Production Cancellation Announcements

[CBQ Fan]

I also think that a normal lead up time is around 18-24 months in all reality. These order by deadlines come and go and then you wait a year or more.  It shows up and you buy it if you still want it and there is always some available if you are paying attention to hobby shop updates. There are the items you preorder because you have to have them, but there are many more that would be nice to have but not at any cost. 

[JoeD]

One of the advantages of building here in the states is we can adapt to pre order quantities with some fluidity.  We also pretty much deliver when promised for the same reason.  Having to deal with China is fraught with minefields. 

fingers crossed that Rapido will come thru with the 3/4 dome cars...both N and HO. 

Joe

[Mark5]

Here's the stock numbers included in their cancellation notice.  I pulled this off their Facebook page.

Athearn 40’ Fruehauf trailers
• ATH-1090 N ATH 40' Fruehauf Trailer, Illinois Central ICZ #201035
• ATH-1123 N ATH 40' Fruehauf Trailer, Illinois Central ICZ #201048
• ATH-1108 N ATH 40' Fruehauf Trailer, XTRA XTRZ #231301
• ATH-1064 N ATH 40' Fruehauf Trailer, XTRA XTRZ #231377

Well, I preordered both of the IC pigs and both of the XTRA pigs - I guess I'll be getting a big refund from Athearn ... 

I've been waiting forever for someone to do the IC piggys - they are iconic and I saw them in just about every train with tofcs from the late 60s through the 70s.

MTL did that scheme, but they did it on a 45' trailer (Pre-ICG IC did not roster 45' trailers) 

Decent tooling is there from Athearn and MTL but ... the funny thing is, nobody makes the decals in N for the IC piggys.

Maybe Athearn will change their mind.

Mark

[wm3798]

Well, I preordered both of the IC pigs and both of the XTRA pigs - I guess I'll be getting a big refund from Athearn ... 

I've been waiting forever for someone to do the IC piggys - they are iconic and I saw them in just about every train with tofcs from the late 60s through the 70s.

MTL did that scheme, but they did it on a 45' trailer (Pre-ICG IC did not roster 45' trailers) 

Decent tooling is there from Athearn and MTL but ... the funny thing is, nobody makes the decals in N for the IC piggys.

Maybe Athearn will change their mind.

Mark

Again, a fairly limited prototype of very limited interest to most modelers.  The guy running a 10' long intermodal on an N trak rig is looking for the overall effect of a loaded piggy back train.  He could (typically) not care a lick about the road names or lengths of the trailers.  For a fine scale model of a particular trailer, you're paying what, $25 or so?  If I'm looking to load a train, I'm looking for a box of 40 year old Herpa trailers for $10 I can weather up to give the eye something to identify as a loaded pig flat.

Our scale is designed to help you model a railroad.  It's admirable when you can identify an X29 from an X31 in N scale, and you're not wrong to expect some accuracy when you're shelling out $35 for an N scale boxcar.  But maybe if we weren't so demanding that every detail be spot on from the manufacturer, the cars might still cost $15 and you wouldn't feel bad about splicing on the right door.

If you're going to get down into the weeds about the rivet pattern on a piggy back trailer, I humbly suggest you consider a larger scale.  At track speed from 4 feet away in N scale, no one sees it but you.

And as for decals, with a modicum of effort, you can roll your own, or contract the work to someone who can.  If you're concerned about close up photography, find something available that's close enough, and well detailed enough to fit the bill and letter it.  If you're entering it into a model contest to be scrutinized, then you're not buying off the rack anyway, are you?  They don't give prizes for "Best Purchase".

Close enough is good enough.  Now go run some trains!
Lee

[James Costello]

If you're going to get down into the weeds about the rivet pattern on a piggy back trailer, I humbly suggest you consider a larger scale.  At track speed from 4 feet away in N scale, no one sees it but you.

Spoken like a HO scaler masquerading as an N Scaler - it's too small so don't worry about it. No one sees it.

