While strolling down the toy aisle at the local Walgreens, my eye spied a Yellow and Black display box with the CAT emblem. Lo, and behold, it contained Norscot CAT Construction Mini’s. The box was almost empty but I did get 2 each of the Cat 906 Wheel Loader, Cat D56G mXL Cat, and the CAT 420E Backhoe Loader. They were missing the CAT 312C Excavator. At $1.94 they are a bargain to scene that construction site or make a flat car load. They are true die cast metal bodies with plastic tires. No hydralic hoses but the wheels turn, and the bucket can be positioned on the backhoe and the dozer treads do move as well so some realistic positioning can be done. No scale is given on the box but they did not look out of proportion when placed near the Athearn John Deere 1/87 and the more expensive Norscot 1/87 equipment I got from the LHS. I remember similar posts about these here and on TrainOrders.com but saw them for the first time today locally and had to buy 'em!! I do not have a camera to post picturs but a search on Google for “construction mini’s” will show you pictures.
Interesting that Walgreens has them , looks like their really branching out on the distribution. Got quite a few of them at WalMart last year.
Interesting. Thanks for the tip.[tup]
Wally World has had them for a while now. Last summer I got to buying them and ended up with about 60 of them of various pieces of equpt. I have a train with about 18 flat cars that I can pull as it makes a nice looking train load of new Cats comming from the Cat Manfacturing Plant. Although I do not have the plant as of yet but will have on the next layout as well as a rock quarry. I figured I would get them while I could. I had to give $5.97 each for mine but have not been able to find any of the big dump trucks or the back hoes. Good find. Mike
Walgreen or Wal-Mart? Didn’t know Walgreen carried toys, but then I don’t go in them much.
Bob
Walmart’s up here in Canada have had them for months. I disagree though, they are all hardly 1/87 scale. The only one that comes close is the CAT 312C Excavator, thats probably why they were all gone. To me they look way to small for HO and way to big for N.
Thanks for the heads-up about Walgreen’s. Yes, they do have a toy dept that include some diecast models. There may be some trucks that can pass for 1/87 scale. Knowing my WG’s, they have a store on nearly every mile or 2. They may also have a coupon in the paper.
I thought the Cat Excavator was closest to N scale. At least they seem to fit on a Nscale flat. The others are too large for N, too small for HO. Norscot already makes a nice line of 1/87 scale equipment. It would be nice to have Walgreen’s carry some of that line, too. IIRC they could be priced near $15.
I checked my Walgreens yesterday and they didn’t have any. I thought the minis where closer to N too.
it’s close. I;m still bummed about the distinctive lack in Bobcats. The RBBX only has 60 thousand of them…
I went in there yesterday & it took me 15 minutes to find the Excedrin - they carry everything but drugs!![:-^]
The Toys r us’s up here carry them as well $2.99 a pop. I aggree though they do seem to be a bit between to two scales , mind you if you pop them into a background scene somewhere who’s going to know the difference.
I put two of the bull dozers on a Flat bed car. Does not look too bad and at Walmart they were cheap. I wish the hot wheels 1/87 released more choices.