Currently on the Walthers N scale retired list, all of which I want:
Allied Rail Rebuilders, #933-3211 from the looks of the picture though this could probably be built using their modular sections pretty easily
Central Gas & Supply, #933-3213
Northern Light & Power, #933-3214
Goldenflame Fuel Co., #933-3246
Farmers Co-op Elevator, #933-3238
George Roberts Printing Inc., #93303231
and finally, not quite yet retired but soon to be gone:
University Avenue Shops, #933-3208, discontinued when sold out.
Could someone tell Walthers to please stop retiring kits? I can’t afford to buy them yet, and pretty soon I imagine work will start to hit the slow season, not good news for a temporary employee. It’s either that or I will have to go with a steel mill based layout and start to learn how to scratch build rail cars…
The good news is that you will be able to find these kits at the hobby stores and train shows for a while. Ebay is another source, but as time marches on, so will the price. I would try getting them as you come across them before they become scarce in a year or two. If you are married, make sure the spouse knows, kids too.
No different with their HO kits. The only one they’ve brought back is the steel mill, but they totally updated it and added more details. Who knows if they will do the same with others they have retired. Given that many of them, at least the smaller ones, seem to be easily found ont he sleves of my LHS, they probably ‘retire’ them because the stock level is so high. Others though like the Valley Cement you rarely even see on eBay.
Walthers does reissue retired models every now and then. The University shops are a good example, they have been brought back about three times in the last ten years. I’d check E-bay, hobbyshop websites, and trainshows for some of the kits that are not reissued.
The question is: why does Walthers retire kits in the first place?
What is the point of retiring kits that have sold well in the past?
I am fortunate to have acquired the Bascule Bridge after it had been retired.
I don’t like the concept of retired pieces at all.
After all, these are not “collectors items”, so there is no opportunity to increase the value of kits already built. The only ones who benefit are those who have unopened kits that can be sold above the original retail price on eBay and the like.
Check the internet hobby shops. I have purchase several retired HO structures, at prices below the last list price and well below what some are willing to pay on eBay. Many times shipping is cheaper as well.
Good question Rich, I can’t figure why they decide what models to retire and why? I wish they’d re-issue those few HO vehicles they did in the nineties, the mack r, ih grain truck, the ford pick-up. They are decent models.mh.
Molds start to wear out. They have to be remade, which can be quite costly. They have to look at their return on investment I guess.
That being said, looks like the HO steel mill series is going to be retired soon and quite possibly for quite a while.
The gold ribbon series are just about gone from this years catalog, as are a number of built ups and background buildings.
Last year Walthers just about killed all steam. (With the exception of 0-6-0 and 2-8-8-2 USRA Y3 Class.) I don’t get that myself. They spend a fortune buying Life Like, then kill half the line after jacking prices. Only BLI and Bachmann have a good steam lineup now. (I don’t count athearn, or Walthers since they only produce one or two models)
I see Walthers expanding into new kit types: museum card stock (fancy cardboard) and wood laser kits. I think they are feeling out new markets and seeing how they do.
Call me crazy but I think they must have dropped a good 15% of their line from the catalog in the last two years. Their structures and engines sections are looking considerably thinner than before.
I do miss a number of their older kits that are just gone now. But I guess thats the way it will have to be. They are in a business to make a profit.
There are only so many manufacturing facilities, and so many production lines. These are all relatively small production runs, too, and transitioning from one model to another takes time. Remember, Detroit used to basically shut down for a couple of months every year while they “re-tooled” the factories for the next year’s cars.
“Retired” really means “these aren’t in active production right now, and they’re not scheduled, either.” When I started looking for the Car Float and its associated apron, I was discouraged to see that they were all sold out, and they were going for hundreds of dollars on eBay. One day, the Walthers catalog announced the re-introduction of these two models. I bought the apron, because I needed that right away to lay the track, and then found that before I was ready for the float itself, it was retired again. Fortunately, I was able to find it at my old reliable e-tailer, Trainworld.
One way to think of the realities of the marketplace is to understand that they really have to stop making older models in order to be able to make new ones.
I can’t believe molds wear that fast, Mirandas’ only came out in the nineties, merchants row’s been out for a lot longer. I think greed plays an important part of walthers’ thinking. They have been retiring stuff for fifteen years now, including their p2k line. mh
I don’t understand this process either. If a kit sells good why retire it. Why can’t they add new kits while still producing old kits that are popular. It makes no sense.
It’s a very strange thing with this hobby. The entire “limited production” on most items, wheather it’s rolling stock, locomotive, or kits.
But it is the name of the game anymore–save the dollar bill by chopping and cutting whatever is not selling enough[:-^]
I expect soon everything will be “Limited Production” only with only a very few exceptions. All due to what some have said not too long ago–not as many hobbyists—[:-^]
To be fair to Walthers, it’s not greed so much as economic viability. As mentioned, items are retired to make room for new ones, then on the flip side when the demand for the “retired item” builds sufficiently Walthers produces it. Good examples are the Car Shop and the improved Back Shop.
But as a long time customer I would say to Walthers management that it is frustrating. Even with my mostly positive experiences I really don’t like to shop on ebay. Yet, that seems to be the primary option for many of us looking for “retired” products.
I blame myself for procrastinating years back when Walthers offered the Miranda’s Bananas kit.
A lot of Walthers kits I’m after have been gone for a while. Vulcan Manufacturing, Central Gas & Supply, and the plastic pellet transload were all kits I was after. Sometimes I see them at shows and pass on them because their disappearance allowed (forced?) me to look more at kitbashing and scratchbuilding and honestly I like that I freed myself from their shackle.
I’ll start out by observing that some of the laments here take the form of “why does Walthers retire kits that sell well” combined with “I never bought it but intended to.” Well just maybe it did not sell well.
Some Walthers kits have been kept in the catalog for years which suggests that at the very least, a kit is not retired because the tooling is worn out (witness some of the structures and kits that have bounced around since the early 1970s and well before). I suspect it is all based on sales – except for those kits where they learned that the tooling has issues (some of the more challenging bridge kits for example where perhaps it should not have been released in the first place until the kinks were ironed out).
Today’s reality is - if it interests you now buy it now. Not just brass - plastic too.
Walthers has a Facebook page. You may make some headway by telling them there. They may read this forum, but you know if you post it to their Facebook wall they’ll read it.
Walthers has pretty much obliterated the Life Like N scale line of diesels, more or less discontinuing just about everything. As for structure kits, they’ll drop the really good ones they’ve done themselves, but continue to trot out 40 year old Heljan kits at premium prices.
And of course, the coup de gras was the recent re-release of the Life Like Northeastern caboose, with $5 worth of improvements, but $20 worth of price increase.
I think they just don’t “get” N scale, and probably never will. They base their N releases on what sells well in HO, which is a completely stupid approach to marketing. N scale may be a smaller percentage of the market, but it also embraces N Trak, larger home layouts proportionally, and I dare say, a fair amount of growth. But Walther’s says “Nobody buys bananas, so we’re not going to sell Pepsi.”
I also think their prices on some items is a bit out there. $25 MSRP on four track bumpers? Really?