I see the new flex is only 36" and not a metre in length. It is more expensive than the old stock as well. They have changed their turnouts but how has the flex changed, has anyone got their hands on some for a comparison?
I have a friend that wants me to pick up his order at PWRS as he can’t get there before closing, they still have old Walthers stock as well as the new stuff. He doesn’t know what to get as far as the flex track goes.
I think this is the same for everything Brent. I always get my almond M&M’s and my dark chocolate Hershey’s Minis when I go to the grocery store.
I noticed they’re making the bags smaller, adding more air with less candy but charging more $. The chocolate treats are still the same though, so I would imagine the Walthers track is still the same as well. Just less ties and rails to glue and less candy for me to chew[(-D][:|]
TF
Ain’t most ho flex sticks 36". Nothing to see here, move along.
It’s like candy bars. First they make it bigger and raise the price, so it seems to make sense. Then they make is smaller again. Then they make it bigger again and raise the price (again). Then…
Not I, but my recollection of a comparison photo from Walthers was that the new track was better detailed around the spikes and tie plates. My recollection is also that it WAS better looking.
Enough to pay the difference? Don’t know.
It’s not like you have a choice: Atlas, Walthers, and Microengineering. If Atlas is too clunky, and Microengineering too scary, that leaves Walthers.
I see that Piko lists flextrack in concrete (only?). It’s brown, which does seem strange. It’s also listed as 37" long. Not exactly metric, eh?
Ed
I have some “vintage” Atlas flex (at least a few years old) and it’s 36".
Jim
Walthers old flex was metric because Shinohara who made it, always made meter length flex long before their deal with Walthers.
Shinohara is gone, so is meter flex track.
I know we are hard headed down here in the states, but I don’t have much use for metric anything.
It does not work for the construction industry.
The English system has one big advantage, maybe two.
It is based on the proportions of our bodies, and it divides evenly by 2 and 3
A 4x8 piece of drywall or plywood covers 3 16" stud bays in one direction and 6 in the other. It also evenly covers 24" or 12" bays when I need more strength.
Most rooms and floor spans in houses are based on roughly 12’ or 16’, please rattle off from memory how many centimeters that is?
And I think Walthers either wants to be on the same apples to apples with the others, or their manufacturer is already making track for someone else at 36".
Still happy with Atlas flex, easiest to use, best price, looks fine painted and ballasted.
Sheldon
I am just trying to be my usual impish self and stirring the pot. It ain’t going to break the bank either way. However, the price has gone up while the length of track has shrunk by almost 10%. That will ruffle the feathers of some.[:-,]
They are like the other higher priced track, the price needs to reflect the “higher quality”…
And, it is likely that the tooling for this whole replacement of Shinohara has been expensive…
Sheldon
And once they pay off that expense, it will be all gravy. Unless, of course, they lower the price to reflect that event.
Ed
Never mind the candy and yards of track.
Watering down the whiskey!!!
No! No, NO!!! I wont stand for it. No! Never! NO!!!
[soapbox]
David
That is how you fund the next new project. But in the 80’s and 90’s Athearn kept his prices low on the older stuff, while other brands had no choice but to charge more.
Sheldon
No watered-down stuff at my house David, have a pour.[(-D]
It’s all I have on hand right now, the expensive Irish stuff is somehow missing, not sure where it went.[:-^]
Yes. That would be the paying off the expense I mentioned. The molds were either paid for out of money on hand, or there was a loan. Once replenished, then the continued profits can be spent on other things of Walthers’ choosing.
Ed
I heartily agree, Sheldon, even though Canada has “gone metric”. It’s a puny form of measurement for countries the size of yours or ours. I can easily envision a mile as I drive, but a kilometre is an eyeblink at my usual speeds.
As for milligrams, it’s main use is as a measurement of the brain capacity of those who came up with the system, based on units of obscure scientific things unrelated to common measurements, like the distance between Paris and the moon at 9:34PM on the 37th of August .
My guess is that the French needed a response to the British system (back in the days when they didn’t get along all that well together), and decided to come up with one which would baffle everyone, who would then pretend to espouse its ease-of-use.
I do notice that it’s in favour with the manufacturers of plywood, as it allows for fewer plies in a product which no longer matches the original stuff - good luck if you need to replace some plywood underlay for flooring.
Wayne
There is no such thing as “gravy”. I don’t believe that I have ever been on a bridge where the temporary toll has been eliminated. And I think here in Pennsylvania we are still paying a “temporary” tax to recover from the Johnstown flood.
Metrification was attempted in the US. The first event was soda pop. That worked out OK. Then speedometers started coming with dual scales. Again, no big deal. And speed limit signs started being posted with both.
Then the big fail: SOME gas stations started fielding metric gas pumps. Around here, and I presume everywhere else, citizens just refused to buy something where the price was posted out on the street for something they just couldn’t envision. The price was a lot lower, for sure. But it was pretty obvious you weren’t paying by the gallon.
Nobody went to the metric stations. Then the pumps were replaced by gallon pumps, and all was well.
I also recall being warned that if we didn’t go metric, our economy would fail because no one who was metric would trade with us. You are now enjoying that failure.
On a slightly different subject, the US DOES use decimal inches, too. When I work as a machinist, ALL dimensions are in decimal, usually inches.
And one final thing: note that the metric people TOTALLY wimped out, and didn’t do time. They did distance. And they did weight. But not time. In France, there’s still days, weeks, months, years. ALL non-metric.
Ed
I was never prouder of Connecticut than when they kept their word. The Connecticut Turnpike was financed with 30-year bonds, to be paid off via Garden State Parkway-style tolls. The understanding was that, at retirement of the bonds, the tolls would be abolished. That is exactly what happened.
Craven little New York, of course, didn’t abolish their craven little toll to connect to the west end of the Turnpike…
Meanwhile, after I moved to Louisiana, I maintained residency in New Jersey just so I could drive 1429 miles to vote against that Teflon governor Florio. We had covered a story at PRB about the New Jersey Turnpike getting voter approval to take out a large bond issue ‘to widen the road’ – this of course paid for by the toll industry, via a rise in toll rates. But Florio instead floated a plan to use the bond revenue instead to buy parts of the free Interstate system ‘at cost’ from the Government – this being the sections of I-80 and I-95 connecting from the north end of the Turnpike at exit 18 across to the George Washington Bridge… and incorporate it in the toll system of the Turnpike Authority. Then he planned to issue yet more bonds, covered by yet a further increase, to get the road widening that was the reason we all approved the original rise. That little weasel had to GO, and the whole wretched scam with him. That business with Christie in Fort Lee didn’t hold a candle to it!
Amusingly, although automobile wheel mounting bolts have been metric 40 years or so, metric automobile tires were a flaming failure – even though touted by major European (I.e. metricized) companies like Michelin.
I liked TRX in principle; didn’t much like the fun of finding replacements for them after discontinuation…
If you’re that bored, my lawn needs mowing.