“Tatans” posted the following in the “Random observations” thread…
Right, just who decides what locomotives to make, are there polls ? I’ve never been asked, is it the guy who owns the company? the secretary? a designer on a consulting basis? the accountant? who really makes the decision? will a company respond to this direct question? someone out there MUST make the decision to produce a certain product, now we have to find out who this person is. If it is left up to model railroad fans there would be 5,000 new different models made every year ( or 20 new different “Big Boy models”) So get out there and find out just WHO is making these decisions.
So does anyone know who decides? Bergie? Someone on the Forum?
I’ve seen several wish-list threads… maybe we should E mmail these to the makers?
Anyone got any ideas?
Personally I don’t see why the makers don’t increase their ranges by providing diesels in more short or high nose variants. If the shell were made with seperate hoods and noses there would be less tooling cost.
Similarly facilitating variant changes would be a good thing. Something I would really like to see would be the ability to make some of the EMD or caterpillar re-engine variants of Baldwins. Surely this would go some way to increasing the appeal of basic models.
Similarly, although it would cost more tooling, a wider range of tank cars would be great. What is the problem with tank cars? Apart from the rails (which can be customer applied) there doesn’t seem to be much more production than a boxcar or Centre Beam flat…?[%-)][X-)][banghead][8D]
The cost per unit goes down, and profits go up when they sell the most of a particular model. (Obvious) The best way to sell a lot of something is to sell something that every needs or has so the cost of tooling and R&D is distributed over a larger base (also obvious) This is why there’s a lot of 2-8-2s, GP-8, GP-9, F Units, E Units, UPs, Pennsies, ATSF’s etc. (Still obvious) The rare exception to this rule is “The Biggest and Best” rule which represents a particular pinnacle. (H-8, Big Boy, Challengers, etc…)
For the Large scale manufacturer, the percentage distribution of models will represent the current market conditions. For example if 38% of people model UP then 38% of your sales should be aimed at UP. If 24% have a 2-8-2, then 24% of your production should be 2-8-2’s.
Making the body shell and the cab/nose a seperate piece increases the mold count. And each mold master is extremely expensive! Unlikely worth it for 1->3% of the market.
Only small scale manufacturers/inhouse shops are willing to produce niche’ products as they can’t compete with the big boys in terms of scale of economics. But expect to pay a super premium.
So unless there is HUGE demand, it’s unlikely you’ll get too many models for B&O EM-1’s or C&O’s H-7’s or high noses which were unique to that road name.
I would imagine that each of the major manufacturers has a market research department that tries to determine what demand is for individual locomotives and for each variant of a particular locomotive. They probably do things like poll retailers. However, this is a small industry where even the larger companies are mostly family-owned private businesses. As a result, it would not surprise if market research was pretty basic and backward looking (i.e., UP has always sold the most so lets make more UP).
Interestingly, there is an element of market reinforcement in these decisions. I think modelers often choose what railroad to model based on the availability of products. The solution here might be for a firm to adopt a semi-custom approach where it would solicit pre-orders for a range of difficult to find locomotives and then quote back a price at which it would be economical to make a run of that product. Using the Internet you could make this pretty interactive. I have seen a couple of historical associations do this for smaller items (not locomotives).
“market conditions” OR “market habit”? I agree with both of you… BUT the question remains… WHO is the decision maker?
The interactive idea is good!
…WHO do we tell it to?
Seems to depend from company to company, Some do watch polls in magazines and now on forums or research by asking previous customers. Regardless of whether the idea was from inside or outside the company they will have to make the decision as to if it is commercially viable. Sometimes they will announce a model and only develop it if there is sufficient demand, usually pre-orders from stores or people signing up and giving a deposit. 10 years ago I worked for a company making O gauge Uk diesel kits and they used to say to people, get me 20 orders and we’ll produce it as that was the break even point to cover development and production. Bearing in mind these kits were £280 UK so our break even was very low in units produced.
So vote in polls submit your ideas to their websites and if there are enough people thinking the same then you’ll get what you want . . . eventually.
