Evolution of Model Railroad production

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

Speaking as something of a veteran modeler (and not a very good one but that’s another topic), I guess I would say I still see plenty of newly issued options, from P2K to Intermountain and Tichy, for those who like to build kit freight cars, and plenty of newly issued options from Walthers and the many nice laser cut manufactuers, for those who like to build kit structures.

Yeah, kit locomotives may well be gone but frankly the RTR locomotives we can buy today are beautiful and seem to run well. A visit to any swap meet will reveal that the era of kit built steam engines resulted in plenty of “Oh I give up” dead ends for many modelers.

Back when there was a plethora of kit options the one thing you rarely saw was a really complete and nicely scenicked operating layout. Based on NMRA divisional meet tours and the various train shows I think the compete and nice looking and smoothly operating fully wired layout is now a much much more common thing than it was. And that was always the ultimate goal.

Fundamentally – why do we build? Because we cannot buy RTR? Or because we like to build (or build and brag)? Is building the means to the end, or the end itself? I won’t pretend to answer that quuestion but I will say that if the greater availability of RTR cars, locos and structures means there is more time to lay track and complete the scenery and wiring on a layout and create timetables and operating systems of car forwarding and dispatching, then RTR is aiding in what was always Al Kalmbach’s stated goal for “The” Model Railroader: “the complete ensemble”

Dave Nelson

22

I can see that is part of what he was getting at. But. I’m not going to go quite that route if it means that ultimately you find everyone running a layout ends up with the same RTR buildings, Engines and rolling stock as the silly market gets squeezed into a narrow conformity and there are people not knowing how to do anything else with those buitups----which BTW are not as easy to kitbash simply because everything is glued together and hence—easier to break into pieces----

It could also mean that the “complete ensemle” also included the kitbasher/scratcher—the RTR’s radical other—

23

Folks:

Don’t forget the Gilbert HO Hudson, CNJ…the thing was everywhere!

Looking at old MRs tends to skew our perceptions a little, too, because MR avoided hi-rail…but that was the go-to area for those modelers who primarily wanted to operate trains. Scale modelers operated, too, and tinplaters built and kitbashed. The shunning of hi-rail was unfortunate; many of those layouts were very well-done.

I have a MR from 1950 (I think) in which John Page (I think) editorializes about the new “assembled kits” that were appearing in such huge numbers, joking that kits would become a shadowy item, sold by sketchy bootleggers, or that people would be disassembling RTR to make kits. It didn’t happen, and I don’t expect it will.

It’s important to remember, too, how much changed during the 1950s and 1960s. Linn Westcott actually made an effort to change the emphasis from tinkering to buying, and said as much in his interview. It’s one thing I can’t get on board with, although he wouldn’t have wanted things to go too far. Westcott was pretty balanced in his views, at least those that weren’t political.

(In '56, another editorial joke, related to ACF’s Adapto containerized car, was that the prototype would end up running all Geeps and Adaptos. Well, actually…)

I think the current high-dollar RTR import boom is like the last RTR import boom (brass)…I think it is colliding with reality,as the extremely low production cost climbs, and spending money drops. I don’t know what to predict, really. My crystal ball broke when that awesome metal-casting setup was posted here. I wish MR would showcase things like that…every now and then you see some tantalizing glimpse of this vast, shady underworld of basement craftsmen, before they retire to their cellars again.

24

For many years almost every HO layout in MR seemed to have an Atlas Signal Tower. It was the second kit I built (after the Atlas Passenger Station). But it’s like track - everyone has it, but they arrange it differently. Same with buildings. You can weather it, repaint all or part of it, merge it with vegetation. We all have the same pieces available - it’s how you select and blend the pieces that make your layout unique. And scratch/parts building is still available for that piece you want, but no one makes.

For me, the layout has always been the goal. Each of my layouts has been unique - even the first one that followed a published plan, because I modified it. M

25

**Iron Rooster-**I don’t think that what you have for a layout is any different than mine in the sense that if something works out I’ll use it. The problem is that I’ve gone to a couple of other layouts recently that were flatland centrals that looked exactly alike. A friend of mine and I went to this one fellows layout and ended up helping him redo most of the thing more to what he was thinking of—but because he did not–or rather thought he didn’t have the skills ended up with this Flatland Central. Now it appears a little more closer to his dream. And he does have skills—it’s just that he was trained into thinking he had none to start with—

It does, after all, come down to how you put it together----[swg]

26

Would you provide a link to the information you are quoting that 75% of kits are never built. I find that amount hard to believe.

27

I have a hunch this number is probably pretty close to accurate. I hate to say it but looking at my shelves, I bet about 90% of the Intermountain, Red Caboose, Tichy, and Proto 2000 kits I have bought are sitting, unbuilt, with one Intermountain boxcar sitting partly built for weeks and weeks. Of the Walthers structure kits, 100% are unbuilt. Will 75% of them NEVER get built? Geez I sure hope not … but I am not a betting man.

The late Mike Ziegler of Milwaukee, whose fabulous Conowingo Central was featured in RMC, never referred to “unbuilt” kits. He referred to the number of “TBBs” on his shelves. TBB = To Be Built. That is the optimistic way to look at it.

