Scaletrains game changer

[C855B]

Sounds like it's got to be the turbine, especially "road number specific details", as there were a number of differences among the 30.

[wcfn100]

While I applaud factory-installed grab irons, my Intermountain N SD40-2W shipped with pre-installed grab irons in 2011…

Didn't most brass come with factory applied grabs?  And what do they consider the BLI E's and Intermountain F's. Didn't the MTL FTs have separately applied grabs too?

Maybe they just wrote it wrong and it's supposed to read "This will be our first N scale locomotive and it will have..." 

What a joke. So glad we're all a part of it.

Jason

[sirenwerks]

Factory installed grabs a game changer?  Game changer would be market release of an affordable OSS N scale-sized Bluetooth control board with a 0% fail rate.

[thomasjmdavis]

 I was gonna ask, what are those little wire thingies on all my Intermountains?

[Missaberoad]

I was gonna ask, what are those little wire thingies on all my Intermountains?

Handy Holdies 

[peteski]

While I applaud factory-installed grab irons, my Intermountain N SD40-2W shipped with pre-installed grab irons in 2011…

LOL!  I have Arnold N scale Krokodile loco from the 1970s with factory installed (and painted) grab irons. 

[Missaberoad]

It won't even be the first N scale Turbine with factory installed grab irons lol...
I am interested to see the fit and finish however. If the quality is game changing I'll be looking forward to what comes next...

[pdx1955]

Well its the first one that they are installing grab irons on...

I'd pine and hope for a AS-616, but I guess it will be the turbine instead...guess the 1st baldwin roadswitcher just doesn't sound hawt enough!

Someone will have to tell 'em before they get too far with the 1st to install grab irons...got quite a few them and they aren't Scaletrains.

[C855B]

It won't even be the first N scale Turbine with factory installed grab irons lol... ...

Speaking of which... an Overland turbine showed-up on eBay a couple of hours ago. It's the first one I've seen listed in several months, maybe even over a year. Opening price at $800, but "Buy it now" for $1050. Previous one went for near $1500, IIRC. I think they're trying to cash out before the highly-suspected (and probably better-detailed) plastic models hit for half the price.

[OldEastRR]

If you really want to change the game, before there are any more meat reefers, how about a realistically sized meat packing plant?  Not the usual "Cornerstone" sized building, but something with some sprawl to it. 

Getting the makers of N scale buildings to take advantage of N scale's potential for realistically sized industries would be a game changer. 

And in any case, I understand from certain people in the industry that no more meat reefers will be produced until every digital caliper has been confiscated.

For big industries, you should buy 2 or even 3 of a stock kit. Then combine walls vertically or horizontally, , brick in windows with scraps of walls, cut new vehicle/rail loading doors, chop out sections of wall to make a different one, add the chopped out part to the middle of another wall, make a half-floor of one or more stories at the top, stick on a small addition made from walls of another kit,  double-up the accessories (ducts, chimneys, equipment, water/storage tanks) by putting two instead of one installed in place, etc. And if you are shooting for a backdrop building use all the sides to make one really long building. If you can use an HO building converted (windows, door) to N scale, then you've got a ready-made big building.

[thomasjmdavis]

Old East-

I do all of that, plus big things out of modulars, etc.  Not really my point.  Plus really expensive.  My own preference would be that they offer buildings that are not "selectively compressed."  Instead of taking an HO building and reducing it by 45% to make it N scale (the most common manufacturing scheme), make the N scale one the same actual (not scale) size as the HO building, but with more windows and more floors to the building.  The cost difference between HO and N is minimal, even though N scale uses 1/4 the plastic (assuming same size in scale feet), so I'd rather pay a few bucks more for something realistically sized, instead of paying for 4 or more kits to achieve the same thing, plus having to track down all the detail stuff to make 4 "Roberts Printing" (or kit of your choice) buildings into a meat packing plant.  In the case of meat packing plant, there is the N scale Architect kit, that might fit the bill, but by all accounts needs a different skill set than a plastic kit.

But, what I am really getting at with my comment here is that manufacturers will do well if they recognize the synergies to be had in marketing of buildings and the cars that serve them.  If a manufacturer wants to sell meat reefers, they will sell a lot more of them if they, or someone else out there, makes a meat packing plant that can use a whole bunch of meat reefers- ie, its big enough that you need to move a dozen cars in and out every operating session. And the makers of buildings will do better if someone makes cars used to service the industry their model represents (given the current selection of model freight cars, the latter is not a huge issue for most industries for any period between WWI and recent times).  Walthers did pick up on something similar (yes, I am about to say something complementary about their marketing) when they started producing ATSF prototype passenger stations, and their big Union Station, as Kato was producing Super Chief car sets in N (and Walthers itself would produce models of the same prototypes in HO).

[tom mann]

@scaletrains is now a member here. Be good and show them respect!

[jdcolombo]

But, what I am really getting at with my comment here is that manufacturers will do well if they recognize the synergies to be had in marketing of buildings and the cars that serve them.
 

This.

When Walthers finally released the N-scale version of their Steel Mill buildings (by the way, the Oxygen Furnace building in the photo I posted a couple of pages back was built by Old East when he was Midwest), I was looking forward to the inevitable rolling stock to go with - coke cars; torpedo hot metal cars; ingot buggies; slag cars; spacer cars; etc.  None of it materialized.  How can you sell a blast furnace and not offer slag and hot metal cars to go with?  (Well, maybe you can if there is some other manufacturer doing them, but in this case, there wasn't).  How can you sell Coke Ovens and not release high-side open hoppers to transport the coke, even intra-mill?  I understand that Walthers does strange things with N scale (well, more appropriately, Walthers doesn't seem to know WHAT to do with N scale), but at the time I was thinking that it really didn't take a marketing genius to release appropriate rolling stock with the steel mill kits.

Oh well; I managed to snag a few custom-built torpedo and slag cars; then built my own ingot cars.  Still, looked to me like a blown opportunity for Walthers.

John C.

[jmarley76]

Still, looked to me like a blown opportunity for Walthers.

I concur.  They did already have coil cars out for a steel mill, but their offering was out of scale. Red Caboose had a much better coil car. They released a sawmill, but the woodchip hoppers where only in HO scale.

They did well with releasing ballast hoppers, then Glacier Gravel. You could argue that the Difco's and Greeneville hoppers (which where long over due) where and extension of this. Then there was the PD5125. I gather it was supposed to be a modern compliment for the Red Wing Milling kit.

[thomasjmdavis]

Be good and show them respect!

Aw, shucks.  I just got my new calipers that are accurate to 1/4 of an N scale inch, so I could measure board spacing and rivet diameter.  Guess I will have to use them for model building....