Broadway Zephyr and all tuned in, You are so right...sadly! There must be something more to all of this. In my not so humble opinion...NCL should be at the top of the list. I think what is working against us is time. Most of these trains we baby busters want, should of been planned for back in the 80's and 90's. By the time our favorites hit the market is it possible, ...it will be to late? During the late 90's I worked in a hobby shop and I had the opportunity to voice the same concerns, we are sharing here today. When I talked to the various vendors through their associates and reps.. It appeared... I was talking in the wind. One of these reps., finally said to me, "I can go back and share your concerns but it won't do any good"..."They won't listen to me". You have to wonder what in the heck manufacturers are thinking? The best way to run a business is to know your customers and their needs or wants. I would think communicating such to our providers, through our vendor reps., would be the perfect avenue to the bottom line, a worthy investment resulting in profit. Kato, has led the way in quality and standard of authenticity for our passenger equipment. It would be impossible for Kato alone to produce the list of trains we would like to own. Is it possible, together with the other providers, we still wouldn't get what we want...in time..."Before I die". As a former mortician/funeral director (one of many hats) I've heard story after story of married couples finally reaching retirement and proudly owning the little log cabin of their dreams, only to lose a mate and watch the dream shattered. Most of us don't want to wait until then... to have the things of our dreams lost. Go figure. Do I dare say it may be to late? NO...I don't think so. It would be easy to re-run the western trains and not to late to produce the eastern trains. The market is rich and desiring these trains. Why, ignore it any longer... or until it is to late? Hello, is any manufacturer listening? Edited add on: Question...is there just one plant that builds the parts for all the providers, to be assembled later in their plants? If so...our appeal for name sake trains is doomed.
Omissions to Noteworthy Trains List To all, Omissions were not intentional, except for trying to list one train per railroad or group of roads where one train traveled more than one. In some cases due to my own lack of knowledge I may have listed the lesser known train for the particular road(s). I would have liked to include the whole list but what I did post is probably more than all manufacturers can do in their/our history. The entire list of all Named Passenger Trains is on the following page and includes standard and streamliners, steam and diesel. Man, there are a lot of them. http://mononrr.com/mpages/pages/pn.html Ben
Loewy two-toned green.... ... passenger train which slithered through the lush forests of the of Pacific northwest, braving the Cascade mountains and the northern Rockies on its journey from Chicago to Seattle. Oh, yeah... NCL stands for North Coast Limited. It was one of the most renowned passenger trains which the Northern Pacific Railway ran from the early 1950's to the the late 1960's. The Northern Pacific Railway also ran another fairly popular passenger train named the Mainstreeter... which was the genesis of their motto... "Main Street of the Northwest"
Cars or trains? I personally find all these requests for specific trains somewhat surprising being that all that was heard for years from modelers was "Why do Kato and Rivarossi insist on selling passenger cars in sets, I want to choose which cars to put in my passenger trains!" Or, "I don't want to have to buy a baggage car to get a diner and another baggage car to get an observation!" :thumbs_down: Maybe I shouldn't be talking as I have over three hundred freights cars, and ONE passenger car - but part of the reason there's only one passenger car it that it's been very hard to find a decent individual passenger cars in N scale for the past quarter century. :sad:
For many of us, the objective in both cases was to be able to assemble a prototypically accurate consist without spending more dollars and time than necessary. IMHO, releases of full, prototypical sets (e.g. the CZ and Super Chief) should eliminate much of the desire for individual releases. As a clarification on the NCL, I believe that what we are asking for is a "Vista Dome North Coast Limited," as the train was properly refered to. A simple "NCL" would likely imply the predecessor heavyweight rendition which, btw, would also be a great thing to have.:teeth:
Kato could replace ConCor as a producer of passenger train sets. Kato, Atlas, LL & MP provide the power to pull them. LifeLike, Bachmann, MP, Athearn/MDC, MTL, could be a producer of cars. Look at all the express & baggage boxcars MTL has done. Perhaps the FTB would be a good choice for cheater boxcar/heater car. It may be time to let the old RR molds go. New cars could be produced with MTL trucks/couplers. No more Crapidos. New roofs for converted HW cars. Add lighting for the tail cars.
