Atlas C55 #10 Turnout Shortage? Again? [...sigh...]

[peteski]

Hmmm . . . several thousand and the N scale is dead and not selling?  I guess Walthers might have their expectations set too high. Maybe they sell hundreds of thousands of this type of item in H0?  But N scale is still the 2nd most popular scale after H0 (even if the sales volume is much lower).  I can only imagine what the S scale modelers are muttering about them being the abandoned stepchild. 

[C855B]

I realize this Walthers thing is a constant source of hand-wringing around these parts, but in all seriousness there is an apparent blindness to the market. Or, maybe, as in the case of the slick N scale magazines versus Model Railroader, the emergence of other now-sizable suppliers filling the void. So they don't see us because, frankly, they are not a primary go-to in our niche. It's a chicken-or-egg situation. In the grand scheme all are "happy", more or less, the main problem being Walthers role as a key middleman between manufacturers (big and, notably, small) and your friendly LHS, and biasing that particular market chain. Horizon's purchase of Athearn (and their very own in-house biases) is also feeding the perceptions.

I have no quarrel with this situation other than Walthers acquisition of Life-Like. They manage this product line as if they expect poor sales, and waddayaknow, they meet those expectations... by their own hand.

[PGBowler2]

The factory is producing the #10s now.  They are slated to be loaded into the next container if all goes as planned.

[C855B]

Thanks, Paul. Much relief on my part, given that after years of fretful planning, construction is finally hitting its stride.

[Cajonpassfan]

Hmmm . . . several thousand and the N scale is dead and not selling?  I guess Walthers might have their expectations set too high. Maybe they sell hundreds of thousands of this type of item in H0?  But N scale is still the 2nd most popular scale after H0 (even if the sales volume is much lower).  I can only imagine what the S scale modelers are muttering about them being the abandoned stepchild. 

I don't know. So there is fewer of us. But it seems to me that the average N scaler has to have a (much) greater number of cars, engines, turnouts, buildings and outhouses than the average HO Joe? Maybe not, but the physical size of our relative models would seem to limit the number of HO acquisitions, whereas we are limited by the size of our wallets more so than size of our spaces.So, if a manufacturer releases a new reefer or a tank car, and the average HO Joe buys say three of each, how many does the average N scaler get? None? Three? A dozen? Certainly niche manufacturers like Bluford have figured out they can sell a helluva lot of hoppers in N scale, a dozen at a time.
Walthers seems a lost cause to us. But,  like in any endeavor, it takes champions on the inside to promote and implement ideas. As long as Walthers has no such inhouse champions in N scale, nobody there will stop long enough to realize the potential.
Or, I could be all wet
Otto K.

[robert3985]

No Peco, and especially no Fast Tracks considering the scope of my layout. I'm very pleased with the Atlas #10s, they look great and run great, and I will be continuing with same. Just wanted to give a heads-up that we have supply issues again... and posting mostly to put pressure on the powers-that-be.

Actually, Atlas #10's do not "look great".  Their proportions are all messed up and their effective departure radius is significantly less than a correctly proportioned #10.

Same problem with their #5, and #7 turnouts, with their "#7" being just a fraction of an inch longer than a correctly proportioned ME #6 whereas in the 1:1 world, they are much longer.

I'm not even going to get into their brightly plated "mystery metal" frogs, guard rails and closure points.

Yup, they work okay most of the time, but they really do not "look great", which I interpret as at least being correctly proportioned.

The best looking, best operating, easiest to repair, most reliable, most versatile and significantly less costly turnouts are those hand-built to NMRA specifications...hands down...and they are always available.  Fast Tracks jigs and fixtures makes them much less time-consuming to build and nearly fool-proof.

While most everybody was waiting for Atlas to produce C55 track and turnouts in the past, during this time, I was laying American made ME C55 and C40 flex, with a couple of dozen hand-built turnouts I made in-between other model railroad projects for about a buck each.  I'm in the process of making another couple of dozen for my next LDE and whether China is going to stop making turnouts is not even in my universe.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[C855B]

Keep right on beatin' that drum, Bob. I knew this was coming sooner or later.

Tell you what. My plan at last check calls for 332 turnouts. Street price each is ~$14. For $4648 I will be more than happy for you to show-up on my doorstep with tools, ties, rail and Proto87 detail parts in hand, prepared to sit quietly and crank-out a product that meets your quality standards. They must be drop-in, DCC-tolerant and have tie plate detail, as I for one do not care for the naked rails-glued-to-ties look. Deadline for completion of 25% of production is September of this year, and full work should be finished roughly mid-2019.

No? Too bad.

I'm happy with the Atlas product. It saves time, meets most of my priorities and personal nit-picking, and runs very, very well, for me. I feel badly you find it necessary to write a novel denigrating others' preferences every time this discussion occurs.

(Bring on the down-votes, guys, I can take it. This has been simmering for years.)

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Look, you guys are both correct.

Bob is fundamentally correct about the details. I disagree with his conclusion, largely because of the same reason Mike does! I'd love for some better looking options, but as far as commercially available turnouts that can be used "at scale" like this project (and mere mortals like I) needs, the Atlas #10s are far better than any other option.

