Scaletrains acquires Fox Valley Models

[amato1969]

Love the open communication!

I see those Iowa Interstate GEs rolling past my workplace every day.  The Rock Island heritage schemes are cool!

  Frank

[basementcalling]

Sounds like the tooling FVM had will stay as is and come from Scale America. Leaves me wondering if we will see Rivet Counter and Operator versions of FVM engines and cars, or just the same old tools with their shortcomings.

[peteski]

Interestign development.

I suspect that after several years of hoping, the chances of the wide variety of wheelsets that FVM was offering, has very little chance of being produced by Scale Trains.  From personal experience I know that unlike Matt at FVM, they keep almost zero inventory of spare parts for their current models.  I doubt they will want to deal with all a variety of wheelsets.

Actually as I see it,  Matt keeping the wheelset production would have yielded better chance of them eventually being produced. Matt mentions that he kept the line of N and H0 detail parts. I wonder if that includes wheelsets?

[peteski]

Yeup, didn’t see that thread when I posted  I figured since there were two product announcements along with it the discussion would be here; @peteski any chance we could merge the threads?

I have no ability to merge (just move), and I just moved the other thread from N/Z to this section.

[ljudice]

Also are they going to fix the big omission on the CSX GEVOs, the third dynamic brake vent.
They should try and  get Exacrais N tooling next.

Not on the posted renderings....  It almost looks like the forward missing vent is outlined in silver paint.

[ridinshotgun]

Interestign development.

I suspect that after several years of hoping, the chances of the wide variety of wheelsets that FVM was offering, has very little chance of being produced by Scale Trains.  From personal experience I know that unlike Matt at FVM, they keep almost zero inventory of spare parts for their current models.  I doubt they will want to deal with all a variety of wheelsets.

Actually as I see it,  Matt keeping the wheelset production would have yielded better chance of them eventually being produced. Matt mentions that he kept the line of N and H0 detail parts. I wonder if that includes wheelsets?

Actually if you read the release it sounds like Matt is keeping the N scale parts line and folding it into the Scale America stuff.  Hopefully he can get it to market better now that he has some operating capital from the sale.

[ridinshotgun]

One other thing that really hasn't been brought up is the price increase of the FVM stuff that ST is putting out.  ST doesn't do any brick and mortar stuff so what the price is on the site, $120, is what it will go for, but realistically street prices on the FVM DCC ready locos were usually around $90 via various suppliers.  So there is a  pretty hefty price increase now in reality of 30% and it sounds like they are continuing to use the FVM tooling so are there improvements that justify that much of a price increase?

With the way things are going with the economy I realistically don't see me buying even the DCC ready stuff at MSRP since I am not all together pleased with some of the engineering on my ST stuff I currently have.  It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I have no ability to merge (just move), and I just moved the other thread from N/Z to this section.

But I do! Done.

[greenwizard88]

One other thing that really hasn't been brought up is the price increase of the FVM stuff that ST is putting out.  ST doesn't do any brick and mortar stuff so what the price is on the site, $120, is what it will go for, but realistically street prices on the FVM DCC ready locos were usually around $90 via various suppliers.  So there is a  pretty hefty price increase now in reality of 30% and it sounds like they are continuing to use the FVM tooling so are there improvements that justify that much of a price increase?

With the way things are going with the economy I realistically don't see me buying even the DCC ready stuff at MSRP since I am not all together pleased with some of the engineering on my ST stuff I currently have.  It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

The ScaleTrains ones have the detail parts installed. Looking at a box, MSRP was $130, retail was $92, for a model without details. The detailed models were around $120 IIRC.

[Jbub]

But I do! Done.

Thanks Ed! 

[mu26aeh]

@ridinshotgun they do brick and mortar, but only "select" retailers.  I only have 1 within 100 miles according to their site

[ridinshotgun]

The ScaleTrains ones have the detail parts installed. Looking at a box, MSRP was $130, retail was $92, for a model without details. The detailed models were around $120 IIRC.

Don't care for models with details applied.  Every FVM loco I have, over a dozen, had details parts and all in the $90 price range.  Not one single one had the parts installed by me.  Know why?  Because my stuff doesn't live on a track on a permanent layout just waiting.  They are constantly going in and out of their boxes,  My ST stuff that has details supplied now have them floating around in the box if I am lucky.  There is no benefit at all for applied detail arts for me and one of my gripes with the highly detailed stuff the ST puts out..

[kscessandriver]

The ScaleTrains ones have the detail parts installed. Looking at a box, MSRP was $130, retail was $92, for a model without details. The detailed models were around $120 IIRC.

When was the last time a new run of FVM locomotives was released? And how much has the value of the dollar changed since then...

I have hope that maybe one day I'll see another run of the Hiawatha

[ridinshotgun]

@ridinshotgun they do brick and mortar, but only "select" retailers.  I only have 1 within 100 miles according to their site

I have yet to see one of their "select retailers" have a lower price than the preorder price (which in reality is nothing more than a falsely labeled MSRP) listed on ST.  An example is Lombard who I push all my buying through now sent out the preorder notice for the new ST locos.  Their preorder price is the same as ST with no discount.  It really offers no benefit to order from those select retailers.  I like you don't really care much for their sales strategy.

[High Hood]

When was the last time a new run of FVM locomotives was released? And how much has the value of the dollar changed since then...

I have hope that maybe one day I'll see another run of the Hiawatha

I’m pretty certain it was 2017. The Inflation Calculator says a $90 locomotive in 2017 would be worth $107.32 today. Keep in mind these ES44’s will have the details factory installed as well.