Wow! This is one of the absolute best threads ever! Everyone has done great work. sd90s, those kitbashed structures are just amazing. Has your layout been published? If not, it should be! Russ
From the head of the wet blanket society...who? I just wanted to remind you that most of the structures you've shared here are Cornerstone and not Walther's buildings. Oh, I know...Walthers bought out Cornerstone. I just felt the credit is due, where the credit is due...do you? On the subject of published. If it's been posted here, it's been published...possibly for posterity. Have fun!
When was this? I did not know that Cornerstone was ever a separate company? Did Walthers buy Concor and Heljan, too? Thanks. All new info to me.
You Didn't Know What, what you poking fun at me? Mr. Informed! Not to worry...I couldn't care less. However, you got me to thinking and questioning my conclusion. I just went and read the box label of several of my Cornerstone kits. It reads, "Walthers" on top, followed by "Cornerstone...". Yes, apparently you are Mr. Informed. I don't believe, it started out as Walthers owning the company that made the kits but was commissioned by Walthers. Historically: Walthers has served as a distributor or vendor of ConCor, Heljan and other product lines. They have a huge warehouse of train good's and they can drop ship from the manufacturer or warehousing facilities across the states. They can sell wholesale to your LHS or retail direct to you. Not a bad deal. It wasn't until recently that Walthers purchased Life Like and Cornerstone. Not that they haven't had these product lines available, all along. Or so goes the rumor mill. In the past they've been known to commission and/or produce their own product lines. Back in the 60's and 70's you could expect that if Walthers produced a train car, it would be the best or finest on the market. Not, so true today. Since, Walthers purchased both Life Like and Cornerstone, the amount of good's coming from them have slowed down considerably. We've been discussing this on another thread. I do expect that to change as the economy improves. You is as up to date as anyone can be in this rotating rumor mill... With little to no miss-perceptions? Disclaimer: If my information is correct. Pay attention, there is going to be a quiz later and there again maybe not. Have Fun!
Thanks, Barstow Rick. I really didn't know the specifics of all that. It is one of those "presumed" all these years for me. I really am sorry the Life-Like production slowed. They really began to produce nice items.
Flash, I appreciate the come back. This has been hard to follow and the rumor mill has things going in every which direction. In the late 90's I had the opportunity to work in a hobby shop. Seems to me we had a few Cornerstone kits to sell. None of them marked as being from Walthers. I don't remember when but the word came down that Walther's had commissioned Cornerstone to build some kits, for them. When they finally hit the hobby shops...on the box it should have read "For Walthers by Cornerstone". Instead "Walthers" was in small print over "Cornerstone" in large print. Just like you see it today. At that time, I remember talking to Walther's and the lady I talked to, in answer to my question regarding Cornerstone, responded saying "No we don't own them...we don't have the where with all to do that right now", continuing "They are making kits for us like we did with our HO passenger cars". The last word I had on this was Cornerstone was going under as well as Life Like and Walthers responded by buying or bailing them out. It may actually have more to do with the licensing and copyrights. Anyways, we've seen a substantial slow down of kits. Contact with the guys and gals at Life Like confirmed they are now working for Walther's but will maintain a certain amount of independence. I'm not sure what that means...unless it's referring to artistic licensing and creative thinking for future models. A fairly well known fact is: Kader in China, is about the only actual manufacturing resource for many of our known and finer product lines. The exception being Kato. Kader owns Bachmann, outright. I suspect they'd like to get a bigger piece of the pie. If you get my drift. Perhaps this is why Walthers, put their credit on the line. I don't know what the answer is. By now I'm sure you've read how I feel about Bachmann. What you don't know. As a very loyal customer and unhappy camper, I called Bachmann and ended up talking to one of the owners. I asked her if she was aware of the foibles and glitches that seemed to be built into the locomotives. She answered by saying, "Yes, try as they might the company that makes their models would take liberties and cheapen them". They wouldn't catch the problem until after they arrived on the docks. Honestly, that seemed pretty pathetic and unbelievable. She went on to say they were about ready to sell out to this company...name not mentioned. It's happened. I can't confirm, if it's the same manufacturing plant. I fear that if Kader, becomes our only manufacturing resource for many of our finer model makers, we will end up seeing problems similar to those expressed from unhappy Bachmann customers. Me included. It's a wait and see. What else can we do? Thanks for the spin back. No Quiz, you get off easy today. Grin! Have fun!
Hey Rick.... Here is some fodder for the rumor mill... Walthers is buying up all these N scale companies just to shelve them. Since their goal is to cement HO as the ONLY model. If modelers cant get what they want in N...they would surely switch to HO...thus Walthers wins ! Whatcha think? :tb-wink: .
