Fred Mills said:
End of rant
Sheesh Fred,
That has been my rant since 2001 - it took me a year to find out what LS seems to be about as far as the mfgs are concerned.
OTOH there are probably a lot more of the “others” that will buy starter sets and more starter sets. The problem is that a lot of them never get past that starter set. In many cases because of the various issues we have mentioned again, again and again.
Fred Mills said:
Walthers, of course is only one of many Distributors of model railroad equipment in North America. As distributors; they do influence the market. They can purchase in quantity from any one of the major manufacturers, and obtain a great LOW price. Whether they ever pass the low price on to the people who are the MODEL RAILROAD market, is a big question.
Aristo, in the hope of retaining some of the “Distributor” profits, has seemingly tried to cut out distributors, who stopped buying inventory, and expected Aristo to act as their inventory, and shippers, but claiming their profits. The customer, at the retail level should have been in a position to benefit…but do they…?
The whole model railroad market is in upheaval and uncertainty. Along with the North American economy, it doesn’t lead to anything stable for the lowly hobbiest.
I’m no expert in this stuff; and I look to those that claim to know, to set us all straight…in the mean time; where can I obtain LGB ore cars (The best NA ore cars on the market), at a reasonable (Not Collector’s) price…I want to run the buggars, not look at them. !!!
Walthers has a great discount structure…for registered dealers. The issue always has been the morons who order direct from Walthers and pay MSRP.
The by line has been “Your dealer can get it from Walthers” reflects that.
NEVER buy direct, always deal with a supplier who won’t gouge you full MSRP.
I can find out for you where to get those ore cars reasonably, if they exist in such a state.
TOC
Ferd-check your e-mail.
TOC
Fred, is this what you are looking for?
Interestingly, perchance due to comments, Model Railroader does have a blurb on one of their pages, but you have to look for it:
http://mrr.trains.com/news-and-reviews/mr-express
Makes you wonder…when they squirrel it away like that…
It is funny. You can almost envision the back story of you close your eyes.
TOC
Fred part of the problem with Walthers and Coke/Hersheys cars is that Marklin are probably still trying to get rid of all the “collector” crap EPL did right before they did the Big Hindenburg.
(http://www.cargolaw.com/images/AirshipHi7.GIF)
Unfortunately for what ever god only knows reason Marklin has not simply dumped them at Marshall’s like the unfortunate Toytrain line, nor has it authorized Walthers to deeply discount them just to get rid of them. I suspect its because they paid alot of money for the EPL brand and they want as much of that money back as they can get back with the NOS items and they still perceive the “collectors” market items as having a certain value. Give it another year, anybody who might have ever wanted one of those gawdawful things already bought them long ago, so all thats left should be in the bargain bin at Trainworld hopefully soon enough, and remember a good can of spray-paint covers many silly Coke logos.
(http://www.thereisnocureforstupid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/endoftheworld.jpg)
There are two sides to every story, but I was under the impression that all the brandname ‘collector’ series cars were built under commission to a North American contractor. Thus LGB as it was then, would have received payment for the production runs. This does not explain the “Coke” cars made for the European market though.
If this is the case then the items would have been onsold (most likely at a massive clearance price) to whomever is marketting the cars now. If the cars are not now discounted then someone is trying to make a lot of money with not much chance of that happening. There are brandname collectors and they would out number model railroad hobbyists many times over. Look to the Wilson Bros. Circus series made by Depot G in the mid-1990’s. Ever tried to buy a the flatcar with 2-ton Caterpillar bulldozer load? The Caterpillar collectors eagerly sought out these cars causing the price to skyrocket.
If the loyal brandname collectors have not purchased them by now then little chance of railroad people buying them.
I learned a long time ago, the LGB collector market is very, very, very small when it comes to onselling a in a ‘collector’ market and while we hear of big prices that people pay for collectables, the ‘collector’ is generally very astute with his purchases and will only pay what is necessary and the chance of a high price is not very good.
OK. 2 pages, and I still don’t understand what the big deal is. Could somebody please explain? So far, it just looks like one of those “I know something or somebody you don’t” posts!
Not necessarily. Just the lack of real commentary from kalmback when the head guy quits for Walthers…and we have the release from Walthers.
I had enough dealings with him to not be sad to see him go.
Wonder what changes it might bring to Kalmbach?
TOC
Here is a silly idea… for every stupid car brought to market, they should be required to bring a useful car.
I bought up a bunch of the warranty repair kits when they came up on ebay a couple years ago. For a little over three hundred, I added 20+ hoppers, ~3 tank cars & two boxcars to my fleet. Now, granted I still need couplers & trucks, but I would have swapped out the wheels for steel and the couplers for Aristo anyways. Plus, I get the fun of assembling part of my roster.
Also makes it a hell of a lot easier to convert (read: repaint) a couple of the brown ATSF hoppers to modern BNSF Swoosh, or maybe a conrail one… and a couple grey UP ones to ACFX, or UTCX. Even got a couple planned for the Reading & Northern, Archer-Daniel-Midland (ADMX) and a coupel others i see in service at work.
Oh, I’m not sure that there is anything sinister - most companies don’t exactly celebrate or advertise the departure of an executive who might have resigned because he had a stoush with senior management, had enough of the company after quite a few years, sort a raise which was denied, or just been head hunted. The gaining organisation will usually trumpet the fact, not the loser.
STeve
