical expertise to produce the model.

I'm not going to hijack the thread by reiterating my thoughts on the Shapeways process, which are well known at this point.  Suffice to say that RP shells over a generic mechanism is not technologically feasible at this time.

[Dave V]

I understand the inability to specify orientation during rendering is a key LIMFAC right now.  Are there other companies offering that option?

I thought it would be an interesting challenge to design an M1 wrapper for a Bachmann heavy mountain.  The frame is short for an M1, but that might be a compromise I'm willing to make for ease of construction.  The boiler could be sanded smooth as long as all of the other details are added separately.  Same for the tender given the availability of Archer rivet decals.  Ready for mass production?  Hardly.  But for tinkering, it might be worth a shot.