Anybody know if Kato has plans of making more anytime soon in HO. Man they are hard to come by. Seems odd that they dont make more of such a popular product when they fly off the shelves.
I wish they would make a high hood one. I would definently get one of those.
dekruif
Try emailing Katousa and request a new run. They just ran a new version of the N scale SD-40-2 and might be in the mood to do the HO version again if they had interest.
What road name are you looking for??
Nothing is planned by Kato in HO they are still selling off the inventory they made of sd45s and 70macs that did not sell. Maybe next year
It is common knowledge they want to sell the stock that they have before any more new items show up, but the SD40-2 does use the same chassis as the SD38-2 model they imported more recently and it might help if we start asking for more of the SD40-2’s for next year. It would be less expensive for Kato to remake a model than to start from scratch.
Another problem for Kato is the lack of sound in a RTR model. Adding sound later is an option for most of us, but it would seem BLI, Proto, Genesis and PCM are all offering sound models and they are selling very good simply because they are ready to go. Nevermind the quality is very poor in several of the offerings, they are still available and are selling.
I was surprised their SD45’s sales did not do better, but the SD70MAC’s market was flooded since both Athearn and Kato made too many variations all at the same time.
didnt Proto 2000 sell an SD45 at the same time as Kato did too?
Kato doesn’t have a very good track record with followup runs.[V] Why is anybodies guess.
To my mind Kato seems to be happy playing 3rd string when they could easily become one of the major players.Do they care? I don’t know.But,will say this…As long as they continue to throw out limited runs with years in between followup runs Atlas and Athearn will continue to get my hobby dollars.
Yes,I own 4 Kato GP35s and these units IMHO is no better or worst then my Atlas and Athearn RTR units.
The market is ripe for a high end SD40-2.Atlas are you listening? Apparently Kato isn’t listening and setting on theirs.[8][V]
The Proto was about the same time or a little before the Kato units, which would have filled the demand before Kato got their SD45 to the market.
They seem to be going great in N scale, which is their perferred choice from what I hear.