From this distance I believe it was always going to be a struggle for Scott, given the trading conditions over the last few years.
Many here, myself included, have wished him well and anticipated some of the products he hoped to sell. However those products seem far off now and wishing someone well and also supporting them are two quite different things.
I hope he pulls through, time will tell, but he has disappeared off many folks radar and that certainly cannot help.
I tried calling the telephone number listed…no answer…there did seem to be an “Answering machine”, but I didn’t leave a message.
I think the main problem is that all they have had to sell has been NOS remnants still in China. Once that has been gone through there isn’t anything left. I dont think the market is anywhere strong enough to support investing in new production yet or else we would have seen it with another Mfr.
Who knows what the status is with the tooling/molding situation in China. For all we know, Kader could be requiring so much $$ up front from Polk for any new production runs as to be cost prohibitive for anyone.
I would think that the track could be a profitable ongoing business, but there is additional competition now from AML.
Switches are another area I would think would succeed, the 10’ WR switch is a known quantity and can be made to function extremely smoothly and are inexpensive.
The #6 switches are likewise relatively good, and can be made to perform better, although they need that frog insert, and the stainless ones can take a lot of grinding. Still they are less expensive than the competition.
The NOS of locos is a real pain, eggliners and 0-4-0 units… ugh…
Greg
That’s conditional on China continuing to provide track to Polk’s. If they don’t produce new stock or extort so much to produce it becomes impractical, they are going to whither away.
I wonder if Scott has taken on resurrecting the line from an emotional basis and hasn’t (completely) thought through the business end of it. It takes a lot of money to get a business off the ground. I still hope he can make a go of it, but I am not impressed with his website. I know he has plans to bring in dash 9s and some rolling stock (or so he said), but I wonder if he has the cash to do that.
I think Greg is right, he could just concentrate on track for a while, as boring as that may be, and the NOS until it runs out. If he does that right, he could get some cash together to possibly have some some short runs done of the dash 9s and some rolling stock.
I thought Scott was also working a full time job, I don’t know what that is, and that could be why you got an answering machine. Then again, I could be wrong, I often am.
Thing is, I wish him luck, and I want to see the line come back, but beyond some trucks, a little track and maybe a boxcar or streetcar here and there, I wont be buying much from him. I do not have the room, or the need, for much else.
I was hoping the future would be brighter.
I was hoping the future would be brighter.
I can only speak from the experience of the company I work for, but manufacturers over seas are getting more stringent and a lot more expensive then they have been in the past. There are a lot of items that we can now produce here even in expensive New Jersey, cheaper then we can get them from china, plus shipping. Scott, although I hope succeeds, is in a very tough spot right now.
Doug Arnold said:
I was hoping the future would be brighter.
Doug, it will be. There is too much invested in the line, molds and jigs and such, for it to just die off and go away. If Scott doesn’t bring it back, someone will. In fact, I was surprised that anyone attempted too so soon. I figured it would be a few more years before we saw it come back, and, maybe, it will still be a few more years.
Yes Nico, the price of goods from China has been increasing. That could be a good thing. Maybe stuff will be made in the good old USA again.
Maybe potential suitors are hanging back hoping the buying public would not remember the glaring faults with some locos that should be fixed before they are re-introduced.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
David Maynard said:
Yes Nico, the price of goods from China has been increasing. That could be a good thing. Maybe stuff will be made in the good old USA again.
It will be tough especially when Kader owns the molds.
Tony Walsham said:
Maybe potential suitors are hanging back hoping the buying public would not remember the glaring faults with some locos that should be fixed before they are re-introduced.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Memories are short, but not THAT short 
Tony Walsham said:
Maybe potential suitors are hanging back hoping the buying public would not remember the glaring faults with some locos that should be fixed before they are re-introduced.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Memories are short, but not THAT short
Nico Corbo said:
David Maynard said:
Yes Nico, the price of goods from China has been increasing. That could be a good thing. Maybe stuff will be made in the good old USA again.
It will be tough especially when Kader owns the molds.
Nico, yes, they probably do. I wasn’t talking in this case, I was making a general statement. If Kader does in fact own the molds, they may look for someone to use them sooner or later.
Maybe potential suitors are hanging back hoping the buying public would not remember …
OK Tony, spill the beans…what is it you know that we don’t…(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Bob.
If you know anything, you know more than I do. I am just speculating as to why the line seems not to have been picked up by someone else.
If someone did pick it up they would be faced with a quite expensive task of re-engineering out the defects existing in the last iterations. Especially the drive systems of the steam outline locos.
Plus I think 1:29th scale has run its course.
Might take a while yet, but I would think common sense will eventually prevail and 1:32nd scale will come to the fore once the Large Scale market picks up in the USA. It always amazed me that such an odd ball scale was chosen by Polks. A scale that scale modellers would simply not buy. In Europe there is a market larger than the USA, but they demand proper scale models.
We could argue 1:32 or 1:29, and that has been argued. I do not know where that will end up. But even with the wrong scale, USA, AML and even Bachmann are playing in that scale, so there is a market.
The drives would need to be redesigned for the old Aristo line, but most everything else is done. I think, in the end, it will probably come down to whoever throws enough cash at the owner of the molds (Kader or whoever) will bring the line back.
I hope Scott can do it, if he really wants to. But I still have to wonder if his trying to bring the Aristo line back was a sound business decision on his part, or just an emotional decision. Only time will tell I guess. But at least he gave it a shot.
I will believe 1:29th is alive and kicking when anything new comes out.
For my money, if you are considering 1:32, you would do better to go with 1:48. There are more choices.
