I noticed on some of our favorite internet suppliers the overlapping offerings of BLMA and ExactRail products. I assumed it to be coincidental that both were offering Trinty boxcars then I noticed another overlapping offering of the Pullman PS2 hoppers. Is this a cooperative OEM relationship between the two companies or something else? Interesting development none the less. Maybe it has been previously discussed. ANyway my curiosity got the best of me so I thought I would pitch it out there.
Their is no partnership between BLMA and Exaxt Rail, just plain coincidence, twice! The ER's refers will be out first but the BLMA's will be nicer, just as the PS4000. My money is with BLMA all the way, Craig's the man!
As a Model Train store owner, I am getting tired of Hoppers. everybody seams to be offering them in both HO and N scale. There are so many other pieces of rolling stock that is not in production.
Definitely not a collaborative effort if you saw the messages posted on the Atlas board by an "employee" from ExactRail accusing BLMA of everything up to industrial espionage. Craig Martyn responded very tactfully to the accusations. Funny how Exactrail normally announces their releases about a month from delivery and all of a sudden, poof, the Trinity car is announced with a delivery date outside their normal window after Craig announces his. Coincidence?? I think not. Personally, I think the fact that you get 47 unique numbers between the two of them is pretty cool. Only one repeat number is not that big a deal. Hope they both can make a profit from the cars. Brian
Both ER and BLMA have carved out a niche for themselves making rolling stock pieces that nobody else is really making. I think it's pure coincidence that they both came out with PS 4000 hoppers about the same time and then the ARMN reefers.
I feel for you, but I never get tired of hoppers. Almost 85% of my fleet is made up of various hoppers (at one point I had over 300). If you model the Midwest, that's about all you see sometimes... I can understand the position of the manufacturers in that they will continue to pump them out if they are selling. Tooling costs serious $$$$ for new cars. I'd almost equate it to opening a second store for the retail owner in terms of the start up costs. Brian
I doubt there was any collaboration to put out the same model. Perhaps, after they found out, they agreed to do different road numbers to make the best of a bad situation, however. Or, its just coincidence that they picked different numbers. If you add in IM's conversion R-70-20 reefers, it is certainly the year for reefers and it is a much needed model for us modern guys. Its just too bad one of them didn't pick the BNSF model for variety!
So what are the tooling costs for a new car? What amount of money equals "serious $$$$"? I have heard figures that run all over the board but none of the manufacturers are talking about "proprietary information".
As a model railroader, I'm buying tons of hoppers! We have a very limited selection of hoppers available in N scale, but this is slowly changing. Mark
So, contact a manufacturer and talk them into making the car you want. I've done it several times, and it's not so hard... PS> It was mostly on this site!
Personally, I wish Craig would turn his focus back to N scale detail parts. I know the overhead isn't as great, but there's so many parts we need since Sunrise and Detail Assoc. parts are all long gone. SP lighting packages anyone?
Between $100k and $200k or so. I may be on the low end. There's the design work, dies, machines to run them on, raw materials, paint and printing, trucks and couplers, packaging, shipping, more shipping to dist.. Also no return on the investment until 6 months/1 year down the road.
I don't have insider notes, but it's more than I make in a 5 year period (and I make a decent wage). If it was cheaper, I'd be happy to make the cars everyone wants..... My theory is if it was cheap, there would be more on the market, no?? Brian
The digit "5" is the only character of this particular formula I have on my calculator[I don't have a "(and I make a decent wage)" key], therefore I am unable to use it in determining the acutal tooling cost........... Maybe if we knew exactly how many of a certain item were produced, we could more easily determine the cost...........
I don't think tooling costs are as exorbitant as what's being mentioned in this thread. There are some fairly small companies coming out with new cars. If tooling costs were into the 6 digits I doubt you would see them come to market.
The common quote is between $80-100K for an average car. Loco's of course more if you are starting fresh. Say the car sells for $18 and the manufacture gets about a 1/3 of that back as raw profit, (after manufacturing costs, shipping, etc.) it takes a production of 15-20K cars to break even. They are taking a big chance introducing a new car. BLMA introducing their new car in 24 numbers mean they should probably run about 1000-2000 of each number to cover the first release of the reefer which seems reasonable with some of the release numbers I have seen on other cars.
Skip, I just don't think the figure is that high. I really don't. Now do I have anything to back that up? No. I just see lot's of small player knocking out cars and I just can't believe they're upfronting 80 Large before they get their first dollar returned to them. And given the size of the N-scale market, I'm thinking they don't have to sell anywhere near 15,000 cars to break even. To me that's a hellacious amount of cars.
Michael, One manufacturer told me that the tooling for an N scale vehicle runs around $80,000. Another manufacturer told me it cost them almost as much to tool for a vehicle as it does for a freight car. I have also heard that the tooling costs for a complete passenger train can be well over $1,000,000. This is definitely not a cheap hobby! Carter
I have heard that $75-80K tooling number for freight cars. It might be less for things like box cars and reefers and more for tank cars with complex shapes, more railings, etc. I think it used to be higher. Locos I have heard still run over $200K. I am not sure if I am right, of course. But the numbers look daunting and anyone who does this, like BLMA or ER (hell, even Kato and Atlas) do it more because they love MRR than because they want to make the Forbes List. If $80K is the number all in, and they have an MSRP of $25, after 40% markup at the LHS level and 15% to the wholesaler, the mfg grosses $12 or so per car. Breakeven would be about 6666 cars, which I think are easily sold in most cases. IM has publicly said that they have sold over 225K covered hoppers in N (250K in HO) over the ?dozen years they have been out, so that has been a big home run for IM. I doubt modern reefers have quite the sales appeal as somewhat generic cov hops but I think they will sell at least 7000 of them. 7200 divided by the 24 numbers equals 300 per road number. I have also heard that is the minimum typical run for any given paint scheme to be practical. If all of the above isn't too far off (and it may be, even though I am not a govt. accountant!) then it looks like BLMA is planning on a marginally profitable line of cars. as always, I could be wrong.
Easy advice but,does it work? I been hounding Atlas and Athearn for a SW1500 for months. --------------------- As far as tooling..Only the manufacturers knows the true costs of producing a car.I've often wonder how many N Scale cars they get from a ton of raw material? -------------------------------------------------------------- As far as ER and BLMA both makes excellent cars and I am looking forward to the Trinity reefer..
