Railsmith NP Diner

[nkalanaga]

Mine arrived today - very nice.  I should remove the end skirts from the GN BSB car, but that can wait.

[greenwizard88]

One car at a time, it’s getting easier to model the North Coast Limited

I really wish I could get a NCL box set like Kato does. I get nervous buying singles, especially on cars with colors that have a history of being different, depending on the day of the week. It doesn't help that I found him after some items were already sold out

[Sokramiketes]

good to know, thank you.  We do a lot of his decorating but I almost never get over to that side of the building to see what is new.   As for ownership, last we worked with a Chinese factory it was clear that we owned the tooling and could have it run anywhere we wanted as long as it was in china and as far away from Hong Kong as possible  LOL   I guess it would be too easy to spirit the tooling away there than in the interior. 
 Joe

Yes, Lowell has leveraged the existing tooling (nee Walthers) to create new cars.  I don't believe you guys are decorating any, unless it's smaller production run stuff?  So the new coaches and sleepers (and now new diner) probably haven't cycled through MTL.  His MTL special runs (on MTL carbodies) seem to be held up in production, so hopefully you guys are having luck restaffing and restarting the custom decorated side of the business! 

[Mark5]

I really wish I could get a NCL box set like Kato does. I get nervous buying singles, especially on cars with colors that have a history of being different, depending on the day of the week. It doesn't help that I found him after some items were already sold out

I have lobbied Kato for years to do the NCL. Alas ...

I too was skeptical about the RailSmith thing (I was thinking "is he really gonna tool up dome cars?"). So when the domes were announced, I decided that I wanted to get in on the RS NCL. I contacted Lowell and asked if the sold out cars would be re-run, and explained that otherwise it would be folly for me to start buying cars if I can't complete the train. he assured me that he will re-run the sold out cars, so I bought into it. 

I got the diner and sleeper, and ordered the dome cars in a separate order. I also picked the matching (mostly matching) BLI F7s.

Touch choice, I know. If Kato announces a 1954 NCL, well ...

Mark

[CBQ Fan]

I will buy the Kato version along with my RS version.

[nkalanaga]

Lowell has said he doesn't plan to rerun car numbers, but unless it's a unique car, I'm sure he'll rerun the cars with new numbers.  It wouldn't make economic sense to retire the tooling after one run.

And the "don't rerun the numbers" could have a problem with the SP&S.  He shows trains for both the original and newer "broad stripe" SP&S schemes.  But the most commonly seen dining car for both was the #405, unnamed in it's original Empire Builder paint, named "COLUMBIA" in the later scheme.  It wore that paint well into Amtrak, and was the only SP&S-painted car I remember seeing in Amtrak service.

[Point353]

Lowell has said he doesn't plan to rerun car numbers, but unless it's a unique car, I'm sure he'll rerun the cars with new numbers.

Perhaps he could look beyond the "collector mentality" and consider rerunning cars with the same roadnumbers.
If nothing else, take pre-orders to determine if there is sufficient demand to warrant reruns of cars with previously produced roadnumbers.

[CBQ Fan]

Perhaps he could look beyond the "collector mentality" and consider rerunning cars with the same roadnumbers.
If nothing else, take pre-orders to determine if there is sufficient demand to warrant reruns of cars with previously produced roadnumbers.

Do you know how small his company really is?  His marketing depart is him and a library of books, plus information shared from customers. When you look at what he has done with the available resources I am not sure how one could not be impressed.   He is not producing models for collectors, he is producing models that will allow modelers to build trains that have never been produced and likely never will. All of his resources are going into the next, and ever expanding, offering.

[Point353]

Do you know how small his company really is?  His marketing depart is him and a library of books, plus information shared from customers. When you look at what he has done with the available resources I am not sure how one could not be impressed.   He is not producing models for collectors, he is producing models that will allow modelers to build trains that have never been produced and likely never will. All of his resources are going into the next, and ever expanding, offering.

How would the size of the company impact the decision whether or not to rerun previously issued roadnumbers?
Can you deny that much of the Lowell Smith Signature product line - begun decades before he acquired the Walthers tooling and started the RailSmith product line - does appear to be non-prototypical models targeted at collectors?

[nickelplate759]

How would the size of the company impact the decision whether or not to rerun previously issued roadnumbers?
Can you deny that much of the Lowell Smith Signature product line - begun decades before he acquired the Walthers tooling and started the RailSmith product line - does appear to be non-prototypical models targeted at collectors?

It's not directly related to the company size, but a small company needs to be even more careful than a big one with their capital.
I think the business logic is as follows:

For a product already set up to enable multiple car numbers on the same paint scheme, a re-run of a car with the same number likely costs the same as a new run with a new number. However, the TAM (Total Available Market) for the re-run of the old number is almost certainly smaller than the TAM for the new number. People who bought the old number are more likely to buy a run with a new number than a rerun of the old number, and people who did NOT buy the old number are equally likely to buy either number.

[thomasjmdavis]

Lowell definitely has a large collector market- historically lots of foobie circus cars, "national park" cars, etc. You meet folks at shows who buy his cars to put on a shelf and admire. They think we are barbaric to actually run them. They would be horrified to find out we modify or weather them. I am sure, as with Micro-trains, collectors make up a large percentage, quite likely a majority (if you count the folks who take them out of the case to run for a week at Christmas) of his total customer base.

But he also has a commitment to doing SP&S/NP/GN cars- either as nice paint jobs on other manufacturers cars, or more recently by bringing out new prototypes in his RailSmith line, which has expanded far beyond the original three Walthers designs (or 7 Walthers designs if you count the fluting options separately). And he is re-running the original Walthers cars, which are accurate or decent stand ins for several roads.

I'm still grumpy with him (probably always will be) over the fake 12-4 Western series. But I still recognize the positive contribution he's making as the ONLY company doing regular regular releases of pre-Amtrak N scale lightweight passenger cars, other than occasional Kato sets- which are much less frequent than they used to be.

All that said, @nickelplate759 makes a good point above. As someone who purchases a lot of N scale passenger cars, I am MUCH more likely to buy a new release in a number I don't already have. This is especially true with Lowell Smith or similar cars, where I really don't want to take the risk of f'ing up the paint job trying to renumber the car.  My heirs will never forgive me.

[Sokramiketes]

How would the size of the company impact the decision whether or not to rerun previously issued roadnumbers?
Can you deny that much of the Lowell Smith Signature product line - begun decades before he acquired the Walthers tooling and started the RailSmith product line - does appear to be non-prototypical models targeted at collectors?

6 of 1, half a dozen...

Sure, Lowell could turn into any other model train company.  But his stuff is holding value way better than the rest of the collector market.  And part of that is exclusivity and the promise to not re-run stuff. 

Does it suck when you miss out on something?  Yep.  But the method to the madness is related to size of company and cash flow, you can count on that...

[CBQ Fan]

I think the decision to not do reruns is that for ever dollar and production slot that would be sunk into repeating old releases could be spent on a whole new offering.  Also, when your small having a no rerun policy drives up demand for your product line.  That helps you stay in business. He can’t afford to wait for you to get around to buying the second or third run.

[wazzou]

^^^ This.

[milw156]

IIRC, the Walther's cars, when they were actually produced, were sold painted and lettered, but not numbered/named. Decals were included in the box. Maybe this is a possibility down the road, with the user purchasing his own decals to keep cost down?  I personally think Lowell has done more with these molds, (and adding to the line) with his limited $$$ resources,  in the relatively short time he has owned them, than WKW EVER would have done.