Also, if you can settle for Espee instead of Santa Fe, there's a set for $40 + $9.25 shipping Sent from the magical mystery box
! That seems to include the folks who choose what to manuafcture. With short passenger cars selling like hotcakes, I wonder why nobody is manufacturing any in the 50' - 60' range these days. Wheels of Time is rerunning their 67' Harriman coaches with pre-orders, and MicroTrains sells out its 63' RPO, both at substantial prices, new. I think 63' clerestory roof steel coaches with a generic look and 50' woodwn coaches like these would sell well, given what people are actually paying on eBay now. Steve
You're not kidding. I forget who it was the other day I saw in a thread they were looking for modern era n scale vehicles. Unless you go European or Japanese, or want to build tiny resin vehicles, you're just SOL. Meanwhile, a huge majority of the road power manufacturers put out are modern SD and AC diesels. What a strange disconnect. Unless you can populate your entire layout with F150s and Tauruses, lol. Sent from the magical mystery box
I'm always looking for Kato GS-4's and this one came up in my search today. Price isn't the problem (currently $127), neither is the bad blurry pictures, it's the shipping: $43.70! Hawaii is not part of the continental states, but I'm not paying for someone to put it in one of those canoes and paddle it to me personally! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kato-n-scal...eam-Loco-Southern-Pacific-4449-/141610681795?
This is due to lawyers and licensing. For size of many small manufacturers, the time and costs to get approved are often not worth paying such expenses.
We have all seen those TV adds where if you order now we will include a 2nd one for free, just pay shipping and handling on the 2nd one, and of course on the first one too. That's how they can afford the 2nd one for free. The shipping and handling more than pays for the 2nd "free" one and adds a nice sum to their bottom line also. If I can ship a package to sunny California for about $8 with the Post Office providing the box for free, plus insurance that adds on a few more dollars and the cost of the bubble wrap is about 30 cents for what I use off the roll. Hmm making a profit off the loco and the shipping.
That is quite true. Perhaps a small startup could pursue lookalikes. They do it in a lot of other media. Showing my age (or relative lack thereof), Grand Theft Auto doesn't have licensing but you can tell what each vehicle was modeled after. Sent from the magical mystery box
I also have raced radio controlled touring cars for way too many years and saw this very thing happen in that sport. For years we had bodies that looked like the full sized touring cars. Some people even painted their car bodies to look like the real cars. Then several years ago the manufacturers put a stop to this by demanding a licensing agreement (just like what the railroads tried to do to the hobby industry). Now you couldn't make a replica body of a Ford, Chevy, Mazda, etc. without paying them for the rights. As a result, almost NONE of the bodies look like the real race cars...the bodies are just made up 'cars'. We race the 'LTCR', the 'R9-R', the 'P37-N'...none of which are real cars. Fortunately, some manufacturers are coming to their senses and no longer charging fees. Lexus, Dodge, and Mazda bodies have been released which will hopefully end this stupid money grab.
It is the current business model in the US: "Damn the future, profits NOW!" In the old days, companies used to look at things like scale models of their products built by others as free advertizing. Unless, of course, they intended to build and sell the same scale models themselves. Either way, modelers got models. Steve
This is quite true. What they consider to be long term investments today are instead actually very short term. They don't care if the company exists in a decade or two. It's just smash and grab all you can right now.
In my RC hobbies, I lucked out. Jeep never made Proline or Parma get licensing, so I have a J10 and a Cherokee. I can't stand eBay sellers who jack up shipping like that. Sent from the magical mystery box
Mail to and from Hawaii was the same cost at Last I looked, Priority Mail to and from Hawaii was about the same as Continental US PM. Flat rate was exactally the same. I have to laugh at sellers that use Priority Mail, but won't ship to Alaska or Hawaii. Big Duh to them. This seller is just trying to make money off shipping.
eBay is "improving" the subcategory under Model Trains... http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/growing/categorychanges/toys.html You have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the news... brand names go away, replaced by types of items: "Freight Cars," "Locomotives," etc. I'm sure there will be plenty of action in the "Empty Boxes" category
Good grief. Can they ever get away from screwing around with that site? I see the name brands are now "Other N Scale". Nothing "other" about such selling points, but when a place is run by idiots..... Anyhow, we can only hope they'll create a category for 'grossly overpriced, melted garbage'. Hmmm. Maybe they also need one for 'delusional layout sales'.
So basically everything sold by actual model railroaders will wind up in Other N Scale. That's friggin' brilliant! Sent from the magical mystery box
Maybe I am missing something, but does anyone ever use categories to find something they want? For instance, if I am looking to buy an N scale Atlas GP, I just type in "N scale Atlas GP" and then it lists all of the postings that are related to those words in. I am doing it wrong? Are these categories a better way to search for products?
