Uncle Edward, I find the NWSL online catalog of S wheelsets confusing. I wonder what you might think of adding a clinic at the Sacramento NASG Convention that discussed the various wheelset options in S scale? Not just NWSL but NWSL would probably deserve a large part of the presentation. - Earl Henry, Nashville ============================= In a message dated 11/11/2010 12:07:00 A.M. Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
Gents..The really interesting part is in the next-to-last paragraph. Reality is setting in on many fronts. Our gondola is looking cheaper every day. Enjoy..Ed L. FROM THE NWSL NEWSLETTER We have no idea how many possible combinations of wheelsets we make. NWSL makes wheels from N scale through Large Scale, in various diameters and treads. We also make dozens of axles, in a large variety of size and type (flush ends, shouldered ends as shown in the photo, pointed ends, and more.) We make them insulated one side (the default), insulated both sides, and uninsulated. NWSL wheels are made from solid nickel silver (except O wheels, which are primarily solid steel) and come mostly weathered (or unweathered, by request.) There is no plating to wear off, meaning there is no underlying brass to expose (most factory wheels are plated brass) and that means you won't run into electrical problems, nor the problem of exposed brass wheels picking up grime and dust. Visitors to our factory are usually surprised to learn that NWSL wheelsets are not made up in packages, ready to go out the door to go to work in your model. Because of the massive number of possible combinations, we instead store the wheels and axles separately, and then as we receive orders we make them up--by hand--and assemble them to order. Sometimes this process takes longer than we'd like because we make the wheels and axles here, and if we're out of stock then we have to get our machine shop to make more. We've owned NWSL for just over 2 years now, and have finally arrived at a point where we'd gone through all of the raw materials, tooling, etc. that we brought over from Seattle. Because we're now ordering everything ourselves, using mostly Seattle's original suppliers, we also got a chance to sit down and look at the real numbers. The result, to say the least, took us by surprise. Long story short we've been taking a bit of a bath on these things, and that has to change. We do know this: We're going to keep making wheelsets, because that's a big part of how NWSL serves the hobby. We also know that we do not want to start importing wheelsets, both because we like to make them here and because importing means stripping the list down to a small subset of popular sizes (necessary because there are huge minimums involved.) So, getting to the bottom line here, we've raised our wheelset prices to where they need to be to allow us to keep going. Yes, it's likely to be a shock--some feel our prices are already high. (And to those people, my offer still stands: Come out to our shops and put in a day's work and then we'll talk about overpriced.) However, it's reality, and we're not going to make incremental announcements or send out a bajillion updates. Instead, we invite you to contact us prior to making a wheelset order. That said, the prices listed at _http://shop.osorail.com_ (http://shop.osorail.com/) <_http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=9d9w7pcab&et=1103827950025&s=445&e=0014wWm71 Y_ (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=9d9w7pcab&et=1103827950025&s=445&e=0014wWm71Y) phcpmPEB5QFXZ6O3vnaloHxdAJFAwc0Ijni5-r14n1px5L6gfGyndkv6tQDGfi0-0mG8IrOveMmU jgGWFQR3WXvKvYRuCquZYLtc=> are current. Make no mistake; we are not happy about this, but we had to make this decision. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