Bachmann alledgedly cancelled some G scale models as a result of negative feedback from the forums.
Using modern techniques to revamp and old favourite such as the athearn F units is also a low risk approach. In the UK we are getting some steam locos that the manufacturers wouldn’t consider a few years ago as there are so many models out there. I know for a fact that Hornby were very suprised by the level of sales for their Q1, a wartime austerity design which is just plain ugly. The advantage is that they now seem to listen even more to the customers.
Even when two companies announce the same model they will sell if they have a good reputation. Athearn and Prescision Craft for example, you know they’ll both be good models so which do you choose? In the UK bachmann and dapol both make a class 66 diesel and there is about $14 difference in price for near identical quality models and both are selling well!
So they take a risk with tooling a new model but if you knew what the cost is compared to what you pay then you realise that they break even fairly quickly. They could make them cheaper but then you’d find the
Who decides you ask? That’s easy. The bean counters! They have the final say. We can scream that we want XYZ all day long, but if the bean counters don’t think they can sell enough of them to cover costs and make money, it’s not gonna happen my friend.
Having worked on the inside, most of you have no clue. The firms I am acquainted with have no bean counter. Their books are all done by outside CPAs who work after the fact. All they can tell you is your bank balance.
Any “polls” or other outside “info” is subject to extreme error and “slant” so are of little or no value.
What does determine what gets done are:
The choices of the owner of the company.
The toolmaker who is responsible for building dies that will actually make good parts. Yes there have been tools done that will not make good parts. The toolmakers have to have plans to work from. A drawing from a model magazine is not much good
The parts have to be readily assembled into either a kit or a RTR model. Until the advent of the Chinese labor market, a model with 200 pieces to put together was not going to be assembled in the US.
In the old days (Irv Athearn era) companies were pretty good about duplicating each others efforts. That has all gone out the window now.
Some basic facts - certain road names sell - whether you like them or not.
Generally prototypes used by many roads are more popular just because so many more paint jobs exist - bigger market share!
In the old days it was easier because modelers were not so critical, or knowledgeable, and many were delighted just to have something to buy. Today it is far more difficult as many firms who have gone out of business have found out.
It’s their company so at the end of the day their risk, so yes the boss decides what gets made but they will look at polls as a rough guide of what might sell (certainly on this side of the pond). Just because something comes no.1 in a poll isn’t a guarantee someone will make it, just that they might give it consideration. Chinese labour is cheap now but it’ll be interesting to see what happens in years to come if the workers discover Western style rights and pay! The manufacturers will always want a prototype that they can offer in different guises to keep us buying more that’s why decorated but un-numbered locos with transfers supplied aren’t common.
On a side track how many of us have got multiples of one model but in different liveries or numbers, Mine would be 10 of a small industrial steam switcher used in coal mines in the UK.
Out of interest I was talking to someone in the manufacturing trade who said some companies are now injection moulding in coated plastic moulds. Evidently they only last for a few thousand shots and then remould the mould with detail differences for the next batch , hence the limited runs we now get.
An example of this being done is Atlas with the SD24/26 which is available in both high and low nose varients. Now the model makers also have to break the production down into DC, DCC, DCC with sound variations as well. I would think judging production volumes is a black art that can be painful if it is wrong.
Who decides? Simple; you do - or, to be more accurate, the photographs of those dead statesmen you carry around in your wallet do.
I had an economics prof in college who had a fixation on beer when it came to theoretical examples of economic laws. “If,” he would say," Coors has fixed costs of one million dollars then how many bottles of beer do they have to sell if they charge one million dollars a bottle?"
Now before you laugh and call this a stupid example (I wouldn’t pay a million dollars for a bottle of beer any more than I expect you would) think about this in different terms. If it costs ABC company a quarter of a million dollars to produce a model of the Sneaky Falls and Western Class B4s 2-8-0 and they can expect a return of $200.00 per unit how many Sneaky Falls and Western Class B4s 2-8-0s do they have to sell to recover their production costs? One thousand two hundred and fifty.
