Exactrail doing SOU Waffles in N

[lock4244]

Talk about a "Royal" pain-in-the-tuckus. If you have only a handful of Canadian customers amounting to maybe one or two orders a month, this is the kind of thing that takes beaucoup staff time. Personal shipping back and forth, no big deal, but commercial shipping has to play by your gov't's rules.

This doesn't address the issue of a customer filing a false dispute with his credit card company and screwing the shop out of their payment. International law is extremely weak for cross-border fraud and theft, especially on small scales. Even shipping to Canada is a risk. Before you pooh-pooh this assertion, we (in the U.S.) are currently dealing with a number of scams based in Canada, mostly because of their US-system phone numbers. U.S. authorities are stymied because of the penny-ante nature of the scams and they can't get enforcement attention up there.

Bottom line - time and risk have to be offset by revenue. That EXR even offers free shipping to Canada tho' with a higher minimum is good. They could simply not ship at all.

The importer is the buyer, i.e. the Canadian, so the tax, tax tax, and tax tax tax are not the problem of the US shipper. I can't speak for the scam side of the issue, but Wig-Wag and MBK seem to have no difficulty shipping to Canada... maybe they have a larger CDN base?

[lock4244]

So getting back on track can we talk about the SOU Wafflesides again, instead of the future of the retail hobby business?

Saw a CN freight on the weekend with 12 NS, SOU and CSX waffles on the head end. None of the CSX cars matched the EXR car, but about six of the NS and SOU cars did.

Link to a shot of the train here, but you can't see the cars too well... I was more concerned with the 'kickin it old school' lash-up that almost stalled on the hill:
http://tinyurl.com/c58hokw

[ljudice]

I think the most common CSXT waffle side boxcars (single sliding door variety) - are a closer match to the MDC model - although they are not exactly right if I recall either...

[MichaelWinicki]

No matter what one thinks about the company...

I just received a the PS4427 covered hoppers that I ordered, and they are gems.

Body mounted couplers.
Metal wheels.
Nicely detailed.

Not inexpensive, but not built that way either.

[Mark5]

My LHS sell a high volume of ER.

I will be VERY reluctant to buy anything direct from ER. Should be interesting to see how this affects items such as wheelsets.

Mark

[Ian MacMillan]

Wow, a staple of NE paper trains. A bunch will find their way on the layout

[Kevin Yutz]

My LHS sell a high volume of ER.

I will be VERY reluctant to buy anything direct from ER. Should be interesting to see how this affects items such as wheelsets.

Mark

This is something I've heard over and over again over the past few weeks.  Kind of makes you wonder what drove them to make this decision other than just simply trying to cut out the middle man. It seems to be quite a going trend though in multiple scales.

[lock4244]

I think the most common CSXT waffle side boxcars (single sliding door variety) - are a closer match to the MDC model - although they are not exactly right if I recall either...

There were 7 or 8 of the NS/SOU ones in a cut of 13 cars... not too shabby. But there were two different door styles on those cars. At least one of the CSX cars didn't have more than two or three horizontal 'waffles', so not even close.

Did MDC do anything that wasn't a composite design?

[MichaelWinicki]

This is something I've heard over and over again over the past few weeks.  Kind of makes you wonder what drove them to make this decision other than just simply trying to cut out the middle man. It seems to be quite a going trend though in multiple scales.

I think a lot of it has to do with the roster of hobby shops presently open for business as opposed to say 1980.

You've got substantially fewer shops out there in which to provide "exposure" for a product line.  In addition you've got consumers much more likely to order through a different mechanism such as over the phone or over the net as opposed to stopping in their local hobby shops and placing an order. 

Manufacturers understand this and must say to themselves, "OK if Joe Customer is willing to order over the Internet from shop "XYZ" then would they be more reluctant to order from us as a company?" 

And the answer is many times is "no".   

[ljudice]

There were 7 or 8 of the NS/SOU ones in a cut of 13 cars... not too shabby. But there were two different door styles on those cars. At least one of the CSX cars didn't have more than two or three horizontal 'waffles', so not even close.

Did MDC do anything that wasn't a composite design?

They only did one waffleside boxcar - and yes it was a composite or some other prototype - but it's definitely close to a large part of the CSXT fleet.

[Specter3]

What is the in service date on these Sou cars?

[bbussey]

That information probably is visible in the HO model pics on the EXR website.

[Specter3]

The one HO model pictured is re-stenciled for 1985. That is outside my period which really stinks. The website says they started taking delivery in 1974. Hopefully some will be in their original as delivered state.

[bbussey]

Here's a pic of the first HO release from their archives, which has a February 1976 service date.  This photo resembles the N scale photo in the July ad, so I'm guessing the first release of the N scale Southern cars will fit into your timeframe.

http://www.exactrail.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/e/p/eps-90308-southern-boxcar-01.jpg

UPDATE:  I just took another look at the July ad of the N scale car, and you can see that the service date is 2/76.  In fact, it's even the same road number (SOU 528611).

[R L Smith]

My office window overlooks the NS Harrisburg - Hagerstown (ex RDG) line and I saw a waffle-side car today still in the "Southern Gives a Green Light" scheme, complete with the green inside the "O" in "Southern.  Now I'll start paying attention to car numbers...

Ron