Does K-Line make Starlite Diner?

[bogaziddy]

Is this accessory still catalogued / available? As Tom has shown, this accessory would make an excellent venue for die-cast cars. Tom? better watch out and call in the urban planners your layout is approaching gridlock or Hemi heaven. Have also noticed, Tom, your layout also seems like make-out heaven . Look forward to your pictures on Sundays and how about those pictures from Andre?

[spankybird]

HI Bogaziddy,

K-line does not offer this anymore, but it's not that old and you may still find some out there. They do offer two that is very close to it. One is the Broadway Limited and the other is the 20th Centery Limited. The be differance is the new ones do not have the parking lot.

tom

[brianel027]

There's some plusses and some minuses to the train hobby today. Obviously there is more variety coming from more companies than the hobby has ever seen.

The drawback is the importers are not making tools and dies for longevity as they once did. Notice all the items made eons ago that are still being made, with minor alterations to the tooling... the RMT "Beep" comes to mind here, with its origins with Kusan, then Williams and now new life with RMT.

I suspect many items today are not being tooled up for the long run, unless the importers believe it is financially worthwhile. It no longer suffices to just issue the same item over and over again with just a different roadname or paint scheme. By using less costly tooling, the importers can change products more freely, creating more variety and variations and not be tied down to just issuing the same item over and over again.

Mike Wolf admited in CTT that many of his items were tooled for the long run. And then the detail level in the hobby changed... what was once advanced detail only a few years ago is now subpar. This may have something to do with all the previous "Premiere" line tooling now being used for the "Railking" line. That, and the decided current trend towards more scale sized product.

Also bear in mind they (the companies) are all watching sales and production runs closely. They are all trying to avoid having to dump product through blowouts. Of course, the blowouts still happen, but not because the importers want this to happen. So when you see something in a catalog you feel is a must have for you, it's probably wise to buy it sooner than later. If it's not something that is a must have, you might get lucky and find it later as a blowout. You might have to shop around a little harder and check out smaller shops that might still have the item in their inventory (provided they ordered one in the first place... small shops have a hard time keeping up with all the multitude of products being made).

Of course, this is the beauty of e-bay and some of the other on-line for sale boards. Even something that is out of production or sold out, can still be located with a little patience and a little luck on the bidding. I'm sure with a little luck bogaziddy, you'll find a Starlight Diner someplace.

[eZAK]

brianel,

That post deserves its own thread!

Very Good!