What Is Tooling?

[Anonymous]

I have seen this word alot in the forums. What exactly is tooling and how does it come into play in designing trains? I am sure it may have to do with it when it comes to making locomotives and such. Thanks in advance. [:)]

Chris

[pbjwilson]

Tooling as in Tool and Die. Most model steam engines are diecast. A die or mold is "tooled", (made, created, machined). The new Lionel 0-4-0 is made from new "tooling". These dies are sharper and crisper in detail. So the engine when diecast comes out with sharpness of detail.

[Anonymous]

Site below has some pictures of the equipment used:

http://www.aucomanufacturing.com/

[brianel027]

And Chris, to continue what Paul the Painter said, new tooling for a new product locomotive can cost in the range of $100,000-$250,000 done overseas... more here in the states. The tooling costs can be lowered a little or increased based on the quality of the tooling and its' intended longevity or production life. Mike Wolf has stated his tooling was made for the long run. We can't be sure about the others.

Many have speculated about the possible future of K-Line for example. Many hope that the newer types of products K-Line made will continue to be made under possible new ownership. The ironic thing here is that possibly the best tooling K-Line owns is probably the original MARX tooling that got the company off the ground. Which also says alot about the quality that the original MARX company put into making the dies for their products... although it is understood K-Line did put some money into reburbishing some of the original MARX dies.

Some of the last runs of Lionel product made from the older original postwar tooling had started to loose some of it's sharpness from the long extended production runs - a point even noticed in the magazine product reviews. On the other hand though, new tooling adds some considerable costs to a new product. No doubt why the train importers give some thought as to what they will decide to produce, and why we see so much duplication of certain locomotive and rolling stock types: certain locos and cars are just more popular than others. There's no shortage of F3's and Hudson's for example. Some have wondered why does every company make these same kinds of products, but it must be that they sell.

In addition to tooling costs, there's also the engineering and development costs as well as the actual manufacturing costs. For example, the K-Line Alco S-2 was more expensive to manufacture than the K-Line MP-15, even though the MP-15 was from new tooling. The reason is simple when comparing the 2 locos: the K-Line Alco S-2 has the steps as part of the sheet metal frame instead of a plastic attachment to the truck assembly meaning many more time consuming (labor intensive) folds to the sheet metal frame.

I've always suspected that many of the price increases we see on all product types have a lot to do with the vast amounts of new tooling being done. The dies on many older long available product types have long paid for themselves. But with the added extensive costs of so much new tooling, I highly doubt these new products could pay for themselves on the onset, or be sold at a price "the market would bear*" without across the board price increases.

*obviously with the amounts of blowouts, the market isn't exactly bearing these prices either. No one blows out a $600 engine for $300 unless they HAVE to.