As a card carrying member of the intermodal modelling community, in N Scale, it IS important to ME. Seeing it is important to me and where I get my enjoyment from the hobby. I've sliced and diced, painted and decaled and just about everything else to get the prototypical accuracy I want. I've worked with manufacturers to improve the accuracy of the intermodal models we ultimately receive.

This hobby is many things to each of us. Intermodal models are a legitimate and important part of the railroading landscape some of us choose to model - they deserve to be as accurate as anything else.

We're allowed to be disappointed when an announced model is cancelled, no matter the model type.... especially if as mentioned, decals aren't currently available to roll your own.

[peteski]

Lee looks at all this through eyes of a vintage N scale railroader  (not H0 modeler).  30-40 years ago, N scale models were more like toys, and you had not much choice of body styles or road names. Many models were selectively compressed and inaccurate. No pre-orders. You bought what you could get.  Well, the exception was Kadee Micro-trains, but those models were very pricey, so not very many modelers bought them.

Here is a "shorty" car.  This would not pass muster in N scale.

[jagged ben]

Again, a fairly limited prototype of very limited interest to most modelers.  The guy running a 10' long intermodal on an N trak rig is looking for the overall effect of a loaded piggy back train.  He could (typically) not care a lick about the road names or lengths of the trailers.  For a fine scale model of a particular trailer, you're paying what, $25 or so?  If I'm looking to load a train, I'm looking for a box of 40 year old Herpa trailers for $10 I can weather up to give the eye something to identify as a loaded pig flat.

But maybe if we weren't so demanding that every detail be spot on from the manufacturer, the cars might still cost $15 and you wouldn't feel bad about splicing on the right door.

...If you're going to get down into the weeds about the rivet pattern on a piggy back trailer, I humbly suggest you consider a larger scale.  At track speed from 4 feet away in N scale, no one sees it but you.

...

I think you're being contradictory here.  From your comments it would seem the problem is both that the average modeler doesn't care at all what trailers he puts on his TOFC train and also that he's super demanding of exact prototypical details on trailers of certain paint schemes to the point that manufacturers can't accommodate.   That latter point, frankly, seems not to be supported by any evidence in the discussion so far.  I don't believe anyone is not pre-ordering these trailers because they have the wrong number of taillights.  And while the Athearn trailer tooling is quite nice, especially compared to that Herpa tooling (and yes, it's still a big difference from 4ft away), bringing up the term 'fine scale' implies that the tooling is expensive in a way it's not.  Speaking for myself (but I'm guessing perhaps for flight2000 and others as well), I'm more than happy to accept an era-appropriate paint scheme on a trailer that may actually be a model of a different make entirely.  I do care if it's 40 or 45ft but not much else, as long as there's also some variety.  My interest in particular trailers is mostly based on panorama pictures of trains where the the make and model of the trailer is impossible to see but the mix of different companies trailers on a train defines the time and place.  So it is about modeling a railroad, I don't know where you got off the track on that point.

No, I think the more likely culprit in these cancellations is the broken pre-order system.  18-24 month lead times certainly disincentivize placing pre-orders.  Also Athearn's atrocious website 'update' makes it impossible to find what is available ro pre-order, and the number of shops that take pre-orders is small.  Or, perhaps as well, it's simply that Athearn and Trainworx saturated the market with enough nice 40ft trailer models in the last 15 years that the N-Trackers don't 'need' an ICG trailer because they already have enough other good looking Athearn and Trainworx trailers to fill their train.  They would have bought ICG if released ten years ago but they got PC and SF and Reading instead because those were made first..  Finally, it doesn't help that Athearn have doubled the price for the same tooling over that same period.  (They now sell singles for about the same as they used to sell a 2-pack.)  It has far less to do with the actual product than any of those other things, is my guess.

[James Costello]

Lee looks at all this through eyes of a vintage N scale railroader  (not H0 modeler).  30-40 years ago, N scale models were more like toys, and you had not much choice of body styles or road names.

