Intermountain cancellations

[MK]

Intermountain can produce something to completion....stickers for trains shows! 

I'll be selling these at $39.95 each, NO reservations needed, IMMEDIATE delivery.   

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[oakcreekco]

IM's most popular Road Name.

The P&NID (Pre-order and No Intended Delivery)

[JMaurer1]

...and Intermountain is confused as to how they got here. You can't keep saying that you are coming out with something and then not do it over and over and over without people, at some point, just not believing you so they quit making reservations...which then makes more projects get cancelled (even though they might have been popular and sold) because IM wasn't releasing what they said they would. And yet, IM is confused why nobody is interested in reserving vapor-cars that they don't make.

I waited over 10 years for the Chateau Martin milk reefers before IM FINALLY cancelled them. I have heard rumor that they did 2-3 of the other road names, but I have yet to ever see one. I would have taken several of those and painted my own CM cars, but I wasn't given that as a choice. These cars are when I stopped reserving IM vapor-cars and I won't ever be fooled again.

IM: ask Concor how this works out (has Concor released ANYTHING in recent history?)

[carlso]

I'm getting kinda old to be thinking this, but IF the tooling still exists, AND they can get it back to the USA, it would be worth forming a company to buy the tooling and produce the product.

I agree T.D., I too am getting to old to miss sleep over IMRC. I gave up on them several years back.
Your quote got me to thinking and IMHO IMRC does not have any management skills to even own the tooling anymore and would most likely not be able to get them back to the USA. I feel that IMRC is in the bottom of the 9th inning with 2 outs and an 0-2 count. I see them folding.

Matt Gaudynski, FVM, sold his FVM  to Scale Trains and is on staff as a Senior Production person, what ever that means. I looked at FVM & ST web sites and I can see a correlation between IMRC and ST/FVM because Matt was on staff at IMRC a few years ago. I just have a feeling.

Yeah, I know I am burning the grey matter.

Just my opinion.
Be well,
Carl

[Rossford Yard]

This kind of thing really pisses me off.......

It's really not worth getting your blood pressure up for any first world, model railroad related problem.  I reserve the anger for when I drop an N scale part in the carpet.......

That said, I really, really wanted a few GP 10's, and told them so at shows, although I failed to put in an actual pre-order, like many of us do.  I really like some of the "rolling mud hen" patch jobs and repaints as they seem more realistic to me than more shiny big 4 road locos. 
I love their SD40-2 sound units and the 60 ft flats. 

But, I have enough locos and freight cars to run my railroad as I intend, so no big whup.  I have found over the years that the "collector" mentality fades a bit with age.  I used to think that it would be so cool to run GP 10's one shift, RS-3 or something else the next.  In fact, most nights when I go to run trains I just fire up whatever loco I was using the last time (i.e., running trains is the joy, no matter what the loco road name is) or go back to my best runners (again, smooth running increases my joy more than different schemes)

In fact, one reason I moved to N in 1990 was that HO had become "too easy" to collect whatever you want.  In other words, we may undervalue the great feeling of anticipating Christmas day we had as kids.  I think it is part of our mentality as MRR.

Just my $0.02

[GonzoCRFan]

Neat stuff like the PC boxcars or big logo CR covered hoppers or some of the other private name hoppers. But it wasn't stuff I was going to pre-order.

The PS 4785 model was dead in the water the instant Scaletrains announced their version. Wish they would release.more of them, since those cars seem to be decent sellers for them.

N Scale Supply just had about a dozen CR/PC PS 4750 hoppers on their consignment page. I snapped up every single one because the chances IM will ever make them again are slim at best...

[Rossford Yard]

The PS 4785 model was dead in the water the instant Scaletrains announced their version. Wish they would release.more of them, since those cars seem to be decent sellers for them.

N Scale Supply just had about a dozen CR/PC PS 4750 hoppers on their consignment page. I snapped up every single one because the chances IM will ever make them again are slim at best...

You might be right, but I think there would be a market for other covered hoppers, using existing molding to stay at a lower price point, but I can't really say.  One thing I always liked about the folks at IM is how open they were about sales numbers.  IIRC, they sold over a quarter million covered hoppers in both N and HO and they were probably their most successful project.  By contrast, they also said they only sold 8,000 of those 60 ft flat cars in N.  I guess you might consider them being open about cancellations as part of the same pattern of openess, which is not a bad thing.

[Doug W]

Wow, that's a long list of cancellations. The only upside is that at least it puts some of us out of our misery!

Cheers
Doug

[robert3985]

Welllll...I've still got over 200 IMR reefer kits, & miscellaneous boxcar kits, all pre-1957 build dates.  I should probably count 'em just for curiosity's sake....and get some more Tenax (or the equivalent)! 

Hmm...that's a lot of True Scale couplers to modify, and FVM semi-scale wheels to buy too...

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[squirrelhunter]

Thank goodness we are blessed with several decal options and undec Intermountain boxcar kits in the second hand marketplace.

  Frank

I don't know, the 10'6" modified AAR kits are pretty hard to find, and the 50' cars don't seem to show up too often either.

It's clear that the big manufacturers think transition era freight cars don't sell. I think they have decided everyone models 1995-2005 (I get it, that whole era was Ed's Law) or the last 5 years or so.

[nkalanaga]

I wouldn't mind seeing ESM do it.  I assume most Eastern Seaboard railroads owned them, and undecorated versions could be used by modelers nationwide.

[Rossford Yard]

Welllll...I've still got over 200 IMR reefer kits, & miscellaneous boxcar kits, all pre-1957 build dates.  I should probably count 'em just for curiosity's sake....and get some more Tenax (or the equivalent)! 

Hmm...that's a lot of True Scale couplers to modify, and FVM semi-scale wheels to buy too...

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Yeah, I would bet all of of us have so many more freight cars than we need.  Unlike you, I buy all RTR, but still feel like maybe I ought to weather, convert to metal wheels, weight, snip coupler trip pins, etc., before being upset at not having more models to throw in the drawer for occasional use on the layout......someday.

[Rossford Yard]

So, at lunch, I was perusing my new RMC and noticed that IM is taking pre-orders for the 4750 covered hoppers again.  BN in multiple numbers is one of the 8 new roads. One of the canceled ones was a BN green with Frisco road markings.  The others were "off brand" private roads for the most part.  And why wouldn't they?  As expressed in an earlier post, IM has openly said that Covered Hoppers have been their most successful projects, with 250K+ sold in both scales.

My guess is that they were trying to create lesser used roadnames (in response to demand from modelers like me who like cars from other than the big 6, including private roads and lease cars.)  They probably didn't get enough pre-orders and canceled them (I recall IM telling me the GP 10's weren't looking good at Salt Lake City in 2019.)  I have had other mfgs tell me that dull paint schemes and lesser known roads really don't sell all that well. 

So, if they are guilty of anything, it is probably waiting too long to keep their website current as they should in the internet era.