Anybody see the ad in the Oct. Model Railroader on page 29? Two new Z 33' twin bay hoppers! Due in winter, a smooth side and a rib side version of the 55 ton USRA two bay hoppers from MTL. A welcome addition. Thanks Joe and MTL.
Why is MTL trying to put Full Throttle out of business? First they stop OEM'ing trucks, now they copy his hoppers? What a waste of tooling resources at MTL.
Really? Who's going to buy them? Freudenreich had them for years made from fine nickel silver , Full throttle for years in plastic too. Hope really it's not true. If so I would have no words....
I was really surprised when I saw the ad in MR (October 2011, page 29), as well. Set for a winter 2011 release. They announced a rib side and smooth side 33' twin bay hoppers. To me, this just seemed like a strange choice. As was stated above, FR and especially FT have been producing these for years. The rib sides, anyway. I get the attraction of these cars. There is a huge number of roads that they can be printed for. But the timing just seems off. By about five years. Maybe they just realized that they had missed an incredible opportunity, so now they are directly targeting FT's market. But they could have started with 4 bays. A model that FT hasn't released, yet. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of hoppers, especially two bays (as anyone in the DC Z Bend group can attest to). I have always been a fan of MT and have often stood up for them when others have questioned their decisions. But I seriously question the motivation behind this decision. The other strange revelation in the announcement was that they are going to be body mounting the couplers on these cars for "correct ride height". A few years back, they stopped offering body mounted couplers on their cars. So I guess that is what they are going to use to differentiate their two bays from FT's. Before PennZee, the open hopper market was totally ignored, even though there was almost an endless opportunity there. Even during the PennZee era, MT continued to ignore hoppers, and Marklin only released a couple of road names in their version. After several years of only 3 bays or else FR's etched masterpieces, FT finally picked up the flag and released the much needed rib side two bays as well as offset side two and three bays. And they have continued to release new liveries on an almost monthly basis for almost five years. And, now MT gets interested. I guess I actually get their motivation (or at least I hope I do). The two bay hopper was used by almost every road, and almost every road ran A LOT of them. And, really, that's what a model manufacturer needs. And, it's just business. But in a market as small as ours, it can get personal. Especially when it's members of our own ranks that have taken the personal risks and overcome the challenges to produce a much needed and neglected car type. But, as someone once told me, if a person goes through the expense to have an injection mold made and mass produces a car in several liveries, they are no longer a small player. They have jumped into the game with both feet. I just hope that the very same factors that make the two bay hopper attractive to produce will allow both companies success in producing them. Because, to me, the Z Scale coal drag owes its existance to people like the owners of PennZee, FR and Full Throttle (not to neglect AZL for the modern coal drag). Dan S.
Ditto..Whoever will make 3 or 4 bay coal hoppers in roads that actually hauled coal, in sets of 6 at one time, will be king. I am still planning my S llinois coal mine and I am sure there will be others out there that would like cars that were before 1980 and after 1955. If you were to make 2 bays then make somthing differnt like composite hoppers.
Don't know why, but I'll guess this is the way larger model train companies work. You can see the same behaviour in larger scales, also over here in Europe. From marketing point of view it would make sense that every body builds different models BUT with standarized wheels and couplers.
I disagee. To me, this makes sense. I believe Micro-trains is doing in Z what they did in N - that is investing in tooling that has a broad scoop of road names and can be used 30 years from now. Full Throttle has been issuing the same body style for months and months - time to move on. It also seems to me that Micro-Trains is moving to cover the basic body styles in Z. Micro-trains is a business. While I'm sure they try to advance the state of the hobby, it doesn't do much good if they arn't a strong and profitable company. I think you would have trouble finding a company that has added more to the train hobby, particularly in the small scales.
Full Throttle is a one-man show. He does not have the resources to be constantly adding new body styles; he survives solely on what he has now. Just because Micro-Trains can do something doesn't necessarily mean it should; the Z Scale market is far too small to apply the "it's just business" attitude, and for one company to muscle in on another, and put a person's livelihood at risk, does not speak well of its management style.
I replied elsewhere that I would of rather seen a 50' flatcar from MT. Or they could retool their trucks to include a correct wheelbase. Or they could retool their couplers to exclude the slinky effect.
First of all David, let me say how much I enjoy your work as a modeler and your musings as a writer! I very much respect your opinion. Still, I disagree with you. Full Throttle has other body styles and people will continue to purchase his hoppers as they are excellent quality. It seems to me that Z is on the cusp of, if not a boom, significant growth. Not long ago, Micro-trains had one or two Z scale releases a month. Now they have many. Prices seem to be dropping - note the price of AZL's new engines. Houses are getting smaller and space may become an issue. Z reminds me of N in the late 1980's. The future looks bright. I would be interesting to hear what Joe has to say.
It would take a really remarkable argument to convince me of the logic in this decision. With so many hundreds of body styles that Z Scale does not have, what possible purpose does this serve? If the existing hoppers were of lesser quality, then perhaps it might make sense. But Full Throttle hoppers are, as you put it, excellent quality, so it's not as if we will reap the benefits of an improvement. They have also been offered for years, and with many roadnames, so the market is already well-served. There are also many different styles of 33-foot open-bay hoppers, so why even go so far as to duplicate the two already offered? Why not give us some variations on the theme, rather than re-treads? How about ore cars? Ballast cars? The list of possible options is almost endless. The future of Z would look so much brighter if we were offered more variety. There are so many exciting things they could do with the thousands of dollars it will cost them to duplicate Full Throttle's hoppers. Tell me that makes any sense whatsoever.
As I posted on another board...and I guess since this has migrated to TB...the decision was not made to hurt anyone. We needed a two bay to support a series we are developing simular to the waterfront. Nothing sinister. The subject of FT was brought up, but based on our experiences with using other's tooling there was some production and logistic concerns expressed. Understand, we have never made a decision to hurt a competitor purposefully, if we did, I would be working some place else. Joe
Regardless of whether or not it's intentional, the outcome is the same. So, does it not make sense to adjust one's plans to make accommodations? Or is this one of those, "sorry, it's only business" situations, and carry on as if no one else existed? Isn't the Z Scale market a little small for this kind of tactic? Doesn't MTL have any imagination to come up with a creative solution that benefits everyone?
I have divided loyalties about this one. I love the FT ones and need to get more but appreciate what MTL are doing in terms of promoting the scale and enabling modellers to build a realistic collection of rolling stock. The same debate will probably ensue when the 'ready to run' centre beams come out versus Robert Rays magnificent kits. MTL have a much better distribution base with their dealer network, FTs are a lot harder to come by in Europe, so they are going to capture more of the impulse buy market. (we've all been there, go into a store to buy some track and come out with a bag of Bulkhead flats we didn't know we wanted!). Perhaps a more tactful approach might have been to bring out the 4 bay or the USRA Composite hoppers (Loads of potential colour schemes there) first. Meanwhile where is the tooling for the Penzee/Father time stuff and whats happening with that? I know a few modellers who would jump at the chance of getting the hopppers and reefers without paying silly money on E-Pay. Any new product has got to be good for the hobby and any manufacturer deserves our support and to be honest in H0 and N the market has always supported the mainstream manufactures and the one man bands so why can't we? KEV
FWIW, I can only hold out great hope that at this time next year all companies involved can say it has been a good year. I sincerely hope no harm is done to anyone or any company through this controversy.
