Joe D, Is the MTL Z scale Minnesota Mining & MFG. Co. 40' Double Sheathed Wood Box Car, Single Door, # 51500130, Rd# MINX 1040 the same body as the MTL Nn3 scale 80000000 series Double Sheathed Wood Box Car Single Door? Or is it a totally new body style for Z scale? John
I believe (could be wrong) that the only difference between the Z and Nn3 wood boxcars are the trucks and wheels used under them. Would be good the hear for sure though.
NN3/Z Ding, Ding, Ding...we have a winner! Yep they are the same car. I was hoping to do some more stuff in NN3 but sales are really poor to be honest. So for the time being that body style doubles for both scales. Cheers Joe
HI Joe, Just an observation or two, not really complaining........ OK, complainin'. Maybe that's why sale are slow, same car. when was the last time MT did a new car in Nn3 since the Sloan stuff.....never? It's hard to sell stuff that isn't there, like the flat cars or the gondolas. I was elated when the DSP&P box car came out (again) but how about some flats and gons to go with it? The Oahu RY is an interesting railroad (also a reissue) but if modelers don't have a resource for the decals and heralds for their engines then they're not likely to build a road based on a single freight car. D&RGW, RGS, C&S, EBT and some others are what will more likely sell (faster). Maybe the higher ups at MT are thinking of the "collectors" market when they decide to run (rerun) some of these cars but they should know that narrow gauge modelers are not really the collecting sort for the most part. Nn3 is the red headed step child of Z so the lions share of this market will be Z. The Nn3 modeler is a minority within a minority so is use to the hand-me-downs and left overs, but if it were easy then everybody would do it. Just my thoughts. Steven Fry
I have noticed that the Nn3 market is very small too. I offered a scale Nn3 kit for a Ventilated Boxcar, and sold only a dozen. I built that many for myself! What I got as feedback is that everyone wants their own prototype cars, and I would have been better off with a 26' trussrod flatcar kit, to maybe sell 3 dozen. Also, most of the Nn3 modelers I have met and corrisponded with don't have the large rosters like the N and Z Scalers I know. Standard Gaugers will buy way more stuff than they can ever really use, where Narrow Gaugers seem to have much less stuff, but way more detailed. Just personal observations,
Joe, Thanks for the quick reply. That is what I thought, not what I was hoping, but what I strongly felt (that they were the same car). John
NN3 To Quote my least favorite President..."There you go again"!! First, please understand that the collector's market has very little to do with the MTL business plan as it has evolved in the 5 years I've been there. I think it's one of those Albatros's that will hang on our necks for the rest of time. And, I understand how you feel about that. I was tasked with growing the Z market 4 years ago and so far so good. We never gave up the ghost on NN3 during all that, the problem was the volume of sales we experienced even when we had those prototypes you outlined. No matter how many cars we molded, the facts are that that market is so small that we would loose money every time we turned on the machines. And now for a confession....NN3 is my scale of choice, I have grown to really love Z Scale, but when it comes to what I'd like to model when I stop working and start living off my kids, is NN3. So that community has a soldier in arms at the conference table twice a year and I make the pitch over and over. To managements credit, they listen and understand, but the numbers don't lie. As for the Sloan molds, those are long gone, tooled out soft steel I was told and we did what we could for as long as we could. Two or three years ago we released a brand new NN3 Caboose and even though it's not a major freight car type, expected sales of even a prototype we knew would not be brisk was down right pathetic. I bought 4 and I think I made up about 20% of the sales that month! Even now with the release of the NN3 boxcar, sales are very low and production can be done in the span of a lunch break it seems. Like I said above, I'm a NN3 modeler, love the scale, love the look, but it's difficult to keep a business the size of ours going when you can count sales on your fingers and toes! Mabey things will change, the more the NN3 community shares their projects in major magazines the more exposure they will have. I've addressed this with the Editor's of most of the magazines we advertize in and they all say the same thing...send in some articles. The NN3 Resource Guide is great, but try and find on in a hobby shop, when was the last time we had an article in Model Railroader or RMC or even NGSG? We are a small bunch right now, hopfully things will change and if we see it we can respond with more product. Hope this answers some questions... Cheers Joe QUOTE=Steve F;395179]HI Joe, Just an observation or two, not really complaining........ OK, complainin'. Maybe that's why sale are slow, same car. when was the last time MT did a new car in Nn3 since the Sloan stuff.....never? It's hard to sell stuff that isn't there, like the flat cars or the gondolas. I was elated when the DSP&P box car came out (again) but how about some flats and gons to go with it? The Oahu RY is an interesting railroad (also a reissue) but if modelers don't have a resource for the decals and heralds for their engines then they're not likely to build a road based on a single freight car. D&RGW, RGS, C&S, EBT and some others are what will more likely sell (faster). Maybe the higher ups at MT are thinking of the "collectors" market when they decide to run (rerun) some of these cars but they should know that narrow gauge modelers are not really the collecting sort for the most part. Nn3 is the red headed step child of Z so the lions share of this market will be Z. The Nn3 modeler is a minority within a minority so is use to the hand-me-downs and left overs, but if it were easy then everybody would do it. Just my thoughts. Steven Fry[/QUOTE]
I appreciate the insight Joe. Maybe I should cry to Robert R for not making those 4 dozen 26' truss rod flats. Steve F PS Robert, the ventilated Box car on a narrow gauge line....... isn't that the box car with the shot gun blast holes in the side of it?
Strange that MT would get into HOn3 after hearing about the low Nn3 sales. I though when I saw the first HOn3 car that it might be a low seller. Even if it is a great car, it hard to find one single narrow gauge car with a bunch of prototypes.
HON3 When HON3 was presented as a concept I was concerned as well. We took a lot of time and did some survey's and tried to figure out the different percentages within the scales. We were pretty surprised at the numbers...I don't recall right now what they were exactly, but they were on par with Z or pretty close. Sales would bear that out at this point. The biggest problem with Narrow Gauge is the lack of common prototypes as you pointed out. Even doing the C&S Composite underframes has a limited range. So, we'll see. Joe
NN3 Hey, just wanted you to know that NN3 is an important part of the plan, just need to figure out how to grow the scale at this point! Take care Joe
I just looked at Tom's Trackside Trains Nn3 page and Tom still has my old kit listed, as well as Tom Knapp's Carter Brothers stock car kit. It has been a couple years, and of those few produced, there are still kits available!
Sales Good Morning Robert, Yep, when we release an SP Car in N or Z, I generally have to put in a reservation mid month, the month before to be sure to get it...and then I end up feeling compelled to trade them back for something else to be sure everyone at least gets something. I have 6 of the SP PS2's with the red lettering and feel guilty ( When we do NN3 there's always product left. To bad really, I think NN3 is an ideal compromise between N and Z and offers a size that is workable and there are plenty of aftermarket goods to make a layout possible. I'm really surprised you have any Carter Brother's product left out there Robert, especially with the west coast guys. When I was working up the HON3 program, I pushed to do Carter Brother's proto's initially. I think they would make a great subject for NN3. Cheers Joe
NN 3 Inventory Hey Robert, Just to follow up on this thread about more NN3. It's possible the line can have new life breathed into it, but I need to figure out a way to grow the scale. I was looking at Inventory yesterday and saw that we currently have 9 different road names for the 15100 Boxcar still on the shelf, including Undecorated units. I mean, there's not just one or two, but a lot of them! It's obvious I haven't done a good job getting folks motivated to buy product. I also understand that the normal NG layout is less dependent on vast fleets of cars and more specific to the road modeled. How many boxcars are you willing to run on a small layout...how many boxcars actually ran on the road you are modeling, and how many cars can those dinky loco's pull!! It's the same problem we face in HOn3. It's not like doing a 40 PS1 Box Car that will go on forever. C&S only had 20 or so of those Reefers...then what? The big question. Cheers Joe
I don't know how many will bite for this, but how about decorating this wood boxcar for the New Haven and selling it with bettendorf trucks? It was one of the few 36' boxcars to make it into the 1950's: http://www.steamfreightcars.com/gallery/boxauto/nh172050main.html http://www.steamfreightcars.com/modeling/models/mcguirk/nh168172main.html It was re-build with a steel door and ends, but hey... I have scale drawings of this car including lettering if needed. Course this is pushing more Z not Nn3, but still getting rid of boxcar shells.
