Highliners F-unit shells
Unforunately athearn bought them out, and the shells are pretty scare now.
I just bought a new 2010 run Athearn Big Boy. In their instructions, they make it crystal clear that parts will only be available to the original purchaser of the locomotive during the length of the warranty period (I forget if that’s 1 or 2 years) ONLY.
After that, all bets are off.
Now, if you take good care of it, it should be good to you…
John
One can buy many generic engines of e-bay and add detail parts to get what you want!
I see three problems with this. First, if it did happen again, I only forsee larger scales, HO and O for sure. Nothing smaller like, um, N. Second, you would still have complainers saying their isn’t a big enough variety in detail parts. And finally thirdly, it would be dangerous. You would have odd balls, possibly like myself, saying hey if you can do that why can’t do build a frame/boiler for something like a 2-4-4-2 mallet. Or a 4-4-4 rigid frame…hold on a sec… o-o-O-O-o-o …yeah that might look to wierd. I guess my point is you would still probably have just as many complaining about aspects of the hobby as there are now.
Now on the other hand I could see a great benifit. Instead of spending multiple hundreds of dollars for something very specific, say a 2-10-0, just to butcher it up to make your own less could be spent on a very general 2-10-0 and built up. I know this part has probably been said a million times but I’m having fun tossing out wheel arrangements in this thread. I promise, I will stop now [sigh].
4-8-8-2, 2-6-6-4, 2-12-2, 2-8-8-0, 0-10-0!!! [:-,]
“Highliners F-unit shells”
That is a good point to look at. By the time you buy the shell, screens and other detail items along with the powered chasis you are talking some money. One would be better off buying a painted Genesis F unit with all the details and powered chasis, strip it of the paint and use that as a basis to start with. I agree with the above poster that the thought does have some merit but the feasibility and costs will prohibit it.
That was a good idea and It may not have been fullfilled right away, but the Highliner model of the basic F unit does offer any version of the F2 to F9 except for the FP versions. The Highliner F units are still available as kits in addtition to the Genesis models using the basic Highliner tooling.
Steam is much harder to offer various and different locomotives under the same basic kit. Almost all steam locomotives with the exception of USRA locomotives, are different looking and the three builders of steam all built locomotives that had family resemblance to their production models. The other factor is even if they could be offered to out market, how many would actually build them. I noticed that the average modeler buys mostly ready to run. CZ
OK–Fine then![:-,]
Life costs money–hows that for news?![|(]
Everything now centers around the dollar bill. The oddest thing—60 years ago the idea was that one built up markets so that there was money to be had. Now what we see are paranoid people looking anxiously at their billfolds and crossing their legs at the idea of spending a little bit so that they had something to show for it------
Sheeesh! Yes Inventory costs money! So does missing opportunities!![banghead]
I do wonder sometimes about how this hobby ever got started in the first place when all one hears about is how expensive holding inventory is----where are you holding this inventory? In a 50,000 sq. ft. warehouse with 3 phase wiring?![:-^][%-)]
Well, I think the problem with all of this runs much deeper than cost. People now a days in this country for the most part are pretty lazy and expect things to be handed to them and to be simple and easy to do at an extremely low cost. The average person doesn’t want to spend 10 - 20 hours on anything other than texting or watching TV. Most people in this country expect that they are handed tons of money for doing nothing. That’s why lawyers are making a killing and everything is getting screwed up… everyone is CYA’ing so that they don’t get sued by some idiot that belongs on the Darwin Awards. Then to add to it, EVERYONE wants to be paid TONS of money for ANYTHING they do. That includes some guy inventorying parts. So, although I don’t like the idea that Bowser quit making kits and I’ve been buying what I can afford off of E-bay while its still around, I totally understand why they quit. I also think alot of people don’t even know the difference between say a Pennsy K-4 or Pennsy K-2. Most people barely notice any of the differences between different engines, other than “ooo that one is green and that one is bigger and wow, that one makes sound”.
Nothing changes, Plato said all lawyers should be exicuted!
What I think is that this is a call for a r-t-r version of scratchbuilding or kitbashing. Others have pointed out technical or economical reasons why they feel this isn’t viable, but what it really comes down to is that you want a “lite” version of what many old timers did as a matter of course. Anybody who wanted a particular locomotive badly enough used to build it, either starting with an available model and modifying it as required or, if no suitable model were available, built it from scratch. You can still do the same today, but few have the interest to emba
[quote user=“doctorwayne”]
What I think is that this is a call for a r-t-r version of scratchbuilding or kitbashing. Others have pointed out technical or economical reasons why they feel this isn’t viable, but what it really comes down to is that you want a “lite” version of what many old timers did as a matter of course. Anybody who wanted a particular locomotive badly enough used to build it, either starting with an available model and modifying it as required or, if no suitable model were available, built it from scratch. You can stil
I agree that more people would be unwilling to tackle such projects because of the original cost of most locomotives nowadays, but I think a lot of that has also to do with the mentality of those who “want it my way and I want it now”. In other words, more people are satisfied with what the manufacturers are currently offer in r-t-r, and are less inclined to create the model which they really want by hacking up something that’s “good enough”. Part of this faction is, of course, new modellers with no background in kitbashing or scratchbuilding, and part is comprised of older modellers who do have the background but no longer, perhaps, the will, or ability, to do so. So the locomotive-buyer demographics have change (as they always have), but I think that there’l
Interesting topic!
