I know there are dummies in HO Scale, but haven't seen anything of the sort in N Scale. Can someone enlighten me on whether they are available or how someone might make one.
Not generally available as the cost of tooling a second frame design would result in a unit that would be roughly only $10 less than a powered unit. In N the low weight in a loco results in tractive effort shortcomings which make unpowered units rarely advantageous.
There were, at one time, dummy diesel units in N scale. But they faded away. Some of the last, were I believe by Minitrix. (Early-mid 1980's?) In N scale, we tend to run longer trains than HO. So need pulling power. I have not owned a dummy since perhaps 25 years ago. Boxcab E50
I still have a fleet of N-Scale F7's made my Aroura Postage Stamp Series. They ran pretty decent the last time they were out, there were 4 A units and 3 B units I think there is one dummy of both types.
Con Cor and Life Like still sell dummy locomotives. I recently bought a set of LL ATSF E6's that had the A powered and the B a dummy. I swapped out the chassis in the B with another A unit that I had to give me two powered unit for my ATSF consist. The new Con Cor PA's that have DCC sound have all the decoder stuff in a PB dummy.
I still have an Atlas C30-7 which is now a dummy, as I used the chassis to repower a Bachmann C40-8. The C30 dummy is in BN paint. Used to run it with other BN units, before I changed scales.
I, too have an old Rapido F-7 unpowered dummy unit. And the LL E-6 I got came with an unpowered B unit. But I agree that N scale can use an additional powered unit, so my unpowered dummies are in storage.
I have 2 Con Cor ABBA sets, (GN Empire Builder F3 and SP Daylight PA1). Each has only one powerd A unit. These are for passenger trains which. Why would a passenger train need 4 powered untis? I wonder why it seemed economical 25 years ago but does not today. I'll try to post some pics including the price tags on the powered, unpowered, and a passenger car. The prices on the Dummy units are about that of a passenger car purchased at the same time. I have been out of the loop for 25 years so what has changed? Is it buying habits?
I bet it is because the companies are tired of folks sending in dummies for repair because they don't run.
In the computer industry 15 or so years ago, when 5.25" hard disks appeared, you could buy a 5-Mbyte, 10-Mbyte, or 20-Mbyte drive for, respectively, $2,000, $4,000, or $8,000. Guess what-- they were the same drives. It was inefficient to make three drives, so they made one and crippled the others. I think that today the efficiencies of off-shore manufacturers make it more economical to have just one drivetrain under a shell. Operationally, I used to have a few dummy B shells. They were a nuisance, like coupling a boxcar between two locos. I scavenged them--usually they had trucks with electrical pickups that I used for other projects.
Interesting discussion. I was planning on turning one of my Kato F3 B units into a dummy, the purpose being to remove the motor and most of the split frame and add a sound unit. That way I could still use the Kato trucks as power pick ups for the sound decoder and speaker.
The older plastic frame LL FA 2 units were dummies. They used the same frame as the powered A unit even the axles had gears on them. Missing was the motor , the drive train and the weights. As I recall people complained about it because they wanted a powered B unit. I have an ABBA set of the older FA/B2's Had to buy 2 additional A units to power the B units. If sound becomes available in N scale as it probably will we will see a return to the unpowered B unit.
How about the argument: People did not buy many so they stopped making them? for my Empire Builder I bought 4 or 5 coaches, at least 2 Dome, and 1 end car. I can certainly see where people would not buy unpowered units except for use with a passenger train where additional powered units would not be necessary.. That would require educating the consumer. Thanks to this thread I realized what I could do iwth this and 2 others in the same condiiton [ 27. January 2005, 19:32: Message edited by: Grey One ]
would not using the same diecast chassis without the electrics motor and gear train cut costs? surely they cost more than $10 or are the manufacturers making that much profit? whoppit
I'm not sure what you're getting at, so I spent some time trying to analyze it. Here's what I came up with: Case: The MSRP for a pair of powered units is $100, but you can usually find them at $65.00. (I'm using round figures). The person who sells them to you at $65.00 probably bought them from a distributor for about $52.00. That jives with the 47-48 percent discount most distributors will give to their best customers. It gives the retailer a 20% gross profit margin. Let's say the distributor also wants a 20% gross profit margin. To sell it at $52, it would have to buy them at about $42. (I don't know distributor margins, by the way, so corrections are welcomed.) So the manufacturer is selling it to the distributor at $42. Depending on volume, manufacturing companies can show a profit at anywhere from 35% gross margin to 90% gross margin. For this discussion, let's pick a 60% gross margin. (anyone who knows better is welcome to step in!). A 60% gross margin means the manufacturer pays the factory about $16 for the pair. That's $8.00 per unit, powered. Let's say the manufacturer makes 20,000 pairs. It pays the factory $320,000. If the pairs sell out, the manufacturer receives $840,000. Which means it makes $520,000. Out of which comes the cost of tooling and start-up--let's say $250,000. That leaves us $270,000. Out of that comes general administrative expenses, including amortization of expenses, advertising, and a whole lot of other stuff--let's say $100,000. Which leaves $170,000. The return on investment isn't bad; but it's not going to make a whole lot of millionaires either. If it takes two years to develop the product, and even less than a year to sell it out, we're still splitting $170,000 for our pair of locos over a few years. Now, if we can sell a million of them, the financial picture changes dramatically. Our pair of locos becomes a cash cow. PART TWO Now, let's say we're going to do a dummy. We're going to do 20,000 powered A units and 20,000 dummy B units. We can probably build them on same assembly line, so let's ignore any charges the factory will make for two different product set-ups. The cost per A unit mechanism assembly is going to go up slightly, let's say $0.50 per unit, due to lower volume. The cost per B unit mechanism assembly is going to go down slightly, let's say $0.50 per unit, because there will be less steps. Oh, did you want electrical pickup in the dummy? Let's assume you do. If you don't we're going to have to set up another assembly process to build dummy trucks without pickups. Nah, the factory says, this time you're going to have to pay for the new process. If you've followed this story this far, I congratulate you! I think it really comes down to the cost of the motor, four pillow blocks, and two worm gear assemblies, plus some assembly times. If you buying in quantity 40,000 or 2x or 4x multiples, the cost will be pennies, not $10. What does this mean? The original premise was that a set of powered engines can sell for an MSRP of $100. What can a powered/dummy set sell for? I'd guess $50 for the powered unit and $20 for the dummy. That's $70. Using the same divisors as the powered set (above), I get: About $46 to buy the set. About $36, distributor cost. About $30 manufacture selling price. About $15 manufacturer cost to factory (without add-ons) Let's say the manufacturer makes 20,000 pairs, as above. It still pays the factory $300,000. If the pairs sell out, the manufacturer receives $600,000. Which means it makes $300,000. Out of which comes the cost of tooling and start-up--let's say $250,000. That leaves us $50,000. Out of that comes general administrative expenses, including amortization of expenses, advertising, and a whole lot of other stuff--let's say $100,000. Which leaves a loss of $50,000. You can jiggle these figures forever. I haven't accounted for many hidden costs, and my estimates may be way off--but I think they probably balance each other out. In other words, dummies just don't make sense any more.
Pete, Basically you are saying you can't produce a dummy for the same cost as a passenger car. I don't get it. I would agree They might sell more observation or dome cars than dummies. They may not sell enough dummies at the price of a passenger car to warrant production. B units are not exciting except in ABBA sets. The only units I would expect to see would be the A and B units up through the PA 1. I would never expect a dummy Trainmaster, GP or SD, or AC or.… Does that description make sense? I expect there is a viable market for passenger service of dummy A and B units if they were marketed as ABBA sets with passenger cars.
