BLI Watch

[YouraverageSPF]

M1 pushed to February now. At this rate it will be 2 years since they announced the engine. 

[learmoia]

You mean 12 years... ... Didn't they re announce under Broadway at the 10 year anniversary of the Precision Craft announcement..

.. I saw it at Oklahoma City.. and it looks good... ~Ian

[Dave V]

12 years is correct.

[reinhardtjh]

Updated December 16th, 2015

E7A/B due - Delivered!!!!

Baldwin Centipedes due July 2015 now August 2015 still September 2015 now October 2015 still November 2015 now January 2016 now February 2016.

PRR M1a/b due August 2015 now Fall 2015 (!) now October 2015 still November 2015 still December 2015 now January 2016 now February 2016.

K7a stock cars due Fall 2015 still November 2015 still December 2015 now January 2016 now February 2016.

NYC Box cars due Fall 2015 still November 2015 now December 2015 still January 2016 still December 2015.

New run of ALCo PA/PB still Spring 2016 still May 2016 (and the catalog page now says Spring 2016)

Everything that was due January slipped to February.  The NYC box cars are still listed as December, but a Facebook post about 3 weeks ago said they were due on the boat soon so I imagine it will be very late in December when they show.

The new M1a/b announcement came around March 2014 so they are approaching 2 years in this latest iteration.

[towl1996]

I think they need to bring back the pre-reservation meter.  This time it could be a digital version, so instead of watching an analog needle move, we could just watch the actual numerical count rise.    Or fall. 

[djconway]

If BLI had not announced that they were doing the M1 - would someone else (Bachmann?) have one on the shelf?  12 years is a LONG wait.

[Dave V]

If BLI had not announced that they were doing the M1 - would someone else (Bachmann?) have one on the shelf?  12 years is a LONG wait.

Well, my theory had been that as long as BLI/PCM had announced an N scale PRR steam engine and then made a bunch of noise about how there was insufficient interest to move to production, that other manufacturers would distance themselves from N scale PRR steam.  But then Bachmann just did what Bachmann does (which doesn't always appear to include messy "market research") and it appears that their K4s were quite a hit.  Yup, I get that Bachmann QC is spotty and some of these have problems, but the point is someone made a ready-to-run PRR-specific steam locomotive that's been snatched up by non-PRR modelers.

Bachmann did the K4 because Bachamnn already does it in HO.  I have no expectation that Bachmann will do any other PRR steam in N scale, unless they were to do so in HO first (where BLI has a very, very strong foothold in the PRR steam market).  It would not be out of character for Bachmann to release a rival HO PRR steam locomotive that's already made by BLI (i.e., why did Bachamann choose to do an N scale GG1 when the Kato GG1 is already at market saturation?), but I am not hopeful.

As for the other players, Kato has no motivation to do an M1 (they rarely--if ever--pulled the 1949 Broadway set that Kato made, which itself apparently didn't sell as well as hoped), Atlas isn't a steam player (beyond some small specialty stuff), Walthers hasn't done anything steamy since the 2-8-8-2 and the 0-8-0, and the others are all unlikely to bite.  Nope, I fear BLI and their geological time scales are our only hope.

[bbussey]

I get that people are upset that the BLI release dates regularly get pushed out, regardless of what products are involved.  But it's better that the product is late (extremely late in some cases) and correct, rather than released on schedule with flaws.  It really isn't that easy to design and manufacture N scale motive power that operates flawlessly.

[Lemosteam]

I get that people are upset that the BLI release dates regularly get pushed out, regardless of what products are involved.  But it's better that the product is late (extremely late in some cases) and correct, rather than released on schedule with flaws.  It really isn't that easy to design and manufacture N scale motive power that operates flawlessly.

Unless you're a Bachmann K4 

[Dave V]

Yeah, but 12 years?  And it's not like they were starting from scratch either...they'd already produced it in HO and had done all the prototype research.

I don't expect Bachmann speed, but 12 years...  To put things in perspective, 12 years ago I was in Iraq--we had just invaded that Spring and I had only one infant son.  He's now a teenager and has a brother about to turn 11 (and for those of you doing the mental math, I knocked my wife up within a few months of getting home  ).

So yeah, I know this isn't anywhere near as easy as we want to believe it is, but 12 years...  12 years is longer than the time between the original Mercury flights and the end of the Apollo program, longer than the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, about as long as the Great Depression, almost twice as long as it took to build the Transcontinental Railroad, and as long as three presidential terms.

Just sayin'.   

[bbussey]

Unless you're a Bachmann K4 

A Bachmann K4 that requires an after-market sand dome to make it more accurate though.    Also, they tend not to announce product and just spring it on the market, so any pre-release delays are not known to the public.

Twelve years is a long time, for certain.  But going from HO to N isn't as simple as reducing everything by 54%.  And if they had released the model six years ago and it tanked, then they would have been financially hurt and the modelers would not have seen future BLI products — including all the Pennsy-centric stuff they are about to release and have already released.  As an example, it's been around 5/6 years for the Pullman Bradley cars at least, delays first on the HO cars and then on the N scale cars.  But I'd rather Rapido get them right than just push them to market.

[Dave V]

I'm glad ESM doesn't work on those timescales.   

[bbussey]

Well, we've learned not to announce until we're certain the product will ship within a quarter.    The G26 took at least six years, we just didn't announce until we had tooling cut and undec pilot models assembled.

And actually, the initial XIH release was delayed six months in production because we couldn't get the paint separations crisp on the State of Maine schemes over all that side relief.  And, the X58 model was announced two years out and over a year sooner than desired because there were rumors circulating another manufacturer that we had no ties with was contemplating producing one.  So, sh!t happens! 

[Lemosteam]

A Bachmann K4 that requires an after-market sand dome to make it more accurate though.    Also, they tend not to announce product and just spring it on the market, so any pre-release delays are not known to the public.

Twelve years is a long time, for certain.  But going from HO to N isn't as simple as reducing everything by 54%.  And if they had released the model six years ago and it tanked, then they would have been financially hurt and the modelers would not have seen future BLI products — including all the Pennsy-centric stuff they are about to release and have already released.  As an example, it's been around 5/6 years for the Pullman Bradley cars at least, delays first on the HO cars and then on the N scale cars.  But I'd rather Rapido get them right than just push them to market.

LOL!  I do wonder how long Bachmann was working on that model...

[OldEastRR]

Yeah, but 12 years? 

What's the beef? Just put who will inherit the loco from your estate if you're gone when it arrives. That's what wills are for.