I very much understand the lens that Lee looks at his equipment - hence I said it was spoken like a HO modeler. It's typical of many of the things we've all heard HO people say about N.

To your point though, 30 years ago we already had Deluxe Innovations, Interail and N Scale of Nevada amongst others pushing against the existing edge of N Scale fidelity and accuracy in intermodal equipment (and freight cars in general). The Kato GP38-2 is nearing its 40th birthday....   

The era of N Scale being toy-like is long, long ago. Thankfully some things have evolved. 

[thomasjmdavis]

Well, the exception was Kadee Micro-trains, but those models were very pricey, so not very many modelers bought them.

Not that expensive.  My earliest MTL boxcars have the $3.95 MSRP printed on the factory label (and often discounted from that), from a time when a Life-Like or Bachmann sold for 1.98 street price (no idea the MSRP, and Atlas or Con-cor were about $3.  So, more expensive, yes.  BUT...if you were going to add MTL couplers (and trucks in many cases) to your Atlas, etc, cars, the total cost per car was not much different.  Granted, the MTL cars did not appear in the $1 bargain bin, but
Once I bought my first MTL cars, I didn't look at much else besides some of the (relatively well tooled) Con-cor, until IMRC became available- when freight car accuracy took another jump forward.

And at the same time those Parkway shorties (the passenger cars being made by Arnold, I think) were out there, for very little more money, we could buy the MRC/Rowa cars which were scale length, had interior inserts, introduced window inserts, and to this day, look pretty good if you give them a good paint job.

[NSEGeorge]

Just a historical fact to consider. In November/December of 1972, Kadee (the predecessor of MTL) released a very simple set of paint schemes on their 20000 series PS-1 boxcar. The price was $3.00 for undecorated or a single color and $3.25 for a car with a two color paint scheme . In 2024 dollars, according to the USGov Calculator, that price would be $22.23 and $24.08 respectively. The most recent 20000 series equivalent is # 074 00 190 with 3 print colors released in February this year is $26.90 and features far more complex graphics from the printing department and an improved running board. So one could say that the hobby hasn't gotten all that more expensive.

I know salaries and retirement funds have not kept up, so maybe we are to think that the hobby is pretty much the same, but the world economy is less fair than before?  Median family annual income in California 1972 was $11,120. In 2024 it is $54,030. Prices are similar income is lower relatively speaking, at least in my neck of the woods.

[nscaler711]

I also want to point something out when it comes to modeling, some of us are quite decent at the electronics side, are not so great at the painting side, or construction, or the 3D CAD, or the ability to to chop up a locomotive that cost us a couple hours or even a entire days pay to fine tune it to be what we want.

I for one find it extremely hard to want to relocate a headlight and then try and paint match it... I can't paint like my standards are, let alone buying 4 different colors of ATSF Blue or yellow just to use a little bit of each and see damn near $40 worth of paints dry up and be utterly useless because I don't paint entire locomotives from the ground up and make use of the entire bottle.
For example that AZL GP7 I redid the dynamic brake hatch to a non-DB took a while to get close, and its still the wrong shade of blue. It drives me insane. Two of the 4 bottles I had were as dry as death valley. They were stored in a cool dark place since I bought them nearly a decade ago. One of them simply would not thin down for an airbrush, water nope, acetone nope, 50-91% alcohol nope, actual paint/ airbrush thinner nope. Coagulated like blood and clogged my air brushes every single time. The last paint would not mix with similar paints to match the blue AZL used, so I sent it as is. Yes primer was used as well.