Now you may think that the Sneaky Falls and Western Class B4s 2-8-0 is the slickest little Consolidation that ever turned a wheel on any American railroad but would you buy one thousand two hundred and fifty of them in order to get the ABC company to produce them? Of course you wouldn’t. I’ve never heard of the Sneaky Falls and Western but, if well-done, I might buy one or two.
There is a poll floating around on this forum that is, basically, a wish-list. We all have our “wishes” and we are all disappointed when the ABC model company announces their next offering and we stomp our foot on the floor and scream (silently, I hope) and cuss (also silently, I hope) and wail “When is someone going to produce a model of the SF&W Class B4s? I know that if they would just produce it they could sell ten-thousand of them!!!”
Akane tried that in the late-50s and early-60s. Anybody catch Akane’s most recent ad in MR or Craftsman?
I’m in N-Scale and I have been, in general, just a little disappointed by the mass-produced steam locomotive offerings in that scale. There ha
The one thing I, and tens of thousands of other Canadian modellers, dislike is the lack of Canadian steam in RTR.
For most of the steam era, there were only two main Canadian railways, the CPR and the GTR, and later, the CPR and the CNR.
The CPR and the CNR probably split the market evenly, giving each more supporters than such US lines as the Frisco, Rock Island, Illinois Central, etc…
Plus, many US modellers model CNR and CPR as well, the CPR running through Maine, and the CNR controlling the CVR, GTWR, DW&P.
Finally, most mainline preserved and operating steam is Canadian! 2816, 2860, 2839, numerous CPR pacifics, as well as CNR locos.
If your ready with money, Brass has been the way to make the specialized model.
But today, the plastic models are riding at the former brass prices. And their quality has jumped because of it.
Because of this I think the plastic makers could specialize a little bit on locomotives.
You may still be able to find that specialized brass loco on ebay if the price is right.
This is why I want to see the return of the loco kitmakers like Roundhouse.MDC was.
You can be free to modify at your desire. This hobby was/is about building including locos.
It took decades before a plastic steam such as the T-1 4-8-4 to be made.
All the corperate gobbly-de-gook is bunk.
Why?
I point to Tyco and thier philosipy… Build a trainset so cheap it will fail at the end of the first month and require replacement.
Or the early plastic steam that cannot pull more than 4 cars and stay on the track. Thank god we have QUALITY steam coming online with the likes of Spectrum, BLI, PCM and others. For me this is the golden age.
I’d have to say I am pretty pleased at this day in model railroading age, with the regular revolution of prototype production. I remember when you could visit a LHS a year later, and see the same models for sale (maybe different road names).
What about the wish list? Well, I haven’t been asked what I want. A half dozen fellow model railroader’s I know haven’t been asked. So who to ask? US! If a poll taken on this little forum provides 100 people want an XY&Z high nose SD-40, that’s a pretty small percentage of the modeler’s out there waiting for it to be produced. So when do WE get asked? How do we get noticed?
I have learned from a fellow modeler, to build what you want, if you want it NOW. That’s also part of the hobby. I think too many people are starting to rely on quality RTR merchandise to show up at their LHS. Did the house you live in just show up in a box one day? No,it had to be built. I understand building a detailed steam engine is far more difficult than most can (or want to) handle, so how do WE get noticed? How do our wishes get put on the CEO’s desk of such-and-such model making company?
With that, do we make a point to mail off our requests to ABC company, and hope enough people do the same to make “our wishes” come true, or do we determine if we are hobbiest that want to shop the market, or modeler’s who want to create?
Ok, if there is a poll or if some guru from one of the mfgrs reads this poll, I vote for a chop-nose GP 9 painted for the Fort Worth & Western and a GP38 painted in Wichita, Tillman & Jackson colors. What are the changes of seeing those??? [:D] [;)] [8D]
Believe it or not, better than seeing something truly useful like a GP-10 in ANY paint scheme…
It’s sad that one of the most popular shortline (and mainline) engines in use over the past 35 years, and which has been on the rosters of over 85 different roads, is only available as a finicky, expensive resin kit.