NE Caboose coming from Walthers???

[Rossford Yard]

The whole Walthers issue got me to thinking at lunch.  Is there any universe in which all mfgs could be A+ makers of everything they trided to make?

Atlas and Kato are nearly 100%, sure.

IM and Athearn are maybe 75% successful in offering locos and cars

RC is about 100% successful in cars.

LL, Bachman, Con Cor, Model Power and a few others are less than 50% perhaps overall.

Train Cat, FVR, BLMA are nearly 100% so far in their early careers.

Walthers/LL has been in the 50% category for locos and cars but batting a lot better in structures.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses and as a whole, we get what we need, if we can't always get what we want.
etc,

[asarge]

Ya' missed a few there Jeff. I guess a universe with government funded trains, no need for profit and everything goes together just perfect world so manufcturers would do every possible variation on every loco or car and you might get a triple A+ rating, but that doesn't exist in this universe.

[Rossford Yard]

Gov't funded trains? Prices would go down unless our locos had the optional toilets, which would add $350 to the price, eh?

Lot of jokes there, but we aren't supposed to get political, so I will leave them to your imagination......

[Mark5]

Atlas & Kato are good, but not 100% ...

I'll not go further into this can of worms.

Mark

[Rossford Yard]

Okay, so no one is 100%.  Kato had a brief period of quality issues, and in the minds of many, has been surpassed by Atlas as far as detail quality.  The point is, we are lucky to have the number of suppliers we do have for N scale locos and rollling stock. 

[Denver Road Doug]

First, do you really know that those photos show the final product and aren't taken from previous releases (expedient, but not too smart if it causes doubt) I recall some early photos of the Bachman DD40X had old style open pilots, but I think the final version was enclosed, for one example?

Second, do you REALLY think an mfg would spend any amount of money trying to screw up an existing scale it sells many products to?  I mean, REALLY?


No question Walthers has been a bit hit and miss in the N market.  LL was, too.  I just can't believe any one thinks they screw us on purpose.

Jeff, actually, yes we pretty much know that the photos are at least representative of what is coming.   The Walthers response on Facebook pretty well confirmed what is being discussed here.  So your contention that "we don't know yet"....well we kinda do unless Walthers responds to the criticism.

I don't really have a dog in the hunt, but this is pretty bad.  I put this right up there with Bachmann increasing the MSRP of their Dash 8's 50% at the last minute (from $90 to $135) before the release of those locos.  Epic FAIL.  They should be ashamed of the $25 MSRP.  There's no amount of inflation-talk, economy-excuse, or jewel case props that will explain away that move.

I think part of what is really ticking everybody off (besides potential versus delivery) about this is we continue down this vicious cycle of Walthers bitching about n-scalers bitching about Walthers.  They won't sell any of the cabooses.  (I'd be surprised if anyone actually places a preorder unless their LHS is filling them full of crap about it being some great new model)  Then they'll continue to verbally throttle n-scalers at shows, and maybe cut back n-scale product development even further.  Oh and then they'll dump them for dimes on the dollar and further condition their customers to just wait it out until everything goes on sale.

[Mr. G]

One of the things that bothers me here is that a large manufacturer putting out a junk item like this may put off others considering putting out their own model.

Also, metal pizza cutters, no glass, massive chunky details, borked paint...whether or not this is the final form, there are many sins here that likely won't be fixed. 

In the case of the DD40X, it's true that people griped prematurely, and they didn't have the information to gripe about the right things, though griping was definitely warranted.

On the up side, this makes beautiful models like FVM's and TrainCat's look like a steal.  People who complained about premium quality cars at $25 and $30 have no room to gripe; even junk models are $25.

[Bruce Bird]

I know I really vented about this release in my last post, but as a WM modeler you have to see it from my perspective.  Yes, the LL release was personally popular with me as I need NE cabs out the wazoo for my layout.  I just went down to the basement and counted: 25 total cars in WM, RDG, N&W and P&WV.  All of the WM cars (20) are custom repaints since the original LL cars weren't at all close.  All of them have body-mount couplers,  MT trucks with low-pros and additional weight added.  I like the way they look and work.  But given the models of other types of cabooses that have been released since I built my fleet I know that it is possible to do even better- right out of the box.

And along comes Walthers touting a new and improved version that is right-out-of-the-box much worse than what I've been rolling around now for almost 20 years.  And at four times the original cost.  Lee is right on the money- it's about frustration.  We all KNOW they can do better- they just don't want to.  And then they shiester-up the ad campaign by talking about the new and improved box that it comes in.  Are you kidding me?  I think I'm watching an old Monty Python skit on how to sell a dead parrot!

I think we ought to jump in and help out with our own ridiculous takes:

"New and improved metal wheelsets with our patented 'Safety Flange' that improves tracking on rough and uneven Ntrak modules!"

"Anti-glare panels on the sides of the cupola of the Conrail versions!"

Bruce

[Mark5]

It's a shame pix of Rich Yourstone's modded Lifelike NE cabs (CNJ and Reading) are no longer online - he demonstrated convincingly that with a bit of lowering and some detail work the basic shell can be the basis for a very good model.

