Im just fustrated and need to vent so I will that now so if your not interested you can go on and do other things.
But why is it that you wait forever and ever for a product you really want to come out. You finally cave in and start making one your self. (In this case an Empire Builder consist from Balboa Cars and a Brass Car Sides Full Dome) and wouldn’t you know it. When Im Half done with it. Walthers brings out their Plastic Version.
Oh well, Its going to cost me less to finish with the Balboa Cars I need than to buy the Walthers cars at the list price they want.
Onother thing that grates on me. Noch, highly reputable German model railroad firm makes these “Sexy Sceens” that would work really really good for the red light district I want on my model railroad. Yet no one in the USA will carry them. You type the item number in on the Walthers website and you get Item not found. You look around for sources on these things and it comes down to that you basicly have to order them from out of country and have them shipped in.
Why is this so, Have we become so indoctrinated in the right wing political mindset that the classic conservative christian dogma has won out, or is this a case of this is something real world I have to deal with every day and I don’t want to deal with it in my hobby. Personally I just want to have a little fun.
Another thing that is pissing me off to no end. Planned obsolescence. What ever happened to the days when something broke, you bought the part and fixed it. Recently I was working on one of my trains. The problem was i had stripped a gear and needed to replace it. No problem I have a NWSL catalog. Looked up the gear I need. and encounted a slight problem. 1 the gear that was the right size I needed was only in part of a set. 2. the set was 14.95. That had me slightly disgruntled. This locomotive is an older Bachmann F-9 for the record, and Consulting the Trainworld Add. I can obtain one of the
Vent you did. We all have things in this hobby we like and things that irritate us. If you did a survey you would find that every possible item would be on someones happy list and someone elses unhappy list. If we were to eliminate all the irritations, whose list would we use, yours or mine. Though we will continue to read each others posts, I wonder if we come back in 20 years and read them, we would not discovere that even our own lists have changed.
Back to the trestle, which also is an irritation at the moment. (my fingures are too large).
I feel your pain, man. Like you, I enjoy building and growing that collection over time. I love going into hobby shops and finding cool unbuilt blue box kits and such… unfortunately, they have begun to disappear at LHS’s!!! Annoying as heck. BUT, the good news is that you can still find them at swap meets/shows! Hope you feel better after venting…
You have a good point. Just in the last 10 years my list of what I was trying to accomplish with a model railraod has changed drasticly. 10 Years ago, I was modeling a Freelance Subsidary of the BNSF. The North Pendledon & Western (NPW) Now I am modeling a freelance branch of the Great Northern, Between the to I have changed from BNSF, to ATSF, a freelance called the Lander Northwestern (Running Between Lander WY and Thermopolis and Casper) So my list of iritants in 20 years will most likely be different.
To bad they don’t make a “Shrink Ray” Then you can build it a finger freindly size, and shrink it down to final proportions later.
Hi Brian, I do feel better. But your coment about swap meets and train shows brought up another point of annoyance. None in the State of Wyoming. Closest one I know of is in Salt Lake City. Which is about a 5 hours drive for me.
The only thing I can see in the USA related to Houses of Ill repute is a dry transfer decal “Lily’s Palace” that was used on a structure at the second floor with red shades in the front.
A search of ebay turns up stuff that well… fits the bill.
Preiser’s “Night People” figure set contains a few ladies who would certainly fit the Red Light district. They’re available from Walthers. Out of curiosity (no room for a Red Light district on my layout) I googled for those Noch figures. There are a few on eBay. I thought it was interesting that even the European sites fuzzed or otherwise obscured parts of the pictures of the figures. It would seem that all the Puritans didn’t come to the New World, after all.
Pardon me, but this VRWC founding member resents the implication that we are all prudes. All because leigh(last name unknown) cries like a scolded dag when someone posts a pretty womans image on that site(which I won’t name) does not mean that all us true right minded folks are that anally retentive. In fact, the topic of “Conservatives have the best racks” was the most popular single internet thread in 2002. If you want prudish behavior, blame the politically correct bunch on the left who view anything with a pretty woman as sexist.
Brother James! You can vent with the best of us![:)] Maybe I can answer a couple of things. Probably won’t make you feel any better about it, but here goes:
First I gotta defend Athearn/Horizon a bit. Somewhat like you, I used to live in a rural area with no LHS and availability of items was frustrating. But you can’t blame Athearn or Horizon for the lack of model train shops where you live. Obviously they can’t control that. Nor can they control whether or not a LHS carries the blue box kits.
One of the reasons I joined the forum was when I statement was made about the manufacturers or distributors that I knew to be incorrect, I was going to offer the truth as I see it. Athearn has never said they were going to quit making blue box kits, they are still plentiful from Horizon, and they are not disappearing. They are not only available on eBay and at train shows. If your LHS or model train shop does not have blue box kits, it’s because the LHS chose to not carry the kits. This is kind of a combination comment on what James and another poster to this thread said.
About the Noch figures, man, I had to BEG to get a distributor to sell me some of those. Not sure what the reason is for the unavailability of those sets, other than…local obscenity laws or laws governing sending obscenity through the mail or to minors? Don’t know for sure, but I could not put them out on the shelf here. Said right on the case “Must be 18”…same as I can’t sell a real Dale Jr. “Budweiser” car kit to someone under 21. I really don’t think super conservative politics or religion entered into the picture on this one…probably more economics.
