Bethlehem Car Works—Who sells them?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Greetings folks and gentry. I’m striving to recreate a bit of the old Royal Blue Line, B&O-Reading Company-CNJ. I’m fine with B&O equipment, right down to the 1957 Consist books. Now I’m needing Reading and CNJ passenger Cars and BCW makes some beauties.

My trouble is Walthers no longer carries that line and that’s all my usual supplier gets for the most part. I could order direct but then we’re talking full list price, sales tax no matter where I buy them and $7 per car shipping on direct orders. Some of these cars list for $65 or more and if I buy eight cars that’s $56 in shipping!

So I resorted to exploring some of the vaunted mail order discounters. So far it’s like looking for Lindberg SW1 drive belts. And these guys are what’s supposed to replace hobby shops?

Does anyone know who carries these kits are a “street price”?

Thanks for any assistance.

2

Like you said BCW products can be ordered directly from them. There are dealers on ebay that sell their cars at better prices but even though you don’t like shipping costs and sales taxes those are a fact of life. If you live close to them perhaps they wouldsell directly out the door butI’m willing to bet that would include sales tax too.

Walthers has gotten to where they only want to carry their own products and they also have lots of backorders.

BCW has a lot of unique cars and other great products that nobody else carries so you’ll just have to bite the bullet.

oldline1

3

My bad oldline. I was judging their shipping cost by their add in RMC which I now assume was referring only to the car in the add. Looking at their website it’s $13 per order, not per car as their ad implies. $13 per order I can handle, but would never pay that per car.

As far as finding a dealer with discounts I think I’ll find one. BCW says they’ll sell to any hobby shop and I expect one can be located to sell a few hundred bucks worth of kits. Been a very long time since I’ve paid list price on a mail order.

Guess I’ll find out.

Take care.

4

First, BCW is a small operation and I woud bet the dealer discount is short, meaning most dealers would not be able to discount the product much if at all.

Even if Wathers still carried the line, again, it likely had a short discount to dealers, making it hard for them to sell much less than retail.

Second, the way I understand their order form, the S&H is $9 for the whole order east of the Mississippi, $13 west.

BCW is clearly making a transition from wood/resin/brass kits to plastic, if you need those older kits, I would get them now…

Just the thoughts of an ex hobby shop train department manager…

Sheldon

5

If you Google Bethlehem Car Works you’ll come up with the names of several vendors who carry that line.

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When it comes to kits like this, Funaro & Camerlengo and Westerfield can occasionally be found at discount prices.

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However… Yarmouth, Speedwitch, Sunshine, Keystone, and others demand higher-than-retail on the secondary market.

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I think Bethlehem Car Works would be in this second category.

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I order direct from Yarmouth, because a kit you can buy from them for $60.00 will cost you $80.00 or more on eBay. They cannot be found in hobby shops.

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-Kevin

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And the few that showed any online inventory and pricing are selling at full retail as I suggested…

Additionally, it should be noted that the assembled BCW products being sold on Ebay are an exclusive product sold thru Intermountain, and the pricing is unrelated to other BCW products…

Sheldon

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BCW used to be available at 20% off when Walthers carried them. I picked up six or seven of their kits, both plastic and brass-sided, in years past from a local dealer who’s always generous with discounts.

It’s possible BCW had to trim back their margin to Walthers. But there’s a dozen reasons beside that that their relationship with Walthers could have come to an end. We’ll see. I’ve been around this hobby for sixty years or so and can do a little snooping around. I’ve already found a very good stand-in baggage car to replace the brass-sided car that’s already been discontinued by Bethlehem. Ironicly it uses a BCW low arch roof and I’ve got a ton of their “kit bit” parts around here to help out. The cars I really want are basic Reading coach’s and a combine; I have old Walthers single window coach kits onhand to model the longer CNJ cars. Luckily the desired coach’s are a fairly modest $29.95 list price, as are combines and two classes of BE’s. CNJ baggs are easy to cover. So are CNJ RPO-Express Cars. The Reading 60 foot version has been already dropped too and might prove to be a challenge.

