Hi Don and all --
All I can say is,”Bravo!!”. After doing my best to bring up AM cars to
the level of the SHS cars, I can say there is no comparison except to SOME
of the brass cars. I think I have about 25 of the SHS cars out of a fleet
of about 50 including a number of brass cars, and the SHS cars are great
right out of the box.
MTH, if they do hoppers first, is probably correct in doing so. Next to
boxcars, hoppers can be used by the many, many, even on smaller layouts
(because they are short!). They also do better on our sharper model
curves... If MTH comes out with the previously announced (and
unfortunately cancelled) “fish belly” framed cars, I will be in for several
of those too.
Thanks again, Don!
Bill Winans
-------------------------------
OK, When I talked to Mike W at York last week, he asked about why we made
our 2 bay open top hoppers using flat tooling needing to be assembled as
kits instead of the usual 4 slide tooling that EVERY OTHER SHS PRODUCT USED.
It costs more to assemble these than any of the other items. I explained
there were two reasons for my decision to tool this series of cars this way.
The first was for prototype fidelity. Most of their life, open top hopper
are not full, but empty. Inside a hopper there are details missing in most
RTR plastic models in every scale. Rivets, ribs, wood grain, splice plates,
inside of panels, cross braces, gussets, etc. that would be lost for us if
not for the way we did the tooling. The other is a tooling cost factor.
The series as proposed included 8 versions of hoppers. We got to make 5,
and tool a 6th that we never produced. The 7th & 8th were in the design
phase. Once the first tool was made (1942 LV composite hopper), each
successive car we only had to pay for the two slides for each side (the
sides are different as the main brake pipe hangers needed opening only on
one side). Did these cost more to assemble, yes, but look at the inside
detail. For me it was well worth the few extra $$$...
So in the video, Mike W was only referring to our hoppers, which will be
the first cars they make (not my decision or advice...).
Don
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