N scale Construction Industry Hurting??

[basementcalling]

Are we in the midst of an N scale structure shortage?

A casual browsing of several hobby sales sites found the vast majority of N scale building kits are all too often out of stock. Are we buying kits faster than manufacturers can make them, or do we need more variety?

Several "popular" but long out of stock kits go for exorbitant prices on eBay: Walthers rolling mill, blast furnace, paper mill. I forget the company, but their modern concrete warehouse goes in the $70 range, but retailed for $25-30.

Feel free to chime in with evidence one way or the other.

Thoughts?

[wazzou]

The tilt-ups were made by Nu-Line Structures and they are out of business, thus the high demand and price.
I've always subscribed to the "buy it when you see it available" because in model trains, it seems more than anything else, you never know how long it'll be around.

[peteski]

Like with other N scale items, structures are also limited runs which are often not re-ran for very long time. Walthers Medusa Cement was a good example.  Until it was produced again recently it was fetching lots of money on eBbay.

Walthers kits in general (their Cornerstone series) seem to be made in batches with many years passing in between).

But there are still lots of structure kits out there. Especially the smaller laser-cut kits.  If you browse the BLW website, Pete has quite a few structure kits in stock. My local hobby shop also has decent selection fo N scale structures.  I also get Walthers flyers and they always have quite a few kits on sale (but the $20 prices are a thing of the past).  You can go to Walthers website and then search for N scale structures in stock.  You should be able to find quite a few.