It's time for another rant. Apparently right when I'm ready to buy something, it's sold out. For instance, I'd like to start building my fleet of Atlas Dash 8-40B/BW's. Gone! You would think that on the second hand market there'd be a healthy stock, but nope. I can find more Kato SD45's on that auction site more than these Atlas engines. There's no word of a new run, they only did what, two runs, sold out apparently, and then said, "Welp, guess that engine won't be produced again, ahahahaha." Then, Intermountain, which I thought would never stop producing new numbers for their Tunnel Motors, all of those are pretty much gone. On their site, their next runs will be for roads no one wants, and L window versions!? The market would be much better with a "on order" basis instead of a blind "Oh maybe people want this engine." Then later, "Hmm, that didn't sell well, I wonder why?" That's why I liked that quote on Alan Curtis' web site that said, "My items are not a limited run and never will be." Now I know all of you will say, "You should have reserved yours." I know, but it just grinds my gears. It's almost enough to quit the hobby or move to HO. But I need a hobby to keep me from relizing just how miserable life is, but with the way it's going, I'll probably never see my complete roster. My layout will never be seen the way it was meant to, with a healthy roster. Others may not notice that they see the same road numbers, but I will. It's gonna drive me crazy to see "endangered" units with only two or three road numbers of important engines, like Dash 8-40BW Warbonnet Super Fleets. I need six to eight of each engine to satisfy for operational needs. Geesh!
I feel your pain. Just give it time you'll find them on the auction sites, or someone here will want to sell theirs. I am unemployed right now and see that Atlas has put out or will put out some Sd9's. Argh, wish I could justify it, gonna have to pass it up. Same goes the the RS11's they put out a while back. Couldn't justify it. Had to let them stay in the store. Perhaps one day.
Are these what your looking for? Don't know what road you're looking for, but there are some undecs in there. Or I'm completely off.. then just ignore me ;-)
It’s all about inventory control. Why make 1000 units when 250 of them are bound to sit in unsold inventory for months? Longer inventory cycles equate to less profit, so the faster you can turn over your inventory, the more profit you make. So these days they now make 750 (or less) units that they know will sell quickly rather than 1000 they used to make and keep in inventory for eventual sale. A possible drawback to this is the risk of customer backlash over lack of product availability. It seems that Kato is moving away from limited runs (likely responding to customer frustration) while others like Atlas continue to embrace a limited run strategy. It will be interesting to see how each plays out over time. Of course, as recently discussed in another topic, as a large segment of the MRR membership continues to gray and pass on, the more quality second-hand items will be re-introduced into the market place. I wonder if this will eventually have an impact on newer runs.
What road are you looking for? I don't know about the vendors that support trainboard but pwrs.ca has them click on "advance search" Type in 150-4870 or Select "N" Type in "Atlas N Dash 8-40B or check with the other vendors listed at trainboard.
I don't know where you purchase most/all of your motive power, but at least two (2) online dealers still list plenty of Atlas Dash 8-40B/BW's: NScale Supply - http://www.nscalesupply.com Brooklyn Locomotive Works (BLW) - http://www.buynscale.com At reasonable prices as well ... and if these two still have them in stock, then I'd bet there are others who do also. :tb-biggrin:
As for the original question - I think the dumping of various Life Like models points out that there just is not enough market for continous runs. I also think they are feeding into a certain "collector mentalty". Speaking for myself I am delighted by the variety of cars and roadnames. Then again I feel drawn not to miss out. Why did I order 1 or 2 of those bright red Atlas um, what's the name of that rental company GP ...?
You think N Scale is bad, try and buy something in Live Steam scale! Four years on a waiting list until they start building you engine! :tb-hissyfit:
Getting enough product to market is always a problem. Most companies do pre ordering which sets production quantities, so some of the issue sits with the dealers who don't have a lot of money to have cars in inventory for months. Understandable. As a manufacturer the last thing I want to do is to leave money on the table and suffer the wrath of the Atlas Forum for not making enough. We'd all like to make tens of thousands of each release, but the market frankly is not there especially these days. The market is also fickle and while there are always strong sellers, sometimes there are surprises. We've done a few cars that in the past sold ok, no barn burners and sat on the shelves for a year or more. Then a few years later, do it as a re-print of the same car and sold out the first day. Try and work that into a marketing plan. I think the best situation would be to have cars printed and painted with decals provided for the road numbers. I bet you though, 89% of the N scale market would be spitting fire because they had to put decals on the car. Each scale has it's own curiosities, and N is more Ready to Run than say HO. Not sure there's a good answer that fits all the needs of the market, the best we can do is attempt to make as many people happy as possible. Cheers Joe MTL
As others say it's making enough to sit on the shelf for a year or so. Any longer and the space on the shelf becomes lost profit. It's difficult to cough up 100 more when the market suddenly needs 100 more. It doesn't pay setup costs on the factory end. With exception of Micro-Trains, deliberate limited editions are becoming a thing of the past as competing manufacturers go head to head for train dollars. Reservations for Kato Daylights were spoken for quickly so Kato scheduled a second run. Dealers are still taking pre-orders despite the rumors people are out of luck getting a set. I noticed Kato UP streamline coach sets go up in price on ebay so Kato announced another run in the near future. Maybe Kato will do a run of SD-45's as the demand for those increases.