[MichaelWinicki]

I do agree with Mike's point in that I find the lack of tie-plate detail on handmade turnouts off-putting.

[jagged ben]

Keep right on beatin' that drum, Bob. I knew this was coming sooner or later.

Tell you what. My plan at last check calls for 332 turnouts. Street price each is ~$14. For $4648 I will be more than happy for you to show-up on my doorstep with tools, ties, rail and Proto87 detail parts in hand, prepared to sit quietly and crank-out a product that meets your quality standards. They must be drop-in, DCC-tolerant and have tie plate detail, as I for one do not care for the naked rails-glued-to-ties look. Deadline for completion of 25% of production is September of this year, and full work should be finished roughly mid-2019.

No? Too bad.

I'm happy with the Atlas product. It saves time, meets most of my priorities and personal nit-picking, and runs very, very well, for me. I feel badly you find it necessary to write a novel denigrating others' preferences every time this discussion occurs.

(Bring on the down-votes, guys, I can take it. This has been simmering for years.)

I'll do it for $15000, but I need at least four TRW members to step up with similar contracts each year so I can quit my current job.   

[OldEastRR]

Hmmm,,, Robert I thought you used RailCraft Code 70 ....

[Cajonpassfan]

Look, you guys are both correct.

Bob is fundamentally correct about the details. I disagree with his conclusion, largely because of the same reason Mike does! I'd love for some better looking options, but as far as commercially available turnouts that can be used "at scale" like this project (and mere mortals like I) needs, the Atlas #10s are far better than any other option.

This. There is so much work involved in building a larger layout, and completing it to a decent level of consistent finish, that one needs to be really efficient with allocating time, resources and talent. I've hand-built a number of turnouts for special situations, but don't care for the naked-tie look either (yea, I know one can get etched plates and other details, but that's just more time invested in just one element, see above). So, I can live with the Atlas turnouts in most situations, especially the ten's, see below, ready for ballast.  Putting a little Neolube inside the frog helps...
Otto K.

[C855B]

Yes - time, given many of us are at that point in life where the time:money balance has shifted in favor of money when the intent is a larger goal. But the expense remains in hand fabrication when you starting getting into Proto87 detail parts. I don't like the look of hand-fabricated frogs, either, at least not on mainline representations.

I was scratchbuilding turnouts in C40 as a teen (late '60s), and even started a #16 scissors x-over as a "holy grail" project to put all the nay-saying HO'ers in their place (you think it's tough now?). I had all the stock rails down and was working on the crossing frogs - no commercial jigs, obviously - when it dawned on me that even then I was not going to live long enough to build an operating model RR this way. It's all gone, of course, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed one of the "test" frogs rattling around in an old cigar box of miscellaneous train parts from the day. My brain quickly filled-in memories of the fragrance of Pilobond.

[GaryHinshaw]

This is a classic example of a make/buy decision that all Project Managers have to face.

[jdcolombo]

I've got 100+ Atlas #7 turnouts on my layout.  They have worked fine for seven years, with one failure that required replacement.  I really don't notice whether they are longer or shorter or have a slightly different divergence angle than the prototype, because, well, I don't have a prototype sitting next to them.  My engines and rolling stock run fine through them (but keep reading), with the exception of a couple of #5's, where the gauge got too narrow through the points and required some filing.

I am a bit annoyed by the nickel-silver plating wearing off the frogs and points now that I've cleaned this track over a hundred times since construction.  I think there is a way I could re-plate them in place with some sort of plating kit, but it would have been nice to know that the frog and points weren't made out a NS alloy to begin with.  Now that I do, I'm less aggressive about cleaning. 

However, I also have a few Fast-Tracks jig-built #6's on the layout.  In terms of smoothness of operation, there's really no comparison.  Engines and rolling stock simply glide through the handbuilts; with the Atlas turnouts, you always get a slight bump or something.  They work fine; so does a Chevy Malibu, but it isn't in the same class as a Lexus.

The trade-off, obviously is time (and as some have pointed out, the lack of plate detail).  I had gotten to the point where doing a #6 from scratch took about two hours, and maybe could have shaved some more off that if I were building dozens of them.  2 hours per turnout for 100 turnouts is 200 hours, or five 40-hour weeks of nothing but turnout building.  Since most of us only spend a few hours a week on the hobby, doing this would have required something like a year's worth of layout construction time.  But since I don't care about the tie plate or other detail, and care more about operational matters, if I were doing the layout again, I would build them all.  After painting and ballasting, the look is fine for me and there is really no comparison when talking about operational smoothness (I can even run my Big Boy through a hand-built #4 just from a template that I did after doing the #6's; I can't do that with most Atlas #5's - the tolerances just aren't good enough - but again, no one should be running a Big Boy through a #4 switch anyway).

But despite this, Atlas really is to be commended for their Code 55 track line.  They have made it possible for "normal" people to build a reliable layout that has excellent prototype looks, which simply wasn't doable before (OK, you could have used ME track and stuck with ME#6 turnouts, if you could find enough of them; not really practical if you want SOME turnout variety).

John C.