North American Railcar Corporation

[bdmcnally]

The North American Railcar Corporation was created to bring new and uniquely decorated models of railway rolling stock to the N-scale and HO-scale model railroading hobby communities.

Their first car will be the Saskatchewan Green Hawker Siddeley Canada 4550 Cubic-Foot Cylindrical Covered Hopper. Please see there web page below:

North American Railcar Corporation (http://www.northamericanrailcarcorporation.com)

[Puddington]

The North American Railcar Company is a "subsidary" of Pacific Western Rail Systems - one assumes allowing them to have a profit center that is not affected by their "not for profit" status. The rather grandeous name NARC underlines the fact that they have not yet made their first offering to the market available and will not until mid 2008 and have entered into a very odd exclusivity arrangement with the Sask. provincial government for production of grain car models. (Odd from the standpoint that a government has the time or the inclination to both "licence" a model and would do so with an unproven entity)

Time will tell if their products are of good quality; are reasonably priced; widely available only through their website and historical telemarketing blitz or are "LHS products" and actually "available" as opposed to "uber-limited editions" and lastly, how many products they will offer, or indeed how many other "exclusive" arrangements they will enter into.

For now, it seems that PWRS has been watching the marketing efforts of firms like Rapido Trains who have blitzed the market with classy and interesting ad's months in advance of their intial offerings - Rapido is more than living up to it's hype - until such time as we have "car in hand" this writer considers NARC to be nothing more than "PWRS-Lite"..... and we await their first offering to see what we see. I sincerely hope they live up to the hype they are attempting to create.

[N&W]

FWIW,

PWRS Retail Ltd is a business, nothing I see implies that it is not for profit.

The new thing above is owned by "PWRS Holdings, Inc" which either owns PWRS Retail Ltd or is owned by them.

What a complicated web they are spinning. ;)

[Puddington]

Tangled web indeed - I may well be incorrect or out of date but I believe that PWRS was created by a model railway club as a source of financial support for said club, and as such received Revenue Canada/IRS "not-for-profit" status (a great idea) The members were the shareholders and a board is/was appointed - the holding company sounds like the "for profit" arm.... and don't get me wrong - profits are good...... ( greed IS good - Gordon Gecko - Wall Street)

My question is why the grandeous and prototypical name "North American Railcar Corporation" - what's wrong with PWRS ?

Inquiring minds want to know................