I've been waiting for the January and February MDC releases since I first saw them in the Jan/Feb N Scale magazine. Unfortunately, none of the hobby shops listed them until a few days ago when N Scale Supply put them on their webpage. I was in shock when I saw the price, almost $42 for four assembled box cars?!?!?! What happened to the days when you could get an MDC kit for $6? Some online hobby shops even have them for $4 each. Who do they think they're fooling charging $4 extra because the cars are already assembled?
Just what exactly did you or anyone else on this board expect. When Micro-Trains (a hundred percent American company by the way) had to up their prices due to the economic decline in this country, their Chinese competitors (Atlas, Bachman,LifeLike,RoundHouse,...) had to increase their profit margins as well, their production costs cannot be fairly compaired to MT's. For me I object wrather strongly to paying MT prices for non-MT Chinese rolling stock, in particular Atlas (which has just finished getting rid of the last of their US based production). Granted this attitude puts a real crimp in my hobbying efforts, but I'll manage. P.S. Yes I do own some Atlas China loco's but I've never paid more than half of tghe msrp, and after the fiasco I encountered with their Train Masters, I had to rebuild the truckes on everyone of them, and the problems the other members of my club have had with them has lead me sware off their product.
