NTS Salt Lake Report

[muktown128]

The Walther's rep also mentioned that the split level house should be coming to N also. The compression they did for HO cut the garage down from a two car to a single, however in N, we may get the two car.

I see quite a few split levels around where I live and they all seem to have 2 car garages.

[cfritschle]

I see quite a few split levels around where I live and they all seem to have 2 car garages.

I am really hoping they will make the N scale version with a two car garage.  It will make kitbashing it into the my house a whole lot easier.   

[OldEastRR]

Nice buildings ... my town scenes are all populated now so I won't need any, but I did use some Walthers Cape Cods that could be built in slightly different configs. What I did was enlarge one (using two kits) to make a duplex CC. The duplex has same footprint but is taller.



 Maybe that's what Walthers learned from their ill-fated Modulars venture -- make kits that can be built in many different ways.

[sirenwerks]

But different enough to really compliment them. Imagine a Craftsman neighborhood with different style houses.

A neighborhood would cost almost a whole mortgage payment at Walthers' price, even after street price markdown. They need to put N scale out at an N scale price point. $40 for $1 worth of plastic and cardboard makes me feel violated.

[thomasjmdavis]

A neighborhood would cost almost a whole mortgage payment at Walthers' price, even after street price markdown. They need to put N scale out at an N scale price point. $40 for $1 worth of plastic and cardboard makes me feel violated.

It is kinda rude of them to put out a building in N for 39.95 and comparable HO scale at 34.95 (3 times the size with more detail).  No doubt they would argue that they sell fewer N scale, so less economical to manufacture.  But if that's the case, they should make ours real scale size, as opposed to a 55% reduction of a massively compressed HO building.  As you say, it's $1 in plastic.  I'd rather pay $40.95 ($2 of plastic) for a decent sized building.  Most actual urban houses (or farm houses, for that matter) have more than 4 rooms.  Time to get out the cardstock and basswood.

[Dave V]

It is kinda rude of them to put out a building in N for 39.95 and comparable HO scale at 34.95 (3 times the size with more detail).  No doubt they would argue that they sell fewer N scale, so less economical to manufacture.  But if that's the case, they should make ours real scale size, as opposed to a 55% reduction of a massively compressed HO building.  As you say, it's $1 in plastic.  I'd rather pay $40.95 ($2 of plastic) for a decent sized building.  Most actual urban houses (or farm houses, for that matter) have more than 4 rooms.  Time to get out the cardstock and basswood.

FWIW, I don't recall ever paying MSRP on Walthers stuff.

[NtheBasement]

Wow, that warehouse is a first: modern and not miniaturized.  Wish I had the space on my layout.

[basementcalling]

A neighborhood would cost almost a whole mortgage payment at Walthers' price, even after street price markdown. They need to put N scale out at an N scale price point. $40 for $1 worth of plastic and cardboard makes me feel violated.

Nah, what's rude is offering housing when they are sitting on piles of needed industrial buildings they won't release in N scale. How are our N scale figures gonna afford even these small houses without decent jobs?

[Rossford Yard]

Sorry, a bit late to the party, but I did attend the show on Sunday.  Few people there, no buzz, probably a function of being in a religious area on a Sunday.

However, clearly the show space and number of vendors was down from KC last year, which was a great show, a real treat.  (N centric included only Neal's, Spring Creek and Yankee Dabbler)  I get bored with my local train shows, but generally get amped up at the national.  So, I found my self wondering if even the NMRA train show was losing interest.

I expect St. Louis next year will return to normal, as it is probably a bigger model railroading community.  I guess our DFW chapter just secured the 2023 convention, and our local NMRA leaders are already a bit worried we don't have the draw (layouts, prototype tours) to get a big crowd, so I guess it is location, location, location when it comes to train shows.  Funny, no one could recall where the 2022 show was after St. Louis, only knowing it was a "San" location in CA.  However, when I suggested San Quentin, they were pretty sure it wasn't there, LOL. (Santa Clara, near San Jose for $20, Alex.....) 

And some of the mfgs. were quite mixed about even going to England in 2021...….It's a neat experiment and I hope it works well for NMRA, but probably not as big a deal as the NFL going to London.