That's just what I said earlier in the thread, Santa Fe for instance, didn't just run the Super Chief. There were the many connecting trains and locals with maybe an E or PA and 3 or 4 cars, and even for the Super Chief the Kato set is only correct for a very specific era, (weekends in summer 1953), individual cars would enable a bit of variation. For anything other than a roads crack train you also need more baggage cars than anything else. As for other manufacturers, how about it MTL. They've done a good job with the troop car, I'd like to see them try their hands at a proper passenger car, they could make up their profits by decorating them in fantasy schemes for the collectors. Then again I've always dreamt of Kato quality heavyweights. That's my two cents for now, I'm off to China for 2 weeks chasing steam. P.S. Anyone who does stainless steel cars has to match Kato's paint job, the Concor chair cars are excellent but in a consist with Kato cars the finish lets them down.
Have you seen the prices on some of their freight cars? Expect single color cars to at a minimum be at 40 dollars.... I'll stick to leaching Rowa cars off Ebay at that price (they're all C&O prototype).
You're right there, even their freight cars are getting a bit expensive by comparison to others these days. Kato's combination of price and quality is hard to beat, at least they split up the Super Chief into three four car sets. Maybe a good seller for them would be two or four paks of different numbered baggage cars or coaches.
That would be the smart thing to do, at least IMHO. The market still has alot of the old-old Rivarossi stuff out there, and the Arnold/Rivarossi is just starting to bleed off. So I think it still might be awhile before we see more heavyweights, but I am no Nostradamus.
Westfalen and all tuned in, Some guys have all the luck...chasing steam in China. About the various paint jobs...Kato Vs ConCor. Here's a little info that might help. As a youngster I used to sit on the steps of the Barstow Station (when I was behaving) and watch the trains come in during the evening rush hour. That statement should qualify me...I think. The trains would come in and you would see brand new shiny streamline cars mixed in with the older heavy weights but here's the kicker. The passenger cars on the streamline trains did vary in shades of aluminum and silver. The first cars out by pullman began to show rust, the aluminum began to corrode and pit making for some interesting looking trains. Pullman cars as compared to Bud's didn't match in color. If memory serves me correctly all totaled there were four different companies that produced the Santa Fe Streamline fleet and none of them matched in color...size, height and style varied as well. Geez, did I just say that we might be experiencing what the real rails went through? Edited add on: As a result of memories I carry and those documented by Otto Perry and other photographers...I do run ConCor, Kato, Rivarossi and some early Atlas Santa Fe streamline cars together. Just like the good old days and d@^^ if that isn't prototypical. Uniformity isn't a necessity. Besides, Santa Fe did keep the train sets together for a while and pretty soon the cars for various reason ended up scattered from L.A. to Chicago. They would build trains utilizing the available passenger cars. Why shouldn't we? Regarding the issue of one car versus sets. Rivarossi and Atlas did produce some early sets. Down side many of us couldn't afford to purchase but one car at a time. Family obligations and the like. A lot of LHS's did break up the sets, selling single cars. May I add to the fantasy wish list a Mail Train with correct RPO cars. I've sounded off enough on this subject. No offense intended toward anyone. In the past during the 90's, I tended to drive the vendors reps., crazy appealing for passenger trains. So, to avoid repeating the past...I see you nodeing your heads in the affirmative...I'm all shouted out. Sigh! Enjoy what comes along and let's hope it all happens.
Oooo... very true... must have Vista Domes. That's very true... I forgot that the NCL was originally a heavyweight train... The NCL must have VD in it.... hmmm... errr... maybe specify the NCL 'Streamliner' version. :teeth:
Jay, Thanks for your response and input. You sound like you are somewhat skilled in building---or rebuiding---your own cars. I think that is great! And, if that is what you like to do, I am happy that you have found your nirvana there. I personally am not up to a level with that skill to create something like that. I don't have the time, inclination, equipment, etc. I do, however, still like really nice trains, passenger cars in particular, and I am better served by having a quality manufacturer do that work for me---and after time, materials, equipment cost, etc.---at a far better price! I couldn't even begin to assemble say, a California Zephyr 11-car set for $250! Again, materials, equipment, TIME---I just can't do it. I can do other things fairly well that enable me to happily pay a price to have it produced by Kato. The spirit of this thread is just one of fun, and we are all just weighing in on what we'd like to see. As for what we think would be the Mother Lode or Huge Success as you put it, is nothing more than individual modelers collective experiences voicing what they've heard over the years that people would really like to see. Its no secret that the n market is starved for quality passneger equipment. I can't put our wants and thoughts about potential buyers as eloquently as you did, but I will say, that yes, there are thousands of people out there waiting for the next delivered name train. Take your sentiments back a few years. What do you you think about the success of the CZ , Super Chief, Empire Builder, as just three examples? So many people have bought, and are buying CZ sets, that there is now a THIRD release. They are not producing these because they don't think they will sell, or in spite of poor past sales of the first two releases. The manufactuers are in business to make money, correct? They will produce what they think will sell. They will sell more of items people really want. You can take the opinions here for whatever value you want, but I think this is a pretty good cross section of dedicated modelers whose opinions do matter, because they are the ones buying these products. As for the GG1 and your desire not to have one. Fine, if thats what works for you. I think it is pretty clear in most peoples' minds how well a Kato GG1 would do, however. Look at the prices on ebay for 30 year old substandard product. There is demand. As for the RSD7, aren't you just expressing the same individual wants that we are doing here, albeit on a topic you obviously have some disdain for? As for everyone else, please keep the ideas coming. This is proving to be one of the more popular recent threads. I guess its that supply/demand thing again! Sorry for the length everyone, but I think we've just been insulted...
