Rapido newsletter #165, a survey for N scalers

[garethashenden]

I would love to see the Rapido treatment on the GP7/9/18/20 series of locomotives. Just one mechanism, a bunch of detail variations which if designed in from the beginning shouldn't be that hard to tool, and practically limitless roadnames and paint schemes. Some are still in service giving this model a 74+ year service window.

[Scottl]

With all respect,  it seems to me this thread demonstrates that Rapido is not targeting many TRW folk. Their choices of offerings are pretty iconic Canadian prototypes.   For better or worse, that is what they are.  I for one am pretty happy with their business model, even if many offerings don't ring my bell. 

Many of the suggestions raised here are target products for Atlas and MT.  Rapido and Scale Trains are too small to be more than niche players.  But all companies come out with headscratcher choices because their priorities are as diverse as the posters in this thread.

[bigdawgks]

One thing that I would suggest for Rapido is that they simply put out a survey with a list of their HO projects and simply query how many people would buy each prototype if it were made in N. I've seen similar moves made buy UK manufacturers of OO looking to enter N. It seems like it'd be a low effort way to get some non-speculative data.

[jagged ben]

When they asked what kind if trains I like to model, intermodal wasn't on the list.

[Maletrain]

The math is sound, as far as it goes, but it doesn't include the logic for cost and price per piece.  Those N scale models don't cost 1/4 what the HO scale models cost to make, and they don't sell for 1/4 the price of their larger counterparts.  So, for models that cost about the same in either scale, the N scale modelers each would need to spend 4x what the HO modelers spend to make their trains 2x longer and 2x more numerous to fill the hypothetical "same space" on their individual layouts.

So, the real issue gets down to how much is an individual modeler willing to spend on one piece of equipment, as well as how many an individual modeler would buy.  The 2 issues are, of course, tightly linked.  Only if the N scale products could be sold for 1/4 of what the HO products sell for would we expect the average N scale hobbyist to by 4 x the number of products that an average HO hobbyist would buy. 

Most of us have a specific amount of space and a specific amount of money to devote to our hobby.  The choice comes down to which scale to spend money, space and effort on.  And that has a lot to do with whether we like to make static displays that are highly detailed, or running displays that are only watched, or operating models that get trains made-up and broken-down, with cars switched in yards and industries.  Even the ops segment is broken into people who like to run the trains through the scenery and people who like to work yards.

I don't think manufacturers try to make numerical models of all that diverse behavior.  I think they just use info on what they or others have sold in the past, and probably don't analyse that very carefully to try to figure out if models that run well will sell better than lmore detailed models that don't run as well, nor if models that are more expensive will sell better if they run better.

But, this survey did seem to have a bit of that type of thinking, asking us to check what matters to us.  So, maybe they are trying to do a bit of rethinking about how to best profit in the market.

But, we all need to realize that the best profits for the vendors are not necessarily the most joy for us hobbyists.

I read Rapido’s newsletter and then got to work on my modelling project for the day, which consisted entirely of glueing little bits of styrene together - so it might have been the glue fumes, but I got to wondering about one of the statements in the commentary on N scale, the old nugget of N scale being “limited by being only 20% of the market”…

One of the commonly expressed advantages of N scale is that “you can get so much more railroad in the same space”. You would think then, if you have so much more railroad, you’d need so many more locos and cars to ‘populate’ it. For example, the space that would accommodate 4 tracks holding 10 cars each in HO (40 cars total) would fit 8 tracks holding 20 cars each in N (160 cars total), or 4 times as many (more or less) (assuming that the average sizes of space available for both N and HO modellers is the same).

So out of every 100 modellers, 80 of them are HO’ers with, 100 pieces of rolling stock (on average, to pick a number), for a total of 8000 pieces of rolling stock. The other 20 are N scalers, but they have 400 pieces of rolling stock each - for a total of 8000 pieces.

So where’s the big market advantage for HO?

I’ve been breathing fresh air for the last few hours and I can’t see the hole in my logic…

Geoff

[CBQ Fan]

I unsubscribed to their newsletter because I got sick and tired of seeing HO announcements I would love to buy in N but know they will never release EVER!  They force feed their HO bias into their decision making on N scale. Then they make fun of the N scale customers. If you are going to be in the N scale market than you need to make your business decisions based on that market. Not through the lens of HO!  If maximizing your profit is your only goal and HO is the most effective way to achieve that goal than sell only HO. If you are in the business to earn a reasonable profit and want to offer a variety of products among different scales, than you need to allocate a budget for each product line and set profit expectations for each. Scale Trains and BLI have figured it out.

On a side note Kato Japan did not listen to Kato USA on how to handle the production amount and road names released and that is why it was a market dump and failure. If Rapido does the RDC in N scale I would buy certain road names, but I won’t preorder.