Dave Nelson

28

Some interesting thoughts in this overall. One thing that recently popped up was the level of (mis)management that keeps cropping up. Outsourcing was seen at one time as a way to cut labour costs. The thing was that it could be done. Now the problem of outsourcing has become something of an issue in many ways. The fact that there is an entire set of outsourcing management firms out there means that the outsourcing is no longer a viable solution to many industries.It has become much more complex. We have a few examples of some MR firms finding that their outsource is now outsourcing them. Thereby placing two levels of management between the original source and the tertiary source. You want supply issues? You want labour/management issues? You want quality control issues? Try this on for size—there is an electronics firm that I sometimes deal with that now has some items being made through at least four different firms --2 in Viet Nam, one in India and the other through the Phillipines. All for a series of SM Capacitors.

And then there are the MR issues showing up. If one sourced the pieces and bits of the loke they got in their hands one could find themselves seeing all kinds of manufacturers involved in how many nations? and could we even begin to think about----quality—and----cost?

Then there is our own quality issues showing up. Can anyone think of a problem free loke? in HO or in N scale? Better hope that that will continue because the trend seems to be toward not great performance. And if we cannot even sollve the quality issues here how can we solve them elsewhere----OY lotsa work for us ahead----

29

dk:

I build stuff because I like to build stuff, and I tell other people about it and try to encourage other people to do it, because I think they would like it too. What makes me really harp on this, though, is this: “I could never do that.”

Lack of confidence, not lack of desire, is the major reason people don’t build stuff. Lack of practice, or one early bad experience, is behind this lack of confidence, but it’s a wall that can be easily broken through. All it takes is persistence.

Sure, building isn’t everything, but people say that all the time. You don’t need to build anything to model railroad. Of course not. But it’s fun, very fun. If you don’t, you’re missing out.

RTR is a help, but it can also be a hindrance, if we let it be one.

I’m missing out on some big fun because I don’t scratchbuild brass steam. Some day I will!

The builders don’t look down on people who don’t build. They feel sorry for people because they are missing out on a really good time!

30

It may very well be that a larger social issue may be a part of our problem set. The development of the idea that the average Joe and Jane Doe do not have the skills to do this or that or the other thing-

31

Mattel took a beating in 2007 when they had to recall millions of dollars of toys that had lead paint. All of them made in China.

32

Lack of time.

RTR is a blessing for me because it lets me build the layout. My hobby time is limited, so I focus on that part.

I have a stash of kits and parts, including 8 locomotive kits.

33

It’s all about choices. You can build something from sheets of balsa or styrene, then detail it with castings or parts, then paint/weather/plant on your layout.

You can take a finished product out of the box, and drop it on the layout, and you’re done. Maybe that satisfies.

What I see is more of taking a finished product and adding details, perhaps a special paint job or at least altering the factory look, weathering and then placing in an appropriate setting on your layout, perhaps grouped with similar structures, consists, or car fleets and creating a unique scene or train to run/operate.

So it becomes “look at what he did with that - that’s a good idea - maybe I can apply that on mine - I never thought of it that way” commentary when others view the efforts.

I’ll rashly predict modelers will still have to assemble track to make layouts, do wiring to operate, create scenes using pre-assembled products (or still glue your own), then do the scenicking to their preference…mountain, plain, desert, forest, town, city, waterfront.

If ande when some become unsatisfied with the output of the manufacturers, then the modfications or build your own itch will have to be scratched. They have their layout in a condition they can run trains. Now there is time to perfect the other skills to satisfy the wants.

The pictures of layouts on these forums and in magazines show layouts and scenes that 50 years ago were only dreams of the modelers of that time.

Do your own thing for sure. Just enjoy what is going on in that it is bringing people to the hobby.

34

P:

Understood. I’ve been working on a tiny garage lately…in 1:1 scale. :smiley: I haven’t even been running trains, let alone build them, for some weeks.

I don’t think it is purely a time issue. Just taking gross available hours and subtracting needed obligations, there is some extra. The problem is that when time is heavily used in workish things, I don’t want to start another project…model projects are relaxing when ongoing, but starting gets tougher as the time since stopping becomes longer.

I think this affects most of us. It sounds so silly to talk about it. I could get so much done in a half-hour a day, and I’d have a blast. I built that little coal depot that way, and I was just as busy then. The impetus to get started is the hardest part.

35

I am a part of the group who no longer like to build kits. I have transitioned from DIY to DIFM. I’ll weather and paint but nix on the assembly. As I age, the number of magnifying lights on the desk is increasing in a linear relationship. Soon I’ll need a bigger desk - or a part-time high school dude to do the detail work for pizza.

I am finishing several Walther’s “RTR” Super Chief cars that have been on the shelf for 3 years. I hate drilling #80 holes and trying to install grab irons. Charge me $10 more per car and do the assembly. Otherwise I have become a more consistent BLI or Rapido customer.

In the interim, I have switched some of my 401 monies into the companies who make the #80 drill bits - looks like a growth industry opportunity as boomers age.

36

I think some of this is a kind of time frame issue but as well one of priorities. Some of us have a lot of responsibilities and to loved ones who may not be as well but also I think we’ve forgot ourselves. I like to muck around with the building projects–4 Grain Elevators, a couple of gas bars and some houses for a couple of town sites–and so I just pocket some time for myself. I put the volume down on the phone and turn my 'pooter off, or let it go to sleep on its own accord…

It is a bit of a job to get it going but one can enjoy themselves—