Back when Custer was a cadet and I was assembling Cary/Mantua and Bowser die-cast kits it used to take me a couple of weeks to grind/file away all the cast-on detail from the boiler shell and prepare it for superdetailing. If I understand it correctly what you are proposing is for a manufacturer to produce a bare-bones boiler shell bereft of all details to which you could attach selected parts to, as a for-instance, add things like feedwater heaters, water pumps, compressors, etc to align your loco to a particular locomotive in a particular time frame . . . . . . . . . . engine #2344 as outshopped on 23 July 1946. Shop forces frequently exercised a certain measure of creativity in assembling appurtances and a photo would be necessary to insure accuracy.
Although I was modeling to a freelanced design all of my locomotives were going to have Elesco feedwater heaters with headlights center mounted on the smokebox door as well as other custom details. There have always been modelers who have opted to modify their from-the-factory kit to meet their particular specifications. It is, of course, going to be somewhat easier to do this with plastic than with metal.
There was a time when BRASS boiler kits were prominent in the hobby and a soldering iron and screwdriver were absolutely essential in their assembly. You are proposing a return to those days . . . . . . . . . . and I subscribe to it.
There is, however, one thing which must be kept in mind: the purchase of individual superdetailing parts can turn into a rather expensive proposition. Although I had already switched over to N-Scale when good ol’ Uncle Irv (finally) got around to introducing an SD40-2 model back in the 1980s I could not resist the temptation of acquiring two undecorated shells–I believe they were about $12.95 each–with the intent
FED did a spartan series in brass, you can pick them up for cheap on e-bay, I think I paid less than $100 each for mine.
“the purchase of individual superdetailing parts can turn into a rather expensive proposition.”
…and that is one of the problems. Plus someone stocking every type of detailing part as has been noted. From a practical business standpoint I don’t see a way to do it. You would have a lot of inventory that will move at a snails pace.
AWWW–come on now—surely to goodness there is a little bit of space in a LHS to at least stock some of those kitbashers pieces-----it does not cost that much money to stock them-
Hmmm–last time I checked we wanted detail parts to decorate our streetscapes and detail parts for our factories and such----I find this to be very odd that steam locomotive detail parts have become such a huge issue in terms of keeping an inventory that we are now saying that holding parts like those is probitive in $$$$ terms----sheesh
Will the next step be that it’ll cost too much $$$$ to inventory scratchbuilding supplies?
When I ran a train department in a hobby shop, I kept a full stock of Cal Scale and several other lines of detail parts - it took little space and little money and made customers very happy.
I still buy/use lots of that sort of stuff. Fact is when I buy it now I buy extras, I have my own little hobby shop stock.
But what do I know…
Sheldon
Cal Scale’s price list steam parts is about 950 items long. Average price seems to be about $4. I don’t know the dealer minimum, but assuming 5 of each at 40% off MSRP this would appear to cost the dealer about $11,000.
Of course this doesn’t cover the all variations and doesn’t include the basic parts like boilers, drivers, rods, frames, cabs, etc., which of course are also more expensive. Unlike scenery details where a 55 gallon drum can be used by everybody, locomotive details seem to come in a near endless number of variations. Because unlike days gone by, everyone has to have the exact variation their locomotive was sporting on the date in time they picked for their railroad. Even if all the parts were made it would seem like a dealer would have to carry inventory in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The next problem is sales. How much is really going to sell? Consider that there won’t be step by step directions for each of the possibilities, even a parts list for a particular locomotive at a particular time won’t be available for most possibilities. Can’t pre drill the needed holes or the number of boilers variations required really gets astronomical. So the builder will have to research the parts needed and do any drilling, tapping, soldering, etc. required and figure out to assemble the whole thing.
Oh and half the purchasers want a discount.
No wonder the way to make a small fortune in the model railroad business is to start with a large fortune.
Enjoy
Paul
OK-- assuming the cost of each item at $4 and all that are we going to suggest then that CalScale and all these little mfgs should just give up? Dont bother with this because its not going to make $$$$? Sheeesh.
The LHS’s I go to have little drawers in a few cabinets stuffed to the gunwhales with these detail parts—and they have customers buying them. Even down to the grab rings and hoses----oh —the poor LHS is so overloaded with excess “Stuff” that it is a wonder that they even stock them—
Oh well----in the words of a certain situationist—and yet—IT LIVES!!!
“are we going to suggest then that CalScale and all these little mfgs should just give up?”
I’m not. Far from it. My only thoughts are the myriad of parts that would be needed. CalScale and others don’t even begin to cover what would be needed. For example who makes clamshell smokestacks? How many varitations of those are there that were used?