About stuff these days being made where it’s cheaper to buy a new one than to fix an old one? That’s why I buy the cheapest lawn mower I can and run it into the ground in 3 years, give it away to my neighbor. It’s cheaper to buy a new one every 3 years than to take it to a lawn mower shop 2 or 3 times for a repair. My local lawnmower repair shop doesn’t like
Good news James! I just went out to get the mail and what do I find but a newsletter from your neighbor Randy over at Downtown Deco. He’s coming out with a new kit called “Kitty Korner: Live Nude Girls!” You’re in business buddy! (if you can pick up those sexy scenes from Burbank)
And for the conservatives in our midst, Randy is offering this as a kit where you can make it the XXX place OR you can make it an Assembly Of God Rescue Mission. I’m buying two of these for my layout so I can build one as the Rescue Mission and one as the Gentleman’s Club.
I come from a school of thought that if you build it stout the first time you wont have to fix it.
Plastic gears? Use brass gears or other material that wont crack. I wont mind spending the extra 5.00 at retail for a new loco if it has quality in it.
OTM hit the nail on the head I think. Now that Lawn Mowers have made it into the discussion my family has been thru 2 mowers and one tractor rebuilt twice (And is now waiting for another belt)
Me thinks a Dixie Cutter might be in order. =) Then again I think I might budget the money to have someone come over and cut it and sustain the wear and tear.
Not without prototype justification, either–in my town there is a 24 hour pornography super-center right across the street from the Salvation Army. Both are within a block of the Southern Pacific’s mainline, in a neighborhood that used to have a lot of switching at local industries (now mostly served by truck or out of business.) Generally the “wrong side of the tracks” meant “near the tracks.”
Both left and right have their prudes…maybe the libertines of both right and left should get together, and let the prudes do their own thing. I’m willing to bet that the parties would be WAAAAY better on our side of the fence!
Exellent I will Place it across the street from one of my Buildings. I had planned on building the Tyco Center Street sereis of kits and using the upstairs portions as the gatherings for all these adult doings. But I havn’t figured out the other side of the street so there are still two more blocks woth of buildings to plan. he he
I know Place it right across the street from the Center Street School he he he.
Good point there. It is entirely possible that the Hobby shops in this state are being lazy, But the standard response I get from from them is “Sorry, just can’t get any at the moment” yet I check the website and they say kit production is in full force. So I suspect that the truth lies somewhere between our two extreams.
See thats what gripes me though. Buying a new lawnmower every three years is one thing. They cost less than new locomotives these days. But say your latest BLI Class X whatchagidget develops a short in the circut board. You send it in because its under warantee. More likely than not, they will send you a brand new engine.
I have a freind that got a BLI N&W Class A. and the Motor developeda short in it. Sent in. Makred a little X with a hobby knife on the bottom of the cab roof. Mailed it off. When it came back. the X wa
Ironically, I could use the Ladies of the Night figures IF I painted over the breasts on the figures with exposed ones, as they would make great young dance clubbin’ ladies (in a regular night club - NOT a strip club - the ladies alas never seem to get naked [:(!] ). Have no idea where the heck I could pose the completely nude chick in a contemporary NorthEastern Philly setting during the daytime [%-)] …
And for those modeling a strip club, you just gotta use the famed slogan of a Time Square club I always used to pass on my way to the Lincoln Tunnel: “Live Young Girls Working Their Way Through College”…
The gernal feeling Im wanting to create is that of total social disintigration and dispair where a once thriving neighborhood has degenerated to only slightly better than a ghetto infested with crime, drugs, and obviously prostitution.
Maybe its just my warped ego trying to express its self. But I am trying to do something not typically done. And alot of layouts seem to put a bright and cheery bent on things. And Im kind of going for the dirty grungy down and out feeling like George Sellious (Did I sp
Master of Big Sky Blue; I take considerable umbrage to your liberal diatribe against “right wing political mindset” and “classic conservative christian dogma”; it would serve you well to stop spending so much time listening to Howard Dean and John Kerry and a little bit of time listening - and paying some attention - to Rush Limbaugh. You might find out just what being a conservative is all about.
Master of Big Sky Blue, I have no idea why Walthers has elected not to carry these Noch displays - these “Sexy SCENES” which you reference in your post. There are a lot of reasons which go into a company’s decision as to where to invest their assets - and apparantly Noch “Sexy SCENES” ain’t a place where Walthers feels comfortable. That is their right; they did not consult me before making their decision just as, I am sure, they did not consult you prior to producing an Empire Builder set. I personally would have preferred that they produce something in N-Scale but, as I said, nobody never asks me nuttin’ about nuttin’. As a “CLASSIC CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN” and a charter member of the “VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY” - I have a T-Shirt attesting to that proud fact - I am a firm believer in your right of “free-will agency”. If you get on my nerves it is the liberals who want to shut you up; I don’t want to shut you up - I just want to shoot you. When a customer comes into Yellowstone Drug - that’s in Jackson, right? my last job before joining the Air Force in 1958 was running horses out of the breaks on the east side of Hoback Peak - you don’t refuse to fix them a Chocolate Malted because you feel it is unhealthy for them. You don’t have to handle chocolate - and they have a right to patronize the drug store up the street which does. You vote with your Iron Men; so does Walthers; and so does that customer who comes through the door and orders up a Chocolate Malted. You want a “Sexy SCENES”?