Insulted? I guess you lost me here. I'm not sure if you are saying Jay insulted us or maybe I did or others. I don't think so...Jay, simply expressed the feelings of many modelers irregardless of scale or gauge. Each of us has our own sphere of interest and mode of operation. Each voice needs to be heard. Something that came to mind even though I said I was shouted out... with this discussion. Allow me to go back to the late 90's and my hobby shop experience. I was located in Dayton, Ohio. I've already touched on the Associates and Reps., response. I won't go there again. However, the one person and organization that stands out in my mind is a gentleman, who was polling hobby shops, for the NMRA. After some discussion, his comment to me was...is, "No one can seem to agree on what they want". Now... I feel insulted. Why? Because I had gone to the trouble to keep data on the customers the store served and their wish lists. It was as good as gold but treated like S#!+, if you get my drift. The guys and gals in the east and midwest all were asking for basically the same thing...name trains freight and passenger for Ie., NYC, Pennsylvania Central, Erie Lackawanna, Chessie, Southern, N&W, N&S, B&O, C&O and the list goes on. Instead we kept getting deliveries of Santa Fe, Southen Pacific and Union Pacific. These items were selling and I had customers from all over the north east buying them. I stopped by a number of clubs in the area and took the layout tour and noted to my surprise that these western roads were getting new paint jobs and someone had figured out how to make their own decals. Go figure! Just throwing this out for you to chew on. No I'm not chewing on anyone just curious as I certainly don't feel insulted by any remarks here. Maybe I should be...grin! I'm not.
As has already been suggested, we applaud you for having the skills, time and patience to "roll you own." In my case, I don't lay awake at night wondering what's coming. I would be more likely to have a pleasant dream that Kato did produce a NCL (VD or not). If I tried to scratchbuild (or even repaint) anything the stress would likely keep me awake at night and have the opposite effect of guaranteeing a long life. That's just me. I'll stick to having fun with what we've already got (in my case, both CZ sets) and looking forward to whatever Kato comes up with next. I would pull my wallet out in a heartbeat for a prototypical Broadway Limited with a Kato quality GG1. I'm not a Pennsy modeler, but that would just be one cool set to run around the layout.:thumbs_up: Also, since we're all posting our wish lists, something that is sorely needed is a proper transition sleeper to complement the Kato Amtrak Superliners.
That's the only "Suggest a Model" I've put in Kato's box. I would recommend others do it as well. Jason
Obviously I'm not representing a large market with this, but, the only passenger train I care to model right now is the Heartland Flyer, which, consists (usally) of a P42, a hi-level, superliner, hi-level, and cabbage unit. If Kato produces an El-Cap (hi-level cars), they'll get a few orders from me. I've requested they make the hi-levels at the OKC trainshow and the WGH show in Ft. Worth, and they indicated they get lots of requests. At the moment, I believe Amtrak has 3 active hi-levels for the Heartland Flyer, along with the Pacific Parlor cars (?). Are there any others?
Ok, lets get this going again. Last thoughts were early April. Now its May. Any more insight, info, color on the next passenger train? Kato hasn't announced yet, but they do have one "in the can" so to speak. Its being produced as we speak. Anyone have any more info as to El Capitan, Broadway Ltd, etc.? ...And who is bringing the new, prototypical Empire Builder? Hearing rumors that one is coming, but no confirm as to who is producing it. Will Walthers produce it in N since they brought it in HO?