WHAT, WHAT ? Oh gosh, I hope not. If you think I'm unhappy with Bachmann. Eye or ear has not heard what will come from me and my lips, if this proves to be true. We would all have the right to dump on them. Honestly, I don't think so. I think you have a situation where there are bad debts that need to be paid off and it's taking all of Walthers capital or cash flow to do so. I would guess the management and administrations of the companies absorbed are being down sized as we discuss this and committees meeting to decide what hits the market first. It would be foolish of Walthers to shoot themselves in the foot. We N scalers are a major buying market second only to HO. Better that Walthers makes an effort to find another manufacturing solution and not depend on Kader. There are people here in the states that would work piece meal and would be glad to have a job creating and packaging models. I know of one in the Dayton, OH arena that hires people and pays them based on how much they can turn out. Not the best quality control but I would think better then the China connection. Down side: To do all this takes a huge, exorbitant amount of capital. Never mind the green minded folks who feel it's their job to...do I need to go on? mad: We shall see!
Come on guys , this is not supposed to be a industry thread but rather a fun building thread. Isn't it ? Mike :mmad:
Like anything else you need to take from this what you want and leave the rest behind. I don't think we should be afraid to discuss the problems here. To invite if need be the heads of model making states to join in. I probably should have started another thread but felt that we needed to recognize the original contributors and the gifts they gave us. Here on this thread you can find some awesome buildings and we can thank Cornerstone and Walthers as well as others... for making it happen. Have fun!
The history section on the Walthers site indicates that the Cornerstone name was rolled out by them in 1990. This accords with my own recollection that the Cornerstone name was new and unique to Walthers. Obviously they had struck a deal with Heljan to make kits exclusively for them, and needed a new name for marketing purposes. David
I understand that the steel mill theme of the German Trix was produced by Walthers who let it produce by Heljan. How complicated can things be? I have a Walthers HO building, produced by Kibri. So, Kibri makes a kit one country next to mine, ships it to the US, and then I ship it back to Europe.:tb-confused: We have the same problem with consolidation of manufacturers. Many companies have disappeared, others have been taken over so now you have Marklin and Roco, with Trix/Minitrix and Fleischmann being departments. The kit builder Pola has become part of Faller, wich means: higher prices for the once cheap Pola kits. And some of those kits were also produced for the American market under American brand names.
How cool is that? How hot is that? How Bit...in is that? Well, my mom used to be offended when I used that descriptive adverb. How neat is that? There that should work. Have fun!
Quoted by BarstowRick The last word I had on this was Cornerstone was going under as well as Life Like and Walthers responded by buying or bailing them out. It may actually have more to do with the licensing and copyrights. Anyways, we've seen a substantial slow down of kits. Contact with the guys and gals at Life Like confirmed they are now working for Walther's but will maintain a certain amount of independence. I'm not sure what that means...unless it's referring to artistic licensing and creative thinking for future models. ___________________________________________________ A little off topic but relevant to some of the discussion... Walters bought out Life Like back in 1997, I believe--late 90's for sure. Life Like had suffered through not one, but two warehouse fires and the second one pretty much devastated the company. Walthers bought mostly the product lines, tooling, and contractor network. Much of the inventory was lost, but not before Life Like flooded the market with many low cost and fairly good quality but overproduced models like the FA series, PA series, and E series diesels. Imagine how cost competitive some N scale products might be today if Life Like had survived. A standard DC E-8 that Life Like listed for $40 bucks lists for $100 under the Walters label, with only minor changes. Probably not a big deal to the older modelers, but a real kick in the teeth to a kid wanting to get into the hobby. Too bad.
Keep these pics coming! Here is my little collection of Cornerstone kits waiting to be built: OL King & Sons (purchased in 1991) to be converted into a police station. Mills Bros Lumber Al's Station Pella Station To be purchased: 2-Stall Engine House
An inspirational thread and making me look again at what I have planned. Does anyone have the ADM Grain Elevator kit that they could post pics of please? I'm particularly interested in what it looks like on the "road" side. Only pics I've seen are of the rail side with the reception shed. Thanks
Very interesting thread here, thanks to all the members who took some of their valuable time to post pictures of their structures , so please allow me to contribute. 1) A kitbashed Walthers modular brewery installed on my 12" X 24" micro-layout 2) Another Walthers modular structure to hide the intersection of the overpass with the ( not installed ) left side backdrop 3) Merchant's row II on my bigger laugh: 25" X 36" ( a piece of hollow core door ) layout. You'll notice the rubber band because I didn't glue the 4 walls together, I would like to detail the stores with some appliances and furniture. 4) I wouldn't like that interesting thread to degenerate into a manufactures war Jacques
