[PRR-talk] Manufacturers' responses - support for ARKits and others

[Jerry Britton]

On Jan 2, 2008, at 3:52 AM, N Scale Kits wrote:

> I am disappointed by the response of manufacturers with regard to
> pre-ordering. I am not sure whether this is a US railroading  
> phenomenon that
> has only recently emerged.

If I am not mistaken, this thread emerged from my post about  
ROCKVILLE tower being cancelled, partly due to poor reservations.

I think some clarify needs thrown in here. This model was to be an  
exclusive kit marketed by Merchandise Service and manufactured on the  
back side by The N Scale Architect. The relationship would not be  
unlike an importer of brass vs. a factory overseas. The manufacturer  
never wanted to do the project at all. Merchandise Service took on  
the financial risk by committing to a minimum number of kits.  
However, MS indicated that a specific % of kits would need to be pre- 
sold... as MS was required to pay 50% of its bill at the time the  
project hit manufacturing... when delivery was still many months out.  
Suffice it to say, MS would be shelling out several thousand dollars  
now for delivery in May or June. Is it unfair of me to desire to have  
50% pre-sold before investing these funds? Would you do it with no  
pre-sales? The manufacturer would not. So I looked at it from a  
standpoint of a) it's not going to happen at all with no pre-sales;  
or b) with pre-sales I will make the investment. This worked well for  
the HARRIS tower project. On ROCKVILLE, the manufacturer opted to go  
south even though none of the financial risk was theirs.

When I opened the ROCKVILLE project for pre-sales, I specified an end  
date, and extended it once. I did not want to follow the steps of  
some larger manufacturers that announce products with only a casual  
intention of production.
>
> Despite gentle criticism of the N Scale Kits PRR F30a and F30d cars  
> [the
> ride height of the deck is a little too high, to allow for tight radii
> curves when using coupler mounted trucks,


This issue was known when I worked with Alan to design these cars. He  
never mentioned the tight radii as a reason, though. The tops of the  
coupler boxes should be flush with the deck surface. In N scale that  
leaves no method to attach the couplers to the deck. Being glued on  
the sides only was not deemed as viable. So we put the coupler box  
below the deck. Since the coupling height is dictated by standards,  
that means the deck ended up being slightly higher than it should be.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jerry Britton, SPF   Member, PRRT&HS   jerry at pennsyrr.com
Pennsylvania Railroad, Eastern Region, 1954 in N Scale.
"Keystone Crossings" - Home of the "PRR-Talk" mailing list!
     http://kc.pennsyrr.com
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