Hubert TopGon: IT IS NEW TOOLING!

[ljudice]

"December 2nd 2007: There has been questions raised on certain Railroading forums as to whether the Norfolk Southern TOP GON we are making is a complete new tool and is prototypical of the 11 Panel Gondola.  To quell any more questions, the answer is YES this is a complete new tooling and is made to be completely prototypical of the 11 Panel TOP GON. "

[Ali Kenneth]

Now i have to hope Chulvis will not be stocking it or i will be seriously short of cash next year!!

[Mark5]

I may be tempted ...

Need some stuff to drag behind my SD70M ...

[ljudice]

One problem - Walthers shows them at $24.95 each....

And coming in January, 2008....

 

[Mark5]

Next month eh?

I'll need to see the street price before I'll jump.

[Chulvis]

One problem - Walthers shows them at $24.95 each....

And coming in January, 2008....

 

$24.95 Retail? That will make them street for $16.00 and above...so for just $320.00, minimum, you can have a 20 car train, wow.

Screw that.

[GonzoCRFan]

It's an injection-molded model of a car that ONE railroad owns...how cheap do you guys honestly expect them to be?  ???

This isn't something like a FVM 50' boxcar that can have its tooling costs amortized over a dozen paint schemes. Huberts can do pretty much 2 paint schemes on this car, regular NS and NS 23760, which had a special emblem applied to it because it was the 25,000th car re-bodied by the Roanoke Car Shop...

[ljudice]

This is why I always say MTL should do only cars that were exclusive to ONE road. They don't care about putting inaccurate roadnames on, and tons of people will gladly buy them!

[Robbman]

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[Denver Road Doug]

Wow, that's a tough one.  At 30% off (which I figure is gonna be close to the best you're gonna get on these) you're looking at around $17.50 per car.  I know I'm cringing a little bit at the almost $14/car for the FVM RD4's, so I feel your pain of an $18 unit train car.  I've purchase three digit numbers of Atlas coalveyor at ~$10/car (now approaching $12 in the later runs) so I know the importance of keeping unit car prices low.  (and, hey, on the bright side at least you get MT's for your $18!)

On the other hand, it IS a pretty unique car, and with a pretty readily available "substitute/stand-in" depending on how much of a rivet counter you are.  (yes, I know the differences, and I know they are significant)  So it kinda stings that there are so many freakin' coalporters saturating the market. 

Another pretty important point here is: Huberts products are made in the U.S. so already the pricing structure is going to be adversely affected.

One thing I would suggest, see if your dealer can order all 96 numbers (as opposed to 8 12-packs of #1-#12, for example) and split them.  That way, at least if you cannot buy all you want to begin with, those numbers will be out amongst the crowd and easier to come by later on like from eBay, etc.  I don't know if the 96-pack costs extra though.  Also, I wonder if Huberts would consider selling the cars without trucks/couplers if you ordered, say 48 or more?  (for 48 cars that would be almost $200 street for the MT wheelsets you would save up front) Might not hurt to ask, and then you can buy the wheelsets later once the cars have "amortized" a little.

Anyway, I'm happy--and sad--for you NS guys.

[Robbman]

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[Denver Road Doug]

So you are OK with the price, I assume?

[Robbman]

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[Denver Road Doug]

Yes, I'm way off base, that is why a post had to be made to confirm that this is new tooling versus a coalporter with NS TopGon lettering on it.  (and, including other forums, not the first post stating this exact same thing)

The reason price is relevant is this.  If you are OK with paying $18 for the car, then the prototypical fidelity of the car is important enough to you that you will pay the difference compared to either a coalporter, or a modified Atlas 90T car, or any other cheaper, "wrong-er" model out there.  Huberts is banking that enough NS modelers are willing to pay that price to get the unique car, but a couple of responses here might indicate otherwise.

[John]

What would you do to the atlas car to make it look like a coal porter ..