Oh well, part of the hobby. A year ago I thought decals I needed were unobtainable and now I have all I can use. Something will turn up.

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Even if BCW was being sold thru Walthers at the “standard” discount, anyone buying them from Walthers and selling them for 20% off was not making very much, and likely just did it because they were selling lots of higher markup products at 20% off and just considered selling a low volume product like BCW as a “customer serice”.

As noted above, Walthers seems to be on the way out of the “distributor” business, and for good reason. They have far fewer wholesale customers anymore, and I really think they don’t want to be in the direct retail sales business with anything other than to their own product as well.

Be you a customer, or a small shop, if you think the retail side of this business can servive on 20% margins, you are kidding yourself.

The big boys buy direct, and have cut out the middle man markup, and that is the 20% to 35% they give you in discounts.

The little guys don’t stand a chance in the long run, and we are aready seeing lots of small manufacturers go to only direct sales.

I’ve only been around this hobby for 50 years, but I grew up behind the hobby shop counter…

Sheldon

10

I’ve been on both sides of the counter too, and in a lot bigger operations than a local hobby shop. A lot of savvy shop owners will gladly give 20% off on a sale they wouldn’t otherwise see at all. As one local guy told me, it’s “Free money”. I put the cash up front, nothing out of his pocket, no inventory cost, I give him $240, he gives Horizon or Aladdin or Bowser $180 or less and he made $60 for punching a couple keys. $60 vs $0. Another angle for the shop man is to be his own distributor. Go direct to the manufacturer himself. Not every manufacturer will go for that but a lot of really good ones, like Tichy, will. It’s worth looking into and is known as being in business. And there’s more a retailer can do to get by. Move sleepy stock to EBay or Amazon, becoming your own discount shop.Use time between customers to list items, keep busy. It’s your job. And offer some minor discounts on everything, it works wonders compared to the 1950’s business model too many shops use. Even 3 or 5% on purchases over a set amount leaves a good impression. Have sales once in a while, like everybody else in the retail universe. Have a used and bargain table or two off in the corner somewhere. Huge profit on the used stuff even if not overpriced. That’s how Half-Price books stays in the black. Above all offer friendly service and free advice ( if asked for preferably, but if the person obviously needs it, help them out). One of the local shops gives mild discounts in the store, even 3% off for cash transactions. He also does email online business, offering up to 28% off if you spend over $125 and free shipping as well. He’s been in business over thirty years even with an argumentative personality. I’ll do business with the guy, but only online so I don’t have to talk to him.

But since you’re concerned with the dealer’s margin you probably shouldn’t use discounters as that’s what is really killing them.

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[quote user=“b60bp”]

I’ve been on both sides of the counter too, and in a lot bigger operations than a local hobby shop. A lot of savvy shop owners will gladly give 20% off on a sale they wouldn’t otherwise see at all. As one local guy told me, it’s “Free money”. I put the cash up front, nothing out of his pocket, no inventory cost, I give him $240, he gives Horizon or Aladdin or Bowser $180 or less and he made $60 for punching a couple keys. $60 vs $0. Another angle for the shop man is to be his own distributor. Go direct to the manufacturer himself. Not every manufacturer will go for that but a lot of really good ones, like Tichy, will. It’s worth looking into and is known as being in business. And there’s more a retailer can do to get by. Move sleepy stock to EBay or Amazon, becoming your own discount shop.Use time between customers to list items, keep busy. It’s your job. And offer some minor discounts on everything, it works wonders compared to the 1950’s business model too many shops use. Even 3 or 5% on purchases over a set amount leaves a good impression. Have sales once in a while, like everybody else in the retail universe. Have a used and bargain table or two off in the corner somewhere. Huge profit on the used stuff even if not overpriced. That’s how Half-Price books stays in the black. Above all offer friendly service and free advice ( if asked for preferably, but if the person obviously needs it, help them out). One of the local shops gives mild discounts in the store, even 3% off for cash transactions. He also does email online business, offering up to 28% off if you spend over $125 and free shipping as well. He’s been in business over thirty years even with an argumentative personality. I’ll do business with the guy, but only online so I don’t have to talk to him.