I have a couple of tunnel motors for sale, and an LMX Dash 8, and a few others if you are interested...see the link below... http://www.trainboard.com/trainstore/showproduct.php?product=872&cat=500
John, Just to let you know there's no deliberate attempt to limit the number of cars produced here at Micro Trains...one of those Urban myths I love dispelling. We don't make any money on the secondary market so what would be the point? The problem we have is everyone asks for something specific, we make it an no one buys it...classic problem in most any hobby business. I get emails from well meaning folks who want a specific car that only ran on a 10 mile shortline for 3 days and promises to buy three of them if we make them. I never seem to get that check for $70K to do the tooling and production...go figure ) I totally understand where he is coming from, there are tons of SP prototypes that I know we can never do because the focus is too limited. Another issue you must consider, Atlas, IM and others have all their production in China and can afford to make what we call overruns...their unit costs are a fraction of ours. We do everything here and have to plan very carefully to keep our customers happy and keep the doors open. Not an apples to apples compairison. And, like Kato, I can count almost monthly in the last 6 years I've been here where we have had production go back and assemble the overruns to meet unexpected demands...and still falling short. Can't catch a break with a net sometimes. Also, since we only work with dealers, we respond to their orders... maybe the solution is for folks to talk to their LHS and let them know what you are interested in. Then when we produce something they may order extras. To some extent, we and the dealers are operating in the dark...which is why we are moving more towards offering product as a pre order...this might help. Cheers Joe MTL
Joe, I believe you. BUT, what are the chances that MTL will make cars with NO ROAD NUMBERS and include sets of decals or suggestions of where to get them? I'd love a fleet of this or that (especially in CB&Q - HINT!) but often there is only one road number produced (except for runner packs). I've painted and decal'd my own, which is fun, but it seems more and more even the undecorated MTL stuff is hard to find. Greg
Greg, I say yes, but I'm not management. I think you'll see some of this when we do our heavyweight passenger cars. There it makes a lot of sense to have those options right up front. Still a need for fully marked cars and we are planning those but some flexability is needed. I agree about doing runner's packs this way and I'm working up a proposal to do so with a release in the future. Keep your toes crossed. Joe
I haven't found the limited runs too limiting since most of what I buy I intend to strip, repaint, and detail anyway. Until someone starts running engines in prototypical Portland and Western schemes (fat chance) I will mostly be detailing my own.
Joe, With all due respect, you hit something right on the head when you said you only deal with dealers. Dealers have always had a business as a gatherer of orders/business and disseminator of information. In this day and age, that is less important. Any mgmt consultant will tell you to get as close to the ultimate customer as possible. In the old days, the best way was to get close to a network of dealers, who in turn, would get close to ultimate buyers locally. You don't need to do that today. Why not use dealers AND sell direct? With information flow and the internet here to stay, anyone not dealing direct will fall prey to someone who will. Dealer networks are archaic and are getting torn down. The internet is already allowing buyers to find the lowest price provider. Why do you think so many hobby shops are going out of business? Its because most---but not all---but most, add no value to the transaction at all. Why do I need to go to a shop to order something I already know about and know I want? Why do I want to pay a profit margin to a dealer/middleman? I don't. You could ultimately sell your product for more money, and I could buy it for less if we struck a deal directly. Let dealers still buy from you as well, and let them make their margin by really adding value to those that find they are adding value and are willing to pay for it. I've been buying n-scale product for years, and have rarely bought anything from a shop. Now I've purchased things from places that have an actual store, but I had no reason to ever visit that store. Just provide me with the best price and ship it to me. If I don't like it, I didn't pay a big markup on it, and can punt it on the auction site. You are missing a lot of information and sales by using a dealer network exclusively. Remember who actually pays money for stuff and holds it: end users. Dealers only buy until the end user stops buying. So why not go directly to the end buyer if the end buyer wishes to transact that way? Give the customers what they want. Remember, the customer is ALWAYS right, right? BZ
Ah, to be 19 again. Oh well. Actually I consider it part of the fun looking for stuff that is out of production. Maybe ten or more years out of production. I give the internet and places like this and ebay credit for bringing the world to my doorstep. As you are finding out the fine folks at TB are a wealth of knowledge and information. It's just a matter of time before you find what you want. Be patient young grasshopper. Life is good.
So why not go directly to the end buyer? Why indeed? Let me see if my experience means anything here. Once upon a time in a hobby shop far, far away I ordered in....and it never did move off the shelf. You see I had a bunch of Penn Central model rails demanding more PC equipment. We got an unusually good offer from one of our vendors so I ordered in all 100 cars. Set to move them I displayed them, at a discounted price. They were the wrong era, the wrong price, the wrong length, the wrong style, the wrong....well the wrong whatever... the last I heard we auctioned them off. You can't please a finicky public, particularly when they aren't able to agree on or tell you what they want. I enjoy detailing a car doing my own custom jobs. Getting decals for one car that operated on one rail line for three months is impossible...unless you have a computer program where you can produce your own (hint...hint). In the good old days of early model railroading many a scratch builder learned to trust his friends at the local print shop to help with the art work. If you get my drift here. I don't think it's a matter of a limited run, I think it's a matter of breaking even. If you front the money to produce a specific item, then you need to break even money and it would be preferred you make a profit. It's a matter of what will the market bear. What will they buy. So, where does that leave us? Wishing, hoping, waiting and eventually if we really want something bad enough we will resort to scratch building our own. In todays world of model railroading there is an overwhelming amount of product available. Spoiled we are, I tell you we are spoiled rotten. Kudos... to Micro Trains, Kato, Atlas, ConCor, InterMountain, MOT and many others for stepping to the plate and gambling on us finicky, spoiled rotten model railroaders. Grin! Have fun...while it lasts. .
