With diesel handrails we have gone from nice soft delrin plastic that didn't break much but was hard to paint, hard to keep in handrail holes, and/or too "thick" for some to more modern handrails that stay in the holes better, are thinner, can be painted, and can be glued with certain special glues when necessary. As materials changed, the handrail holes to accept them had to change along the way.
Sometimes whole new shells have been designed; sometimes not.
Bowser in particular has updated some of the old Stewart molds at least twice just to improve the handrails so that they look better. Each set of new handrails costs $15,000 or more in terms of tooling revisions or outright new tooling. Again--that is just for handrails--other changes are extra. Additionally, many new models have been added that were never offered by Stewart, and of course those are all-new tooling.
In some cases, modelers identified issues with things like cab roof contours on Alco Century series diesels, and the importer has made the change to revise the rooflines. An uniformed person would not perhaps know or even notice the subtle changes, but if you held some new release models next to models from even 10 years ago, one would notice there are differences.
John
Rambo2Is there a difference between models that are first release and second release and retooled?
I think each individual model might have a different answer.
For example, Bachmann has made an 0-6-0 roughly USRA steam locomotive forever. It has been redesigned, rereleased, retooled, reengineered, and so on countless times.
The trainset version from the early 1980s is junk. The newest version is a wonder.
I have no idea how you would ever divide up these models into releases and toolings.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
An example is the Bachmann/Spectrum HO GP30, it had its origins as a Lionel model.
And the Walthers/Trainline chop nose GP9, was originally Cox, who copied the Athearn GP9 in body width and size (except for the short hood)
Retooling can mean several things - from small refinements of certain parts, to a new body sitting on the same prior power chassis to the same old body sitting on a brand new power chassis to entirely new tool and die work from the rails on up, but a model of a prototype that the same manufacturer had offered in the past.
Manufacturers use this phrasing for a few different reasons. Sometimes a first release has flaws either mechanical or in prototype accuracy that are mentioned in reviews (print and on line) and the manufacturer decides it needs a do-over in face of competition etc. Other times enough time has gone by that the old tooling just won't cut it any longer -- rivets too big, truck mounted couplers, details look rounded and soft not crisp. Classic example are the older "blue box" Athearn EMD diesels that had too wide a body because the motor Athearn used was too wide to fit in a scale width body. Athearn has done new tool and die work for those so they are "retooled." Otherwise fussy modelers would not buy them unless they were assured that the old compromised versions were not what was being offered now.
Dave Nelson
First and second release are from the same tooling. Retooled means that everything that was on the older versions had changes done on them and had to make new tooling or just lost the original tooling and had to make replacements.
Thanks,
Logan Thurman
Is there a difference between models that are first release and second release and retooled?