Micro-Trains Releases April 2019

[sundowner]

I'll be ordering the TTX boxcars, along with the 53' containers.
Still waiting on well cars for the 53' containers!

Patients, the Atlas cars are coming. Atlas posted picture on there facebook page this week.

[GaryHinshaw]

Patience patients, the end of the TBOX famine is drawing nigh.

And the 60ft cars are only 40 bucks each in the 3 pack

In 2020 dollars.    But seriously, I will rejoice, if I can be patient.

[mu26aeh]

And the 60ft cars are only 40 bucks each in the 3 pack
I've lived too long.....

Greg O

Street price is $89.95 as I received an email last night for pre-orders/monthly releases from HogTrainz.  Plus with it being completely new tooling, while a little shocking it's about what I expected the price to come out as.  These are probably a guaranteed sell out, secondary market will be crazy

[JoeD]

@Shipsure ,

I don't know how much you're tracking this sort of thing, but Micro Trains' HOn3 stuff sells for premium on eBay...  There's very much still a demand for it.  You guys did the steel underframe C&S prototype stuff...a gon, a reefer, and a flatcar.  Why did MTL pull the plug on what was starting to be a great product line?  That you went C&S meant you were not competing with, but complimenting, the Blackstone Rio Grande stuff.

I--for one--would love to see you do the C&S steel underframe boxcar as so many of them ended up on the RGS after 1938.  Or the C&S stock car.  Is this even a possibility?

Sales dropped by 2/3's over night (literately)...kinda made it hard to produce a hand full of cars.  For what it's worth we have been talking about some options...not all is lost  Hang tight.


Joe

[peteski]

Sales dropped by 2/3's over night (literately)...kinda made it hard to produce a hand full of cars. 

Joe

Hmmm, does that mean that Dave chose to jump (from N scale) into a dying segment of our model RR hobby?   

[Dave V]

Sales dropped by 2/3's over night (literately)...kinda made it hard to produce a hand full of cars.  For what it's worth we have been talking about some options...not all is lost  Hang tight.


Joe

Oh, wow...  That's just bizarre.  You'd never know it by the secondary market.

[JoeD]

Oh, wow...  That's just bizarre.  You'd never know it by the secondary market.

yeah...When Blackstone announced we saw a huge drop in sales that never recovered.  I am trying to figure out the next step, test the waters.  We get lots of emails "I'll buy three of them" which adds up to 6 sales generally   We've come close to exhausting road numbers and roads on some of the bodies and I don't think we can repeat them...maybe we can in HON3.  Truss underframes might revive them but again...

Joe

[Dave V]

yeah...When Blackstone announced we saw a huge drop in sales that never recovered.  I am trying to figure out the next step, test the waters.  We get lots of emails "I'll buy three of them" which adds up to 6 sales generally   We've come close to exhausting road numbers and roads on some of the bodies and I don't think we can repeat them...maybe we can in HON3.  Truss underframes might revive them but again...

Joe

So Blackstone seems to have ground to a near-halt.  The new big Ks have been in limbo for years now (shades of the BLI/PCM N scale M1) and the second run of D&RGW reefers took 2 years longer than they'd planned.  Talking to the Blackstone folks it doesn't sound like they'll be rerunning any of the other body styles any time soon.

FWIW, though, I think folks were expecting Blackstone to expand beyond just the D&RGW/RGS trope...especially given their release of an EBT hopper.  They told me that sales on the EBT hopper were weak enough that they decided not to pursue one of the big EBT mikes.  So they decided to stay 100% Rio Grande after that.

Now back to your stuff...  Yep, you've probably milked the cow dry on what you have released, although re-running road names and numbers would probably still sell a few here and there.  The C&S guys were really upset to find out that Blackstone had no intention of throwing them a bone so they might be eager for some new goodies from MTL...maybe.  then again, maybe I'm talking out of my a$$.

I can't say I'd be in for more than a handful of anything, so I won't make empty promises.  Right now I have 2 of the reefers...one I lettered for RGS 2101 (since at the time I couldn't find the one you did as RGS 2101) and one of the brown block C&S ones that I plan to convert to RGS work car 2102 (and add a Masonite track cleaning pad).  They're very nice cars and I would be happy to have a pair of similarly-made C&S style boxcars lettered for the RGS (the 1938 Miller cars).  But I'm not going to pretend my desire translates into profitability for MTL.  You guys know the market way better than I do.

Thanks for at least considering more HOn3.  FWIW, while Blackstone may have taken the wind out of your sales at first, the consensus around the community is that it did wonders to expand the demand for HOn3 overall.  So maybe the market is different now?  I don't know for sure.

[mcjaco]

Really wanted to add a SW1500 in SP (that Kodachrome is sweet) to my roster, but man, I cannot wrap my head around the price tag.  Even at local shows they're still priced around the MSRP. 

[packers#1]

I’d love to split a pack of each of the TTX schemes. Joe, any idea when single cars will be released?

[Mark5]

I was tempted by the SOUTHERN coach, but I'm pretty sure SOUTHERN's were all single window (Atlas released the same #1057 in HO as a Single Window Coach).

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?_route_=n-scale/new-releases/southern-rd-1057-rel-4-19-14500330

Apparently, these are rebuilt coaches from Pullman built cars from the 1920s - more info here (#1057 was originally #1629):

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&p=288683

Here is a photo of sister #1058:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4457549

Mark

[thomasjmdavis]

Here is 1055, another car in the series, from a 90 deg angle (the "single window" design being more evident)
http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4457546

If MT has a photo of Southern 1057 as a paired window car, would be great if they could publish it. I recall Joe putting out a request for such a photo some months ago here on Railwire (IIRC).

Of course, it may be that there is a paired window car in a museum somewhere that is painted as Southern 1057. Given that the single window coach is due out sometime relatively soon, it is a surprise that MT produced a paired window at this time.

All that said, THE best available HW coach is the MT car- it is closer than anything else to almost every non-Harriman heavyweight coach, just because there isn't much option.  It is the same prototype as the old Rivarossi car- but MUCH improved.

[eja]

Haven't purchased a newly released MT car in years  .... can't imaging why.   

[Mark5]

More info on Southern Railway HW coaches: [ Guests cannot view attachments ]

[RockGp40]

I tried PMing Shipsure, but I would be willing to bet their office is closed with the world situation. But I'm super excited for the release of the TBOXs which hopefully will hit the streets soon. Anybody have any inside information?