Chris' Idea sounds good but would involve printing costs. With the advent of Jim Gawenis' making a loco kit and Toms Knapps modeling on the cover of N Scale Magazine then perhaps the result of this infusion of enthusiasm may produce new sales. Sometimes the parts are worth more than the some of the whole. Would modelers buy the underframes as a base for there Road specific modeling needs? Maybe this is why the flatcars sold out first. Just speculation on my part which may or may not be useful. Steve F
the problem with Nn3 is the same as it was for Z -- lack of available motive power. marklin conversions were the only way to get steam, until MTL produced their locos, but they were expensive and now hard to find. i think white pass and yukon would find a market if there was an affordable SD chassis and shell for their diesels, but that would also require making some container flats (white pass is credited with inventing containerized - intermodal- freight). Aspen has a white pass diesel and K28 kits, but the price is still the stumbling block for most. i believe it was MTLs F7 that boosted the american Z market, which went into orbit with the release of the GP35. future MTL locos will take us to the moon! i never seriously considered Z until i heard that the GP35 was coming out -- and then i began to think of all the great possibilities; now i cant' stop myself. my 2 cents. dave f.
As far as lenght of trains, maybe 5-7 cars are typical for freight trains or logging trains, and 2-3 cars for passenger trains. This is based off the N and O narrow gauge trains I have seen running at the train shows, and what I have seen on narrow gauge layout tours. Most people into narrow gauge have 1/10 the cars that a Standard Gauger has. I don't know what could be done to grow the Narrow Gauge market at all.
White Pass I've considered in the past doing WP&Y during the war years so I could do flats with all those military loads, but locomotion is a huge block. I wish we were a bigger company and could make some more NN3 stuff. I mean if we could do a K with inside and outside frames I think things would go ape around here. Your right, once we got the GP-35 up and running our Z market exploded. I was doing some research between some paperwork today and was looking up the WP&Y Diesels and ran across your article in the NN3 Handbook. With our 6 wheel trucks on the way it makes sense to try this in the future. Right now I have my hands full with projects I can't finish anyway!! Joe UOTE=david f.;396583]the problem with Nn3 is the same as it was for Z -- lack of available motive power. marklin conversions were the only way to get steam, until MTL produced their locos, but they were expensive and now hard to find. i think white pass and yukon would find a market if there was an affordable SD chassis and shell for their diesels, but that would also require making some container flats (white pass is credited with inventing containerized - intermodal- freight). Aspen has a white pass diesel and K28 kits, but the price is still the stumbling block for most. i believe it was MTLs F7 that boosted the american Z market, which went into orbit with the release of the GP35. future MTL locos will take us to the moon! i never seriously considered Z until i heard that the GP35 was coming out -- and then i began to think of all the great possibilities; now i cant' stop myself. my 2 cents. dave f.[/QUOTE]
And the White Pass, at least in the diesel era, had long trains for narrow gauge. I've always found it interesting - a "modern" (I think of 1960s-1980s as modern, so I guess the present is postmodern) US 3-footer. I would expect it to attract the attention of a lot of modellers. Since Nn3 is really more of meter-gauge, it can represent 3'6" as well as 3'... the Newfoundland Railway? A lot of Newfoundland rolling stock was retrucked standard gauge equipment.