But since you’re concerned with the dealer’s margin you probably shouldn’t use discounters as that’s what

12

Sheldon, you are correct, I either want your services or I don’t, and I don’t. I have plenty of amiable and agreeable resources for required services.

By the way, I located a dealer to get my price on the BCW models, only better. Please refer to Becker’s Hobby Supply, New Brighton, MN, (on the north side of the Twin Cities metro) website for his pricing and mailing policies if you are interested. For thirty-some years he seems to have been doing very well doing what you seem to think of as very wrong for a brick and mortar shop: offering deep discounts.

Who the hell pays full sticker price for models in today’s retail climate? Of course I expect a discount on major items I buy. Or at least buy it on sale. On the other hand I buy a great many small items at hobby shops for full price because that’s where such items are, items such as paints, adhesives, mags, parts, scratch building material, hand tools, single turnouts, sticks or bundles of flex track, brushs, air brush parts, etc. Also most of the big mail order houses don’t even stock these things or would be murder on shipping because you might have to place four or five orders. Also because I like hobby shop ambiance and do what I can to support them. I rarely buy new engines but my last one was from a local shop, an Atlas HH600. All other locomotive purchases for the last ten years at least have been swap meets, so I’m not really supporting anyone but another modeler there.

Well, as in all things, to each his own.

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b60bp,

I think the only real difference between you and I is attitude and perception. My customers love me. I look out for them and my billing is completely transparent, and I’m good at what I do.

I don’t pay retail for model trains any more than you do, But I also don’t walk into retail stores thinking that posted prices are negotiable. It has something to do with how I was raised. I may politely ask if any discounts are available, but generally in a retail environment I will pay what is advertised or I won’t.

And when I tell customers what my hourly rates and terms are, it is already my best/lowest price, again part of how I was raised. So if you think I am starting out high to take advantage of you, I would rather not work for you.

I realize not everyone thinks this way, but I have done just fine in life without playing the game of starting out higher and negotiating down to the real price, except for cars and houses…

In twenty years of restoring houses I have never had to look for work or spend a penny on advertising, I have all the work I can handle, because I’m honest, fair and good at what I do.

I’m glad you found a dealer who can help you out. Every business has different overhead, etc. What some can do would be a death spell to others. Fixed costs in the Twin Cities may be dramatically different than here in the Mid Atlantic…

I have most of what I need and want, but I have seldom bought what I would call “used” or “already been played with”. I do buy New Old Stock, from whoever might have it for sale.

I’m starting a new layout, due to our big “retirement move”, so a new layout means some new purchases. Again, even with the decline of retail shops, we have plenty of good sources in this region. And many are both brick and mortar as well as online/mailorder.

And we have some great swap meet/train shows in this region as well.

The Mid Atlantic h

14

What is the length of the Bethlehem cars? The BCW website doesn’t say and I don’t even see them on Beckers’ site

http://bmrsstore.com/bmrshome.htm

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They are all different lengths depending on their prototype.

Sheldon

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EDIT: Oh, I see. Claims a discount up to 20% from list price for “most items” depending upon initial item cost. I’d be curious as to what discount he gets from BCR, where I assume he goes to get the kits as Walthers doesn’t appear to carry that line.

Really?? I don’t see the BCW cars listed. Mind telling us how you got a better deal?

17

I’m sure that dealer can get whatever is in stock directly from BCW, but the question still is at what discount, which will drive how much of a discount he is willing to sell them at.

For many years now most all the small and even medium sized manufacturers will deal direct with retailers of any size. But volume still controls price, so often low volume dealers will still pay what a traditional distributor would charge.

There has been a small dealer just eight houses from my home for the last 25 years. He buys directly from Bowser, Intermountain, MTH, and a long list of others, but not at the lowest price level.

And as I said before, I can’t speak specifically about BCW, but many small manufacturers have traditionally had shorter discounts.

Sheldon