I will say, I am not that picky when it comes to rolling stock, I don't need every single detail on cars, Do I buy the the more expensive and better detailed cars though? Yes.
Will they fit the era I want to model? Absolutely! I Try and do as much research on most cars/ paint schemes/ lettering to see if they were around. That can get hard as railfanning in the 90's isn't what it's like today. Even more so for earlier time periods.
I don't do a lot of switching ops, mainly because I don't have a permanent layout but also because I like to rail fan my trains, The more detailed Locomotives, rolling stock are going to appear in the lead, front of the consist and at the rear of my consists everything else will be in the middle. 
Since I model the 90's and the Santa Fe, you bet I am going to search for the right 20-48' Containers for my Z trains. Same with Trailers... but as above, the cheaper ones aren't going to look too out of place in the middle where I am not paying attention.

As far as my earlier comment, I will be upset if the F45u gets cancelled, the time period I chose is really on me and I understand that, but the 90's has not gotten a lot of love, at least as far as the ATSF goes. most equipment is numbered and detailed for pre '85 or its numbered for post 85 and not detailed correctly. To which I will say trying to paint match yellow is even worse than blue.
So this one excites me a bit. It's also the reason why I had to pick up at least two of the fugly snoots from Scale Trains.

As far as the cancellations go, unless those XTRA 40' were in the 90s I think I'm safe.

Apologies for my rants, I can't stand it when people just assume that because we are model railroaders we can do every aspect of the hobby perfectly.
My standards are a lot higher than what my skills are.

[OldEastRR]

Count me Among the guys not going the CAD drawing 3D printing expensive printer and resin route. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of figuring, drawing, structuring, detail-wrangling that goes into making up a 3D printed model from your own plans. Great for young guys, but I'm no young guy. I work with styrene, both stock pieces and pre-made forms and whole kits, because I know what I'm doing and after 50 years know how to do it -- the skills I used way back when on cardboard, balsa wood, plastic sheets, etc.  translated very well to totally styrene material. If you can wing it 3D, then i applaud you.
I want NH streamline passenger cars, but nobody makes them in N, so my friend said "just 3d print up the bodies". Yeah, that reminds me of the old Steve Martin joke, "How not to pay taxes on a million dollars -- first, get a million dollars". It's not as easy as just buying a printer. You just can't waltz into 3D printing.

As for the IC piggybacks -- I seem to remember ConCor made smooth-side trailers with those markings. I also believe Arnold-Rapido did rib-sides for their TOFC flatcars. They won't look exactly detailed as real trailers, but the logos will be right. There must be some of those still around.  There's also a set of the decals on eBay, Circus City decals.

[nkalanaga]

And, if I remember right, Microscale used to make decals for IC piggyback trailers.

[pedro]

And, if I remember right, Microscale used to make decals for IC piggyback trailers.

The Illinois Central Gulf version, but not IC. (AFIK)

[wm3798]

Guys, guys guys....  we all have our priorities when it comes to details, running quality, accuracy etc.  I don't begrudge anyone who insists on having the most accurate models you can have.

What I'm saying is, that it must be awfully frustrating to sit around waiting for something to meet that need, and weeping openly when the manufacturer comes up short, either by missing a critical detail or canceling a project due to lack of interest.  If those details are important to you, then challenge yourself to make them happen with the tools the good Lord gave you.  It's one of the best and most rewarding parts of the hobby.

And yes, I've definitely retreated into the safety and comfort of vintage N scale, mostly because it suits my limited budget, space and time.  I recognize that it's not as well detailed as the modern stuff, but it's plenty fun to collect, repair, run, and use for kitbashes and customizing.  I don't do nearly as much as I used to, but if there's something I need to scratch an itch, I'll at least sit down at the bench and take a stab at it.  I've done this with DCC installs (which scared me to death), body work, paint and lettering, adding detail parts, weathering...you name it.







None of them will win prizes, but they represent valuable quality time in the workshop, and I enjoy putting them on the layout and running them around, calling to mind time spent trackside (real or imagined) watching the real things.

It's true that not all of us possess the same skills, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I just think that the desire to have something at some point has to be met with the challenge of doing something about it.  This is true of pretty much every aspect of life.  Raise the expectations you have for yourself.

Lee