Interesting and coincidentally, I got an email from Trainfest today, which I have also attended if coincident with work, and they say they are expanding by 30,000 SF this November.  They are somehow importing some foreign layouts including a diorama depiction of the D Day invasion.

[Rossford Yard]

Basement,

Cute.     Anyone visiting my layout who observes this or that isn't prototypical is a threat to be shown the door.  If someone started asking me if my N scale figure could afford their house, meaning I would have to assign a theoretical job to each, well probably not worth it. LOL.  I have a Bralik Building condo on my layout, and was thinking of lining up people around the block for the opening day of sales, with a sign on top saying "now open, new condos from $150,000.....Railroad views from $1 Million."

More seriously, I did talk at length with the Walther's folks (see my other post on lack of traffic, so I made the most of it) He mentioned that a lot more stuff was coming to N, that they are fully committed to N structures, etc.  His impression, based on show traffic, inquiries, requests, etc. was that the portion of N scalers was still moving upwards in the market.  However, they still base N structures on how well HO structures sell.  Right now, N sells about 25% of HO, but slightly rising.  So, if HO doesn't sell well, and they figure only to sell a quarter of those in N (maybe a third, whoo hoo) they simply run the math to see if they can cover their costs with that few sales. 

He said they go into nearly every HO project with the intent of doing it N later, but defer if sales in HO are lousy.  The big ones in HO I could see as missing in N were the Ethanol plant and Cement Plant.  I can see those not selling well in either scale compared to more generic industries.  Our "needed" is a subjective opinion, whereas their sales figures are pretty objective.  BTW, he said the steel mill buildings were in the process of being reissued in N at some point (not sure, but I think next year)

We don't end up getting everything we want, but without Walther's, I couldn't do a very realistic job of an industrial switching district, so I give them Atta Boys whenever I can.

[mmagliaro]

"$1 in plastic" is not the price point driver, as I'm sure you realize, any more than $200 for a loco is determined by the cost of the plastic shell or a few dollars for a metal frame and motor.  It is the tooling and design cost, which has to be recouped over many units of sales.  If the nominal "80/20" rule is still even approximately true, they can expect to sell 4x as many HO kits as N.  And even though they may be able to take the CAD drawings for the tooling and just "scale them down" without too much effort, they still have to pay to have the molds made.  Even with only a 2x customer base, they are charging a slight premium ($40 vs $35) to sell into a *much* smaller market.

Now, whether the entire price zone of $35-$40 for these kits is fair is another question entirely.  But comparatively, I don't think it's unfair to charge $5 more for the N Scale version.

[Rossford Yard]

I also asked both Walther's and Atlas if 3D printing was going to save them any money.  Both thought it had limited uses to detail parts at the moment.  Not sure why, but I will defer to the opinions of at least partial experts.

[JoeD]

These shows are hit or miss.  I remember the NMRA/National Train show in Milwaukee...I doubt more than 5,000 people walked through the door.  Saturday was like a Sunday at a Liquor store in Salt Lake   We were joking that we could take naps in the isles and no one would step on us.    Worst show ever.  San Francisco and the Bay area in general was pretty slow, but Sacramento, and hour away and far less upscale dining options was huge.  I am not sure what to think about England in 2021.  I know just about any enthusiast show, from trains to darning needle collecting will draw huge local crowds, mainly because the venues are heated better than at home LOL.  I don't see the distance being an issue for major mfgs, but i doubt you will get the small vendors we see here at the shows.  This might be a plus because it seems what ever you see at one vendors table ends up on another vendors table with a higher price tag the next show.  Civilians making the trek overseas is a crap shoot and I don't see too many USA-centric vendors there.  If you are a big Dapol or Bachmann UK fan you will be in for a treat.  

[Rossford Yard]

Gotta wonder if in MILW, two mega train shows in one year was just too much?  Trainfest is an institution up there.....and November is probably a better model railroad show month than July!

[mmagliaro]

I also asked both Walther's and Atlas if 3D printing was going to save them any money.  Both thought it had limited uses to detail parts at the moment.  Not sure why, but I will defer to the opinions of at least partial experts.

My experience working with plastic 3D parts is that they need to be cleaned, they are more brittle than styrene, and they don't bond well with styrene solvent cement.  For a mass-market plastic structure kit, those would all be big drawbacks.  Those building kits are targeted at an audience that expects to be able to just put them together with a tube of glue.