Let me try! Dear Penthouse?!? (Micro Trains)

[learmoia]

Comment Removed.

[Denver Road Doug]

Don't you people ever learn with your subject lines?  This clearly goes in the Dear Micro-Trains forum.   

[learmoia]

Comment Removed.

[Kisatchie]

To the  Crew Lounge!


 

Hmm... I am so
embarrassed...

[peteski]

Why not ... just contact MT directly? 

[garethashenden]

Why not ... just contact MT directly? 

Probably because the last "Dear Micro-Trains" thread elicited a response of "OK".

[Rossford Yard]

I wonder if that "OK" was "OK" or the kind of okay you give three whining kids asking for a video game, that you may or may not intend to keep!  We seem kind of similar to whining kids here.......(and note, I did contribute, whining for an IHB SW1500, to which Joe seemingly said "OK."  But, it was with conditions (a la the video game....IF you do your homework, etc.) of being able to offset costs with a bigger run of SP or big road.

No problems. I will take it as the qualified yes that it is.  I love it that the mfgs have gotten away from the big road mentality to offer some real offbeat stuff that some of us love.  I think micro runs (maybe MT ought to trademark that....) will be the new "multiple phases" fad to keep sales up and going, in a prototypically correct way.

[JoeD]

More often than not i want to reach around to the back seat and smack someone    No...always looking for ideas..Even IHB.  The qualifier is always how popular the pick will be even though some of us have very narrow interests in roads like New Haven 

Joe

[Ed Kapuscinski]

More often than not i want to reach around to the back seat and smack someone    No...always looking for ideas..Even IHB.  The qualifier is always how popular the pick will be even though some of us have very narrow interests in roads like New Haven 

Joe

I'd buy one. If you did multiple numbers, I'd buy them all. And I'm generally a hard sell 

[ljudice]

Hey, one request a decade you guys...

[bbussey]

... The qualifier is always how popular the pick will be even though some of us have very narrow interests in roads like New Haven 

My "narrow interest" road moved more passengers per mile and at a more rapid pace than your "wide interest" road ever did, serviced a greater concentration of the country's population, introduced lightweight passenger equipment to the industry, ushered in the American modern corporate graphics era, and was jointly responsible with the Standard Railroad of the World for linking the nation's greatest city with through service to the mainland and New England.    It also still happens continually to be one of MTL's strongest-selling roads over the past four decades, especially when the model isn't foob'd.

[Rossford Yard]

My local LHS tells me they had one guy who bought 3 of every single release (he was in HO) One for use on the layout, one for the display shelves around his layout that never lost factory air, and one for safekeeping in a fireproof vault in case his house burned down.

Wouldn't take too many of those kind of collectors around to keep all the mfgs making all the roads we ever wanted.

More seriously though, what ever happened to Bev Bel?  They used to paint different HO prototypes that Athearn wouldn't/couldn't do. Could an MT make a deal to sell 1000 SW's to a similar company committed to limited run painting of some popular, but "under the minimum" road names?  Or do the numbers just pencil out better to reproduce the shells at later dates for runs 6, 7, 8, 22, etc.?

I do think I understand the mfgs. POV.  A guy from both Intermountain and Atlas both told me that begging on the internet didn't necessarily translate into actual sales.  IIRC, it was the U18 and U23 models that bummed their respective builders out.  There are no guarantees in this biz, and the upside isn't really all that great.  I would be more afraid of strikeouts than I would be desirous of hitting home runs.  Great to hear pre-orders are beating expectations for MT.

[Denver Road Doug]

More seriously though, what ever happened to Bev Bel?  They used to paint different HO prototypes that Athearn wouldn't/couldn't do. Could an MT make a deal to sell 1000 SW's to a similar company committed to limited run painting of some popular, but "under the minimum" road names?  Or do the numbers just pencil out better to reproduce the shells at later dates for runs 6, 7, 8, 22, etc.?

I've been saying this for years...why doesn't someone commission Kato to do, say 500 SD40-2's to be run in KCS, FURX, MKT, and ICE or something along those lines?   I'm sure the answer lies in the fact that Kato just doesn't want to fool with it, or the price is too great for the risk.   It's the "middle ground/no man's land" stuff that is the challenge.  Kato doesn't want to do KCS because they don't believe it would sell.   A smaller outfit doesn't do it because they think Kato would do it and "end them" quick-like.   Small custom outfits wouldn't get quite the return compared to a pure custom order, and the risk is higher.   It seems to me that the minimums set forth by the ones that WILL do a custom run are just above and beyond what it seems would be a fairly acheivable mark.   Again, that might be by design because they don't want to have to deal with small potatoes....dunno.   I think the best example of that number being a tad high was the Maryland Midland geeps.  It took a bit of time before they "got into the right hands," so to speak.  If I  had commissioned those I would have been sweating it.  I though about doing a run of FWWR GP38's that way, but the minimums I was quoted at the time wouldn't fly...they've since dropped some from what I understand.

Anyway, there's probably a reason BevBel is no more... 

[John]

Ed K and MB Klein did a custom run of Maryland Midland GP38s in 3 numbers several years back ..   you can do it ..

[ljudice]

I've been saying this for years...why doesn't someone commission Kato to do, say 500 SD40-2's to be run in KCS, FURX, MKT, and ICE or something along those lines?   I'm sure the answer lies in the fact that Kato just doesn't want to fool with it, or the price is too great for the risk. 

I've always wondered the same thing. In Europe it seems as if there are some Kato models sponsored by Lemke and some which are not.  (and I'm not referring to the Hobbytrain stuff which is not Kato and differently sourced).

I would bet the problem is that Kato's minimums/terms are difficult to surmount. I've said it before and been told I'm nuts but my guess is Kato's production runs are a lot
bigger than any of the competition.