I have been working on my first layout for over a year and have an area where the Walthers New River Mining Co. would look perfect as modeled on the Turtle Creek RR in the April MR.
However, Walthers website shows the kit in HO due date unknown which in my brief mrr experience means layout purgatory! ( I ordered a Heljan kit from my local Walthers dealing hobby shop in October and haven’t seen it yet- thankfully no money down.)
I have been to all of my LHSs and this past Saturday made a trip to the Little Choo Choo Shop in Spencer, NC- No New River Mining Co., but I did get to ride the turntable at the NC Transportation Museum so the trip wasn’t a waste.
Anyway, my question/rant is why would MR use a kit on their feature layout that is unavailable?
There were several articles that were written about using kits that are unavailible in recent weeks. The authors took care to indicate that these kits are probably out of production and hard to find. They suggested ebay, Trainshows and other places to find copies of these kits. Even mentioning that Walther’s website keeps a listing of dealers who have recieved this item in the past.
No problem, drewsdaddy. I’ve grabbed a few “no longer in production” items on ebay. Of course, the last one went back into production about two weeks after I grabbed it on ebay, but I think I still came out a little better in the wallet for it.