What is it with TTX box cars


T

tlark

Member
in HO scale. Genesis made several of the Gunderson 60' footers but they seem to be hard to locate and out of production. When you find them they are more than MSRP and I have seen some older NIB ones go for $35-$45 on ebay.

Then I happen to see Exactrail is making some Trinity Plug Door cars and I get a couple right when they are released on July the 15th.

I receive them and there are pretty nice, lil' pricey and somewhat off-color from the Genesis versions but good enough I want to get another. I get on the Exactrail site to order and it says "sold out"......

What gives, are they that popular, has Athearn Genesis quit making them or is there some type of license agreement that only allows so many to be produced. Can they be found in kit form ???
 
i have no clue, i've been looking for some myself, i have never even seen one, local hobby shop never had em when i went and its the biggest place in dallas, they sold like hot cakes. i need one or 2 maybe 3 but no luck! Athern make them in Genesis and RTR but i never got either version
 
More and more these days its seems like you need to pre-order something if you really want it. If you notice in some of the magazines like MR athearn runs their up coming releases on the far right columns "Get Yours Guaranteed" The ad for the 60' TBOX was out in March.

The text reads "Place your pre-order by March 20th to ensure one is manufactured for you"

Intermountain is another one that relies heavily on pre-orders and reservations from dealers. It is up to us to determine the quantities to order. It's hard a lot of times to get it right.

That's why many dealers are pushing pre-orders and reservations. If you even think you might want something its best to let your dealer know!
 
heh... yea the money part is the other part of the problem why many aren't pre-ordering them...

I have only 3 Exactrail FBOX's left... even they were surprised how fast they went!
 
I understand why manufacturers are reluctant to make larger production runs in a shaky economy. They don't want to be saddled with unmoveable inventory.

However, I wonder if the manufacturers are digging their own graves. Many the pre-order sales are going to collectors and speculators. The collectors will stash their treasure away, never to see the light of day again or hear the clicking of wheels on rails. The speculators will drive the price up over MSRP in the secondary markets. The collector is a one-time sale; the speculator creates an artificial market that will crash at some time in the future when modelers get tired of paying inflated prices because manufacturers were too scared to make larger production runs.

I see value in pre-orders. Manufacturers have a break-even point and pre-orders can insure that they reach that point before committing to production. Production above the break even point adds to their profits.

Additionally, break-even points establish the MSRP. The manufacturer determines his costs and sets the MSRP to insure making a profit at his break-even point. He is not speculating! If he were to make larger production runs, he could set his MSRP lower but his profits would be spread out over the entire prodution run and any unsold units would reduce his profits. But a lower MSRP might guarantee higher sales. It's a crap shoot that many manufacturers avoid by producing the pre-orders with higher MSRP's.

The only ones who lose are those who fail to pre-order, which is MOST OF US!!

End of minor rant.

Darrell, quiet...for now
 
DCCinstalled said:
heh... yea the money part is the other part of the problem why many aren't pre-ordering them...

I have only 3 Exactrail FBOX's left... even they were surprised how fast they went!
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if they were surprised how fast they went, they must not have done their homework. I wonder if they others will sell out too. No expert but I don't seem to see a lot of 50' Hi-cubes around. I did locate some LBFs but they don't have the quality out of the box. Shoot me a PM on what #'s you have left and what your asking.

Edit: went to your site and saw the # you have left. don't need that one.....good prices however.
 
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I never really understood why a popular selling model goes out of production. Are these companys really that stupid to believe that a popular selling item like a TTX box car really needs to be preordered?

Things have sure changed from back when you could buy any car you wanted without worrying about if it becomes hard to find later or even out of production. Every hobby shop carried what you needed and the cheap freight cars were 5 bucks. Its getting kind of rediculous with the way things are going with some of these products.
 
Maybe they don't know what will be popular until they sell it out?

I've been amazed over the years that finding a modern (post 1970 designed) 50' ACF box car, brown and wearing "Southern Serves the South" would be more plentiful in model form than it is. I ended up buying decals and paint and some blank cars and doing it myself (although it really isn't hard). For me, Southern box cars were as common as seeing a Railbox box car or a CSX box car...I think it's a federal law that every freight in North America that isn't a unit train have at least one of those.
 
jbaakko said:
If they sold that well, I can see ExactRail doing another run with more TTX cars...
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got on Pacific Westerns site last night and they note they will be expected in September. So you are correct, apparently demand is too strong to ignore !!!

Like everyone else, they are sold out and and looking around the CN and Red Catylists are sold out too.
 
Yeah, seems SRY Blue is the unwanted car. I feel so left out, that I added a search on eBay for the FBOX cars, hopefully one pops up so I can buy it!
 
Picked up an Athearn unit today from my semi-lhs. Very nice model, they had two more but I didn't have enough money.
 
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