If Wally merely added window glass and lowered the cab this would have been fairly decent.

Mark

[bbussey]

N scale has a few great eastern cabooses for Conrail:
Atlas Wide Vision
Bowser N5
Bowser N5C
TrainCat's bay windows and transfer cab

There are some foobs that are so good they make it on the list:
Athearn bay window
Atlas Magor
MTL bay window

And, yes EVEN Life-Like managed to get the right paint scheme on the right body in the right paint on their NE cab.

But Walthers? They make NO improvements, and lied to the public TWICE when announcing the pre-order:
1. The paint was correct on the illustration/announcement flier.
2. They state these ride on Swing Motion trucks. They photo shows otherwise.

And they did this on top of a 400% markup over the original car. Those cars retailed for less than $6 new in the early 90's. Walthers was blowing these cars out for as little as $2 a few years ago.

This goes beyond a casual disregard for our scale, this is downright vicious. Someone over at Walthers doesn't like N scale and does what he can to mess the releases up.

Atlas NE6 is also prototypical.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

First, do you really know that those photos show the final product and aren't taken from previous releases (expedient, but not too smart if it causes doubt) I recall some early photos of the Bachman DD40X had old style open pilots, but I think the final version was enclosed, for one example?

Second, do you REALLY think an mfg would spend any amount of money trying to screw up an existing scale it sells many products to?  I mean, REALLY?


No question Walthers has been a bit hit and miss in the N market.  LL was, too.  I just can't believe any one thinks they screw us on purpose.

Re: First, Yes the first Life-Like release HAD the correct paint for Conrail, so this is indeed the new run.
Re: Second, Yes, I do think that someone in Walthers has such a disregard for our scale that they approve of paint samples, molding samples etc. without actually looking at the product.

Think of it this way. You own a company that produces trains in several scales. You would hire the same artist to do the HO stuff as well as N scale. Somehow the HO stuff gets done right, or nearly so. The N scale stuff is off on fundamental basics like color and font type. They could just use the HO research... but they don't, they change it for the worse. How does this happen?

Its a "They [n scalers] will take anything we give them. I will not spend the extra 5 minutes compairing the paint sample to the photo in front of me." So yes, I do think they rather spend the money putting something out and not spend the time to check the samples.

How do you explain railings and steps in n being thicker than their HO counterparts? This car could have been a rock star. Now its crud.

[jym]

Hiya.

Another example of Walthers dissing the n-scale community. The only upgrade on the NE caboose is the price! I bought a number of the LL cabeese years ago for $6 each and was more than satisfied but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a quarter of a C-note for the same thing. For $6 I'd settle for the Lionel-looking cab on the right; for $25 I'd expect to get something similar to the one on the left. C'mon Walthers, give us credit for being savvy enuff to recognize a rip-off! Regards,

Jim Maurer
Tokushima, Japan

[sizemore]

http://cgi.ebay.com/N-Scale-Norfolk-Western-Caboose-500336-By-LL-/320548676907?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item4aa230a52b

[2-8-8-0]

N scale has come a looong way, even in  the last 5-10 years. Atlas is probably the stick by which others are judged, so good that i will probably run some diesels simply to have some Atlas locos, and their freight cars are a godsend, especially for C&O fans! Kato is great, but their thumb-the-nose attitude at the US market in general and eastern roads in particular leaves a bad taste; that being said, their Mikado runs like all other N steam should. MT is losing the pizza cutters and produces a huge variety, and most are available all the time as undecs. Then, we have walthers....

Walthers simply isnt keeping up, they arent even trying. Even bachmann has hit it out of the park with the 2-8-0, the heavy 4-8-2, and the new H4 (decoder aside, but at online price of 160-ish, who cares) Walthers has...the 0-8-0 which we may never see run again (and had some serious QC issues with the 1st run) the 2-8-4 that pulls worse than the B-mann H-5 (and is incorrect for many roads) and the 2-8-8-2, their ONE good steam engine, and AFAIK it was developed before Walthers purchased LL. I cant comment on their diesels, or freight cars, simply because I wont even consider them as long as Atlas exists.

I just dont think theyre even trying to get in the N scale game. And i dont think for one second that its on purpose, why would they cut themselves out of a rapidly growing market on purpose? I just think someone there in a position of authority is totally clueless.

[bbussey]

,,, No question Walthers has been a bit hit and miss in the N market.  LL was, too.  I just can't believe any one thinks they screw us on purpose.

Where has Life-Like been "hit and miss" with their products?  Once they decided to offer higher quality items, their products improved exponentially right up to the Walthers acquisition.  The release of the GP18 started the rise, and the products got better with each release and re-release - both in design and in decoration.  SW1200, FA1/FB1, FA2/FB2, PA1, Erie-Built, DL-109, FM C-Liner, RS2 and I'm sure I'm leaving out something.  All of these were either released or in process prior to the acquisition and not one of these models is sub-standard.