[brokemoto]

OK, I took the survey, and nowhere did it ask me about any particular product.  For me, that is FA2s and maybe a B&O steam loco a late 4-6-0.

I did the same and failed to see the same.  As do you, I would like to see the FA-2s and FPA-2s that it did in HO in the original Blue and Grey with the as-delivered numbers.  I did make an FPA-2 out of one of the LLs by adding the steam generator stacks, changing the number on the nose and adding them to the number boards.  I did the B, as well.  You must keep in mind that on the FPB-2s, the steam generator stacks go on the A end.   B&O did run its FPA-2s on passenger and mail trains in Ohio and on Potomac Valley locals. 

B&O also had later model ten wheelers that lasted for some time.

Kato did not choose wisely in road names for its RDCs.  Yes, it had to do ATSF because that one usually sells.  NYCS is a "higher tier" road, so that was not a bad choice.  I must wonder about the others.  It did do NYNH&H, which had a larger fleet of them but it left out Boston and Maine, which had about one-hundred-twenty-five of them, the largest fleet..  It did later do the Busted and Mined for the Kobo option, but they were more expensive than the regular runs.  B&O bought seventeen new, which was one of the larger fleets but Kato ignored it, as well.  B&O ended up buying several of ATSF's.  PRSL had several as well, which Kato ignored.
If Rapido did RDCs, I would buy them if it did B&O as long as the only choice were not the paint scheme that B&O put on the ATSF cars.

Rapido is in Canada, correct?  I am not surprised that it does many Canadian prototypes.  It might offer some of the diesels with Canadian features in US road names, but it would not be the first to do that.  I doubt that it will be the last.

[Bill H]

have to agree with Brokemoto - would like to see B&O blue and grey FA-2s which I think they did in HO.

[lock4244]

I read Rapido%u2019s newsletter and then got to work on my modelling project for the day, which consisted entirely of glueing little bits of styrene together - so it might have been the glue fumes, but I got to wondering about one of the statements in the commentary on N scale, the old nugget of N scale being %u201Climited by being only 20% of the market%u201D%u2026

One of the commonly expressed advantages of N scale is that %u201Cyou can get so much more railroad in the same space%u201D. You would think then, if you have so much more railroad, you%u2019d need so many more locos and cars to %u2018populate%u2019 it. For example, the space that would accommodate 4 tracks holding 10 cars each in HO (40 cars total) would fit 8 tracks holding 20 cars each in N (160 cars total), or 4 times as many (more or less) (assuming that the average sizes of space available for both N and HO modellers is the same).

So out of every 100 modellers, 80 of them are HO%u2019ers with, 100 pieces of rolling stock (on average, to pick a number), for a total of 8000 pieces of rolling stock. The other 20 are N scalers, but they have 400 pieces of rolling stock each - for a total of 8000 pieces.

So where%u2019s the big market advantage for HO?

I%u2019ve been breathing fresh air for the last few hours and I can%u2019t see the hole in my logic%u2026

Geoff

Your logic seems pretty valid to me. I've always viewed the difference it train length as the primary comparison between the two scales, but the added dimension of track to space is interesting to consider. Way back when I had a layout it filled a 14' x 12' room with a 5' x 6' extension on one of the 14' sides (making that side 20'), my typical train was 35 to 40 cars. The location of my yard allowed 10 stub ended tracks that could hold about 20-25 average 50' boxcars per track, or about 225 cars. In HO that'd translate into five tracks ranging from 10-14 cars, or roughly 60 cars. Same yard in N scale will hold around 3.75 time the equivalent cars that the HO yard can. I also had five double ended arrival / departure tracks that could hold roughly 40 cars and three locomotives each, so here's another 200 N scale cars vs roughly 53 HO.

Now does everyone fill all that space with rack and cars, some do but likely not most. Still, I'd think it easy to at least double the number of cars a typical HO layout has on an N scale one.

[lock4244]

The barrel ore cars live on... albeit would require a haircut and new discharge chutes to replicate.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[Point353]

I did the same and failed to see the same.

There was a link at the end of the survey for submitting specific model suggestions.
 

Kato did not choose wisely in road names for its RDCs.  Yes, it had to do ATSF because that one usually sells.  NYCS is a "higher tier" road, so that was not a bad choice.  I must wonder about the others.  It did do NYNH&H, which had a larger fleet of them but it left out Boston and Maine, which had about one-hundred-twenty-five of them, the largest fleet..  It did later do the Busted and Mined for the Kobo option, but they were more expensive than the regular runs.  B&O bought seventeen new, which was one of the larger fleets but Kato ignored it, as well.  B&O ended up buying several of ATSF's.  PRSL had several as well, which Kato ignored.

