I spent yesterday and today on the phone trying to find out the truth about delivery of these HO cars from both BLI and MTH. Both told me the end of this month for the pre-war set, BLI yesterday and MTH about 2 pm today. At 5, my Fla dealer called and said “MTH is now saying January”. I verified this as being late December or more. So I check the BLI site, and it now says September.
I like BLI as well as anyone, and probably have about 40 of their products. But they are really ------- me off with at least SIX three or more month slips now on these cars so beautifully printed up in their catalogs, ads and web listings. MTH - well, I didn’t think much of them before, and it ain’t getting better.
Looking at the listings in the BLI catalog and comparing them to the MTH site, I believe these are the same cars which are (not) being produced at the same Chinese plant, and are planned simply to go in two different sets of boxes. The prices and car numbers are all identical.
The problem is not a lack of demand - management guys at BLI have told me several times that they have way over their minimum order.
Maybe what is happening is that the Chinese supplier is quoting increasingly higher cost figures since two years ago, and the US guys are trying to decide if they can boost the retail price, or just need to give up. Maybe there are technical issues like diaphragms that aren’t solved yet. Who knows?
But why don’t these guys be straight with us and say that they don’t know when or even IF Daylights will ship? That they are in fact nowhere near production? And not wait until the last bleeping minute to “factually misrepresent” or optimistically guess at yet another delay?
Two years ago when BLI and Genesis announced their Daylight cars, I was as excited as anyone else. Then MTH jumped on the bandwagon and I thought, “Okay, I can do the Coast and San Joaquin”.
Right now, if anyone were to announce a Daylight train, after waiting all this time, my response would be “PHFFFFT!” Frankly, what we’re going to probably end up with is a whole bunch of GS-4’s with nothing to pull, unless Roundhouse lives up to their promise about their 6-packs of SP “Overnight” boxcars.
Oh you will see it’s gonna get worse and worse. I just got into this hobby, but the feeling that I’m getting is that all the engineering know how went overseas, and even the major companies, like Lionel, are at the mercy of Chinese suppliers. That’s why they had to scale down production this year.
Those MTH Nofolk & Western cars looked absolutely gorgeous in their January 2009 catalog, and I was very excited - only to find they don’t actually exist. I guess they will get postponed as well, they are slated for October, the last I’ve heard.
It’s kind of sad really. I called Walthers to ask them about their own lighting set for Budd Vista Dome cars. Right now they only have DC versions. Visually comparing it to the DCC lighting set they have for standard cars, the difference are the additional electronics for constant intensity in the DC version - bulbs appear to be the same and directly wired to power on the DCC set. They told me they don’t know what would it take for me to convert DC version to DCC. I asked if maybe they can ask engineers who designed the thing - and they told me they can’t. Comon, you designed the darn thing, didn’t you? Well, maybe, just no one who lives in US.
BTW, I don’t want to bash Walthers, I love their work - their passenger cars are the best and practically the only real choice in newly releases on the market right now. Their Proto engines are great too.
Hal,
Do you think that these companies want to have delay after delay? Obviously not. Therefore, it’s something unfortunate that they either can’t control (a Chinese problem) or that they can control but for whatever reason cannot move forward (for example, a lack of cash). I don’t expect any company to acknowledge the latter, so best of luck with that.
If you want something bad enough, you’ll wait. I’ve had to wait years for certain NH items, and I’ve gotten most of them. Some never appeared, but the ones from the big companies always have…eventually. Sometimes, you don’t get what you want, when you want it. Deal with it. By all means, send them letters asking for the cars…it may help. But be patient…you’re only raising your blood pressure.
BTW, I call hooey on the idea that both the BLI and the MTH cars will be from the same tooling. MTH is too greedy (and has too many lawyers) to allow that to happen.
trainsBuddy,
Sorry, but there is a lot of manufacturing & engineering skill in the USA (see: Kadee boxcar with operating cushion underframe…all made in the USA), we just don’t want to pay for it.
