>"Bill Lane" wrote:
> Which comes first - the products or the people?
I would suggest it works both ways. Were folks crying for an I-pad? Do
they crave one now? In this instance, the product came first then the
buyers flocked to it. How about On30 (O scale rolling stock on HO track)?
Was anyone asking for that? But now everyone wants it around their tree.
It is another example where the product came first and the market developed
afterwards. How about Tsunami sound decoders? Or DCC itself? I was not
aware of a huge cry for any of those items, but there sure is a market these
days for those products.
On the other hand, there have been numerous requests for full-scale-length
Budd cars, operating speeders, wide radius S snap track, accurate-sized
realistic couplers, etc. none of which have come to fruition -- yet. Market
seems to be there, but the manufacturer's courage is not. So I would
propose it works both ways.
> On one side you have to somehow find the interested people in
> the thousands more than there are currently.
Thousands more??? Really? Brass locos are imported in quantities of less
than 100. Resin kits are made in quantities of less than 100. Granted,
RTR from China does require a lot more volume, but that is not the only way
to get things done. The infamous "S"acto convention will deliver
(eventually next summer) two brand new never-before-made S scale cars - both
RTR and kits - with a lot less than thousands of customers. Interested
people sure help. Thousands are nice. A couple of hundred can accomplish
most anything if they set their minds to it.
> On the other side you have to find companies currently not making S jump
in waving their checkbook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Hundreds of thousands?? Really? How much would it cost Lionel to offer a
U33 diesel with scale wheels without any fancy electronics? Nowhere near
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now here is an opportunity for NASG to
really get the ball rolling with a DC and/or DCC scale version of this loco
as their annual AF project. Or, some entrepreneur could buy some undec
plastic bodies from Lionel and make a power drive and sell kits for this
loco - if Lionel cooperated. Have you seen the new Lionel AF snap track?
Looks like a good idea stolen/copied from SHS. Investment would be nowhere
near hundreds of thousands of dollars. Start with small projects and slowly
work up to larger projects.
> Again - nothing short of a miracle.
Miracles do happen. SHS was a miracle. AM was an earlier miracle. Not to
mention RRM, SouthWind, Des Plaines, etc. Each of these was a minor miracle
in their own right. I agree it would be nice to have one big giant miracle
instead of many small miracles, but we cannot have everything.
> the only way anything big in S happens is because it was done by an S
Scaler.
Jettie Padgett was not an S scale guy. Jim King is no longer an S scale
guy. Tom Marsh (Overland Models) was not an S scale guy. Nor Sunset Models
(Mort Mann) or ALCO Models. Bill Wade (BTS) has done it in every scale
imaginable. Even AM's Ron Bashista was a hi-railer when he started AM.
The man at Lionel making less-than-perfect so-called scale U33's is probably
not an S scale guy. I doubt the man making FAST TRACKS turnout fixtures is
an S guy. But you do make a good point that S scale guys themselves have
made many contributions to the scale. But there are many products on our
layout from non-S producers.
> There has never been the margins of a real for profit business solely
making S Scale.
Yep, that is true as far as I know. Which is why most products are not
carried in your local hobby shop. SHS really made it big time with
Walther's as a distributor. That was neat!
> Years ago Microscale was blindly churning out decals and
> schemes for rolling stock that did not even exist in S. They ate it **big
> time**.
Yes, and I think we all questioned the wisdom of the concept that models
will follow decals. Interesting piece of history for sure. One nice thing
Microscale did was to provide thousands of free decals to 3/16 "S"cale
Railroading magazine for an article on Lehigh Valley diesels by Don DeWitt.
Even that was nuts, but we took them up on their offer. Of course the
entire magazine was nuts too, but I won't talk about that right now.
> So how are you or anyone else going to convince BLI, MTH, Atlas, or
> Bachmann to jump into the S pool - again given the current state of the
> economy?
Not having spoken with them, I have no ideas of what might work. As stated,
it will require creating a larger market where a small one exists. LGB did
it with G scale. Lionel has re-introduced AF and expanded the line in
recent years. ATLAS O has been successful. So I do not think it is
impossible. The recent Sanda Kan situation has effectively turned the major
producer of model trains into a sort-of captive factory for the large
companies and the smaller firms - all 60 of them - were escorted to the door
and shown the way out. That certainly makes things more difficult. But
making things here in the USA is not impossible. Just more costly. I am
not sure any of us can predict which way the worm will turn next.
>We can pitch emails back and forth all day long but the who and how is
where the pen meets the checkbook.
Sometimes lots of emails stimulate a project and a "S"ugar Daddy shows up to
help out. Lots of brass projects were done this way. Many kits were done
this way. And, most likely, a plastic model or two benefitted from a
wealthy donor.
> Nothing short of a miracle...
I predict a small miracle will happen in 2012. A new manufacturer will make
something in S scale. Would that count?
> I am not being a fatalist today - just pointing to the elephant in the
room.
Not an easy hill to climb, but not an impossible one either. S scale has
been doing just that ever since 1965.
> I would much rather see list traffic of a finished fork lift from a
> difficult kit than how to promote the scale because it does not happen.
> Bill Lane
I would much rather see list traffic devoid of all non-S-scale-modeling
messages. Maybe some day..
Cheers..Ed L.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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