Chalk the choice of roadnames produced up to the consultant that was advising Kato.
(The late) Charlie Vlk has stated here that certain roadnames were held back for a second production run, which unfortunately never materialized.
Had Kato Japan not decided to overproduce the first run of the RDC, there could well have been a second run that included those other roadnames.

[mmagliaro]

With all respect,  it seems to me this thread demonstrates that Rapido is not targeting many TRW folk. Their choices of offerings are pretty iconic Canadian prototypes.   For better or worse, that is what they are.  I for one am pretty happy with their business model, even if many offerings don't ring my bell. 

Many of the suggestions raised here are target products for Atlas and MT.  Rapido and Scale Trains are too small to be more than niche players.  But all companies come out with headscratcher choices because their priorities are as diverse as the posters in this thread.

That is the impression one gets at first (that Rapido targets Canadian prototypes).  But if you go through all the HO product offerings on their website, it's not nearly as "Canada-centric" as it first appears, and they openly state that they are a manufacturer of "high end" model railroading equipment.  As such I would argue that Railwire represents EXACTLY the market they are targeting.

HO Steam locomotives - All Canadian protoype

HO Diesels - FP9 and RDC in Canadian roads, but there are SW1200, PA1, PA2, GP's, and many others in US roads

HO Freight Cars -
This one really shocked me.  I had no idea just how many US transition era cars they make.
They have a lot of Canadian prototypes, but they have a lot more ATSF, BNSF, SP, PRR, GN, CNJ, UP, B&O, and I'm leaving a lot out.  Just glancing through the many pages, it looks like more than half of these are 40 footer transition era cars.   Hoppers, boxcars,
tank cars, cabeese.  We're talking things like US "Northeastern style" cabooses, and PRR X-31's.  Very specific US prototypes.  Many
"lesser known" US roads too.  Over 500 in all, and many many 6-packs.  This all looks like it would be very appealing to US N scale modelers
who can run those longer trains.  It doesn't mean we have to buy 50 cars.  Even a smaller room-sized N Scale layout like mine would look
good with 6 matching cars in a modest 20 car train.  If I were in HO,  a 6-car group in a 20 car train would really be pushing it in this same room.

But... alas...switch to the N Scale freight car page, and while there are US protoypes, all the 40-foot, 1940s, 1950s cars vanish.  I don't
think I saw a single one.  The do have 175 offerings, so it's not like they don't have a lot of N Scale.

[Nato]

     We must remember one thing, that Jason Sharon founder of Rapido Trains is an N Scaler and is building a nice C&N layout, even if there is HO Bias.  Nate Goodman. (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[sd45elect2000]

That is the impression one gets at first (that Rapido targets Canadian prototypes).  But if you go through all the HO product offerings on their website, it's not nearly as "Canada-centric" as it first appears, and they openly state that they are a manufacturer of "high end" model railroading equipment.  As such I would argue that Railwire represents EXACTLY the market they are targeting.

HO Steam locomotives - All Canadian protoype

HO Diesels - FP9 and RDC in Canadian roads, but there are SW1200, PA1, PA2, GP's, and many others in US roads

HO Freight Cars -
This one really shocked me.  I had no idea just how many US transition era cars they make.
They have a lot of Canadian prototypes, but they have a lot more ATSF, BNSF, SP, PRR, GN, CNJ, UP, B&O, and I'm leaving a lot out.  Just glancing through the many pages, it looks like more than half of these are 40 footer transition era cars.   Hoppers, boxcars,
tank cars, cabeese.  We're talking things like US "Northeastern style" cabooses, and PRR X-31's.  Very specific US prototypes.  Many
"lesser known" US roads too.  Over 500 in all, and many many 6-packs.  This all looks like it would be very appealing to US N scale modelers
who can run those longer trains.  It doesn't mean we have to buy 50 cars.  Even a smaller room-sized N Scale layout like mine would look
good with 6 matching cars in a modest 20 car train.  If I were in HO,  a 6-car group in a 20 car train would really be pushing it in this same room.

But... alas...switch to the N Scale freight car page, and while there are US protoypes, all the 40-foot, 1940s, 1950s cars vanish.  I don't
think I saw a single one.  The do have 175 offerings, so it's not like they don't have a lot of N Scale.

I wouldn’t mind seeing them do a Canadian prototype 8 hatch brine tank reefer.

[MetroRedLine]

When they asked what kind if trains I like to model, intermodal wasn't on the list.

Intermodal counts as "Unit Trains" FWIW.
But I'm not sweating, since JTC, Kato, Atlas, Athearn and ScaleTrains are already pumping out Intermodal gear.
And knowing Rapido, they'll probably put out some niche Canadian intermodal car that no one south of the 49th parallel has seen before.