BTW, what’s stopping you from modifying the DC light board for your Walthers car for DCC?
I loved the Athearn BB and RTR daylight cars I have, but was also excited when something accurate was supposedly coming out. Guess what’s being dusted off? I may look at building a Freelanced articulated diner out of a couple.
MTH had best get cracking if they want any money from this end of things. The way the engines have gone, the Daylight, and maybe the freight cars are the only thing I’ll buy. WHat;s sad though is the freght cars were announced with the Daylight, and have already been and gone.
Isn’t outsourcing wonderful?[:-^] There is/are no control issues if production is kept here. IN N.A. This way there is less possibility of these odd scenarios to happen–just keep plugging away at them—
You HO guys ought to ome on over to N scale, We have the correct 10 car Daylight train plus the 4 extra articulated coaches. The GS4 in Daylight colors and GS4 in WWII black is coming. All from Kato so they are superb.
Another advantage of N scale is that you get 4 times as much railroad in the same space and everything costs LESS.
Seriously, you’re right. My Department Chair at the high school at which I teach is as avid an N-scaler as I am an HO-scaler, so to REALLY upset me, when his Kato California Zephyr came out, he brought it to school and set it up on my desk, going ‘neener, neener’. I muttered, as I was still collecting the BLI HO scale one. And guess who was first at the hobby shop when Kato brought out that beautiful Coast Daylight? And who brought it over grinning from ear to ear?
That’s one GORGEOUS train. And we HO scalers are not even CLOSE to getting one. And when we do, it will certainly not be anywhere NEAR the bargain price that Kato is asking. So, you’re up on us. Beautiful trains. Absolutely beautiful.
Mostly true, the cost thing is debatable in some cases, but it’s too small, some of the stuff I want isn;t there, it’s too small, I’m guessing that it’s a pain in the FRED to mask off small edges for custom painting, The sound options are pitiful right now, it’s too small, the people round this area are mostly Humblly Opportune, it’s too small, and, I can’t see half the details, especially driver rotations on steamers.
Maybe now we still have skill set left among older generation, but you need to maintain manufacturing and engineering skill in order to stay current. I applaud Kadee and Bowser (oops, scratch that) for keeping manufacturing here but they are an exception. You are right, we don’t want to pay for it, that’s why Marklin filed bankruptcy, while companies like Bachmann continue to move forward. But there gotta be a middle ground, because as it is, US ends up a service country with manufacturing outsourced. And at some point that manufacturing will say, hey - we can manage ourselves just fine without US overlords - what are we left with then? McDonalds?. But anyhoo, that’s a whole different discussion.
As far as DC light coversion, I don’t know what’s the raiting on the bulbs on that board, and whether they will burn out connected to DCC. I don’t want to try, as I rather retun the item. From outside the bulbs on DC and DCC boards look the same, which I don’t understand as in that case I would expect DCC board to have resistors. Hence I called Walther’s to find out what the differences were. The only good thing they told me is that they are thinking about getting Budd Vista board made in DCC.
This is probably how things are going to be from now on. I waited nearly 28 months for my pre-ordered BLI NYC L-4a Mohawk, which were released in early May but I didn’t get mine till this past Monday. (And, unfortunately, there’s a problem with it. [:(]) I also have a BLI NYC 20th Century “Dreyfus” Hudson on pre-order that is due out in December '09 that I “realistically” don’t expect to see till the latter part of 2010.
Like with any manufacturing process, there are sometimes unexpected situations and glitches that arise that, unfortunately, cause delays that can not always be anticipated. And, it may be that these delays are due to other jobs the manufacturer is working on (apart from your and my order) that has ramifications on all the other orders they are producing.
Back in early March 2002, I placed an order to have an authentic kilt made (from an establishment in Scotland) for a friend of mine for a surprise presentation in April in his honor. Although it would be cutting it close, the manufacturer of the kilt said that they would do their “best” to try and complete the kilt in time for the presentation date.
