Time for a new Atlas 40' Plug door in N

[thomasjmdavis]

couldn't they just off-load the rejects to some third party as sales? Then that party does the cutting up, marketing, etc.

Having run a small batch manufacturing operation once upon a time (not model railroad related, but I think it applies)-

That assumes a 3rd party with the interest and capital and talent to take a large quantity of reject parts, at random times (whenever there is a bad batch, molds are sticking that day, one injector gets plugged on the machine, etc) and in a condition unknown before the parts are made (that is, the reasons for rejects vary, you might get an entire shipment of stuff that did not cool properly, and has no usable parts, followed by another where you get only tank car bodies with mushed domes, followed by 50,000 misshaped brake wheels).  It would likely be an all or nothing proposition, because if the manufacturer has to put people on staff to do "quality control" on rejects- to sort out what might be useful to you, then it will cost them more than the revenue from selling the rejects. 

I am sure if you want to be the person they "off-load" to, there are companies that would be willing to talk to you.  But having done a lot of kitbashing in my own time, I would only do car-chopping as a hobby.  See how long it takes to cut the doors out a boxcar, and clean them up to the point they would be salable.  Figure that with minimum wage going up, and various benefits, it is going to cost at least $15 an hour in total labor cost, plus the cost of the rejects, plus shipping from China inbound, and then outbound to hobby shops or consumers- and pretty soon, you are going to come to the conclusion that a couple of spare doors done that way will cost almost as much as the finished RTR car from the original manufacturer.  And you won't be able to take orders for anything you don't have in inventory, because you can't predict what will be rejected at the factory.

My own advice is to make friends with local hobby shop owners, who may then call you when they get a return, or an employee drops a car while putting it on the test track.  And write a polite letter to the manufacturer of the car with the parts you want- a polite letter sometimes does wonders- and they may pull a couple of shells for you, even if they don't catalog it as a separate part.  Or tell them you want 10 reject shells for ____ and they may "make you such a deal".  But I don't see it as a viable business plan.
 

[amato1969]

In regard to InterMountain parts — I've both called and emailed.  Only a handful of times have I had to wait until a production run arrived, such as the Pacemaker boxcar doors and modified ends which are a match for a series of New Haven AAR boxcars.  And the parts were either at no cost or for a nominal fee, depending on the quantity.  The majority of my kitbashes over recent years feature InterMountain parts.  I definitely recommend using their vast array of parts as a source.

+1 on this approach; the Intermountain kits/parts allow you to build just about any 10'6" car.  The only ends you'd have to go elsewhere for are the late R+3/4 "banana taper" style.

  Frank

[sirenwerks]

Plastic bodies can be cut apart.  You can build pretty much anything in N as well.

This is the problem, they have to be cut apart.  It's not the labor I mind, it's that in cutting them apart you usually end up sacrificing a part or two, or three.  If manufacuturers would start designing their products more like IMRC - thinking modularity, almost kit-ish - there'd be less complaining, more joy in kitbashing, and general good will towards man.  The expense and danger in hacking apart a block of plastic just makes everyone nervous and tempermental.  Assembling a puzzle is such a happier experience. 

[cjm413]

The Atlas model is accurate to the prototype.  The Micro-Trains model is not.

For a 10'6" IH car, any efforts to correct the excess height of Micro-Trains car could be summed up in a few simple steps:
1) ignore the door width, phase of production, etc of the Microtrains car
2) place Microtrains car in blender
3) pour contents of blender into the nearest pothole
4) mix with epoxy and allow it to set
5) send invoice for pothole repair to appropriate municipality, and finally
6) use proceeds to buy a new Atlas car with appropriate door width/type, etc.

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For a 10' IH car where the body of either car needs to be lowered, are there any other dimensional errors and/or fundamental screw-ups with the Microtrains body that I'm forgetting about that can't be corrected by chopping down it down to the appropriate height? (This doesn't include different door widths, phase of production, etc.)

[bbussey]

Yeah. The height of the body is too tall, not just the ride height. The height of the door actually happens to be correct. But the placement of the door tracks on the body shows that the proportion of the sides are incorrect and unfixable. The same situation exists with the 50' PS-1 models, but it's not as apparent because the models are longer — until you put them next to an Athearn/MDC model.

Also, on the most recent retoolings, the stamped roof ribs under the roofwalk end flaps is gone, in order to compensate for the now overly-thick plastic roofwalks. It's impossible now to upgrade the model with etched roofwalks because half of each outer rib is missing from the roof.

[cjm413]

Yeah. The height of the body is too tall, not just the ride height. The height of the door actually happens to be correct. But the placement of the door tracks on the body shows that the proportion of the sides are incorrect and unfixable. The same situation exists with the 50' PS-1 models, but it's not as apparent because the models are longer — until you put them next to an Athearn/MDC model.

Also, on the most recent retoolings, the stamped roof ribs under the roofwalk end flaps is gone, in order to compensate for the now overly-thick plastic roofwalks. It's impossible now to upgrade the model with etched roofwalks because half of each outer rib is missing from the roof.

If I cut a hole in the roof and repaint them for Lionel Lines, does anyone make any N scale giraffes that could stick their heads out of the roof?