Saw this on another forum I found when Googling for something else
http://www.gscaletrainforum.com/index.php?/topic/922-polk-generation-next-closing-down/
Website doesn’t indicating any closing. ANyone know much about this?
Ray is usually well plugged in. This would not surprise me, especially with the demise of Crest.
Considering Bachmann has shelved the Spectrum line, USA is in a holding pattern along with everyone else. With Crest closing and the sluggishness of the G market, I’m not surprised either.
Damn.
He kinda lost it on farcebook, I don’t book face so I never got the updates … well that’s my feeling.
John
Vic Smith said:
Considering Bachmann has shelved the Spectrum line, USA is in a holding pattern along with everyone else. With Crest closing and the sluggishness of the G market, I’m not surprised either.
Vics posts always say, “don’t panic” is it getting close to time to get worried yet? Feel like its my duty to buy something just to help things a bit.
So now I wonder if someone with more cash is going to try and resurrect the old Aristo line. I think that was part of Scott’s problem. He didn’t have enough cash to get things flowing, especially since he had to buy the stuff that was already sitting over there.
IMHO I think the problem for any prospective suitors is that there are so many Aristocraft items that need fixing properly before bringing them back, realistically I doubt anyone will ever bother.
Many of the faults are minor but some, like the steam locomotive wheel quartering method, needs adoption throughout the range. Locktiting them in place instead of proper engineering, was simply ludicrous.
Hmm, we heard this about a week back… and I believe Scott sent an email recently. (I knew it some months back, but the signs were there, no response from emails, phone calls, web site).
Yes the site is still up, and I assume it is to sell off whatever little stock he has.
His investment partner pulled out a while ago (earlier this year), so with no cash, he could not buy anything.
I know the players, and the investment partner was in Georgia, and it just never panned out in sales/profit.
Greg
Wholesale Trains is closing down also, the end of this month.
Things like this make me worried about getting into the hobby and create a bit of anxiety as I collect the funds and try to get started. I might be less worried about once established. Since I began this hobby though
- Crest closed
- Polk is closing
- As jerry mentioned Wholesale Trains is closing.
It’d be really unfortunate if it I only made it half way through building what I wanted before supply became a serious issue.
Nicolas Teeuwen said:
Things like this make me worried about getting into the hobby and create a bit of anxiety as I collect the funds and try to get started. I might be less worried about once established. Since I began this hobby though
- Crest closed
- Polk is closing
- As jerry mentioned Wholesale Trains is closing.
It’d be really unfortunate if it I only made it half way through building what I wanted before supply became a serious issue.
Honestly Nicolas, I wouldn’t give that a thought. You couldn’t live long enough to see a supply issue. There is so much second-hand, even new second-hand, stuff out there all over the place that you couldn’t save enough money to buy everything even if you wanted to. And, not to be unkind, but the old-timers pass on to the great freight yard in the sky and their earthly estates include plenty of trains new and old, because, of course, almost everyone overbuys!
edit: sorry, misspelled your name the first time.
As long as USA Trains stays in business I’ll be happy since everything I have bought and will be buying engine and car wise comes from them. In terms of track I feel pretty confident I can get something from somewhere, though they may be a bit of mix and match going on.
Nicolas Teeuwen said:
As long as USA Trains stays in business I’ll be happy since everything I have bought and will be buying engine and car wise comes from them. In terms of track I feel pretty confident I can get something from somewhere, though they may be a bit of mix and match going on.
USA Trains makes a lot of great stuff that’s for sure.
deleted
John Passaro said:
Nicolas Teeuwen said:
As long as USA Trains stays in business I’ll be happy since everything I have bought and will be buying engine and car wise comes from them. In terms of track I feel pretty confident I can get something from somewhere, though they may be a bit of mix and match going on.
USA Trains makes a lot of great stuff that’s for sure.
Don’t count out Bachmann entering the 1:29 market, they own most all of Aristos tooling, if they see a market demand they may very well do their own line of 1:29.
I wouldn’t worry about getting into the hobby since like others have stated there is so much equipment in the preowned market.
The only thing is you might have to search a bit more to get what you want. preowned is the way to keep this hobby affordable to many and if that fails you could always build your own.
What has me concerned now that Crest is gone is putting hundreds into a control system that might go out of business next week.
We think of the hobby train manufacturers as these big companies but outside LGB most of them come down to a mere handful of dedicated people.
I have several USAT engines and many pieces of rolling stock and I think they are great. I also have several Bachmann locomotives as well and they are fine models.
I have been buying used, and with a little TLC, everything I have bought has worked out just fine.
http://largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/24272/worn-out-lgb-boxcar/view/post_id/289891
So you can run a railroad just with what is available on the used market. And if you are willing to do minor repairs, and some repainting, you could really build up a nice fleet of stock. So I wouldn’t be concerned neither.
Where do people mostly find used stuff? In looking for used I have seen some on ebay and other places. Of course for me, msot of the used stuff I would be looking for would be track.
Nicolas Teeuwen said:
Where do people mostly find used stuff? In looking for used I have seen some on ebay and other places. Of course for me, msot of the used stuff I would be looking for would be track.
If you have facebook G scale swap and shop is a great source with great deals all the time. They seem to have lots of USA and Aristo stuff.