Everything was running pretty much on time…until the Queen Mum died later in the month. All the presses stopped as many of the tartan mills were pressed into service to provide enough wool material for all the kilts needing to be produced for the Royal funeral procession.
The manufacturer actually sent out an e-mail to their customers explaining the unfortuate situation and stated that any kilt orders not related to the Royal funeral would be delayed by 2-3 weeks. Unfortunately, this meant for sure that the kilt would not be ready in time for the surprise presentation in April. Thankfully, everything worked out because I was able to rent a Blackwatch kilt (very close to the actual family tartan or color pattern) from a place in KY in time for the surprise presentation.
I’m in N scale–bifocals and all. I also had to get the “Daylighter” set and picked up the extra articulated a while back–all at a low price—heeheehee[:-,][:-^]–and no, I don’t have the kind of painting issues mentioned—one needs be more patient with them is all. Now, if’n you mentioned trading out wheelsets-----[(-D]
I’m an N-scaler, and we don’t always get the stuff the HO guys are looking for.
I became excited back in 2005 when Precision Craft Models announced they were going to bring their class H2-a hoppers into N-scale; they’d already been marketing them in HO. But they were not available then, something about not getting enough pre-orders. So they bumped up the release date. And bumped. And again. Last I heard from them, in 2007, was that they’d come out sometime in 2008. It’s 2009, actually halfway through the year… still no H2a’s.
I resolved simply to never buy anything from PCM. I consider it false advertising to list a product which you will not manufacture for over four years.
My experience has been to treat announcements of future products as wish lists. If it’s something I want, I’ll check back from time to time, but I don’t count on it or include it in my plans. If I get to where I need the item for the layout and it hasn’t come out than I’ll use something else or make my own. There are some announcements I have been watching for over 5 years and frankly I have serious doubts that they will ever happen. But there’s enough on the market at any given time to keep going.
I eventually cancelled the pre-order on my BLI/PC Great Northern 4-8-4 that I think was supposed to arrive “summer 2006”…they still don’t have even a pic of a pre-production model out yet!! I’d like to get one of the streamlined Hudsons but they don’t even have a drawing of it available last time I checked. If either one ever really comes out I figure I can get one then.
It’s possible that we are looking at sheer speculation on the part of some mfg’s —let’s see how much of a demand we can generate if we put ‘X’ out. If you create enough demand to push price up then you might put it out—or not—depending on if their labour costs don’t go up. There are a number of Chinese firms that are now outsourcing their OWN labour costs by having their product get assembled/made in countries like Viet Nam. So now what you have is a 3 tier production line—with all the attendant issues involved----My pet peeve being QC and cost control. There is always a risk when outsourcing that the control goes elsewhere. Guess what? If PCM–for example–goes through a Chinese firm, who THEN goes to ANOTHER firm to get the job done —now you have 2 levels of control issues to deal with—where will your oversight be now?
Hence you end up with even LONGER lead times instead of shorter ones–
With a train this size and the amount of tooling required for the total train, I am surprised it is coming to us as soon as it is. The Zephyr train was not on time when it came around a few years ago and this one will probably start arriving this fall or next year or the year after that.
The Genesis version of the early 1937 Daylight train is still in waiting also. I am surprised that this version was not on the market a long time ago since they are also bringing out the MT4 class which would have pulled the cars on #52 in the late forties, but it is still out there in the future.
Another thing the n scalers have over us is the kato broadway limited set! Seriously, why is it even so hard to release a streamlined prr obersvation car with factory installed lighted drumhead and marker lamps in HO scale? Electronics can’t be the issue, considering they do it in n scale. You would think the larger the scale, the more practical it gets. They do it in N scale, O scale, but not HO? Why?
Ah, but rivarossi did cres like those a fair while back. But it comes with the joy of assembly. And mine even has to be painted. [:D] Plus, it’s bigger.