I shouid have started this when Model Railroad Hobbyist had offered the Scale Trains videos for viewing without their Trainmaster subscription. But finally getting around to it... If you are interested in seeing what it takes to bring a new model to market, I found it very fascinating. You now need the Trainmaster subscription to see the 3-part series, its almost a reality show, of how Scale Trains started out.
I am really hoping they announce some N scale soon that is differentiated from what is currently available!
I was initially not very interested in seeing another vendor, especially when it first seemed they were targeting the high-end of the market. But after it sunk in, and I read this month's RMC editorial, it really seems like the company spent a lot of time looking at the problems of bringing stuff to market from China, and figuring out how to do things differently. The biggest difference it looks like is being able to have more control over the engineering and manufacturing. They claim they have their own "Engineering Office" and "factory"; not sure they actually own it, but if they have a setup where they have full control over product and schedule (like Kato does), then they shouldn't have the problems getting stuff in our hands like some of the current vendors.
We all bitch about the long and unpredictable lead times. Let's hope this works and they are successful! Maybe it will put pressure on the other contract manufacturers and everybody benefits!
Bill Kepner
