http://precisioncraftmodels.com/PCM---SP-Cab-Forward-AC-12-4-8-8-2,-HO-c3146.html
OUCH! Check out the meter! This kinda really blows. But I still refuse to preorder anything. Gotta see it before making the decision to purchase. Learned my lesson from preordering Broadway's SF 3751. Chea...they ship me a gray locomotive with 3 air pumps.
I may just have to get the Intermoutain AC-12 and swap out the motor with a faster one.
"Being misunderstood is the fate of all true geniuses"
EXPERIMENTATION TO BRING INNOVATION
http://community.webshots.com/album/288541251nntnEK?start=588
AggroJones wrote: http://precisioncraftmodels.com/PCM---SP-Cab-Forward-AC-12-4-8-8-2,-HO-c3146.htmlOUCH! Check out the meter! This kinda really blows. But I still refuse to preorder anything. Gotta see it before making the desion to purchase. Learned my lesson from preordering Broadway's SF 3751. Chea...they ship me a gray locomotive with 3 air pumps. I may just have to get the Intermoutain AC-12 and swap out the motor with a faster one.
OUCH! Check out the meter! This kinda really blows. But I still refuse to preorder anything. Gotta see it before making the desion to purchase. Learned my lesson from preordering Broadway's SF 3751. Chea...they ship me a gray locomotive with 3 air pumps.
Precisely.
In fact, I was considering earlier last week that my engine orders with PCM/BLI is at a end. It is very unlikely that I wont get the B&O 4-6-2 that I wanted and will subistute a Proto E unit for the same train I have planned for it instead. I have one engine order left and that will be that. At least on that one order they moved it up from November of Next year to March of next year. (Knock on wood)
I get angry when I see that bright graphic that basically says "Order it" I say.. no more. Not until the products arrive somewhere where I can actually hear and see it run. That means a train show or Ebay.
Future orders will probably go to Proto because I like the QSI technology more than anything.
It was a fun ride while it lasted though these last few years with BLI. What a BLAST that was. =)
Jason
Modeling the Fort Worth & Denver of the early 1970's in N scale
No. The Hobby Shop takes your order and sends it to the Distributor. Usually you pay up front and then wait a year if ever. If they have enough orders the item gets made. When the order is complete for that production run, no more will be availible except returns and unsold stock (And eventually Ebay)
PCM started this gauge thing recently I think in some kind of response to the constant barrage of questions as to if a item will be produced. Or perhaps a Pavalov's Marketing Stragety to get customers to feel as they MUST order or miss out. I dont know. All I know that on a basic level this gauge is a slap and a insult to my intellect and desire to be a customer. I'll spend my dollars somewhere else.
Back to the Hobby Shop... the recent introduction of Factory Direct Trains really casterated the Hobby Shop because they can price items so low retail right out of the factory that the Hobby Shops basically says "That's it! No more... no money in it"
This is the only company in the entire hobby that is trying to do crazy stunts like this. All the others quietly produce and release Locomotive items on time and without fanfare.
Oh that one engine order I have with the store? It will be paid in full sometime this summer and all I have to do is wait to see it next year. The other two engines I plan to buy are availible at the store right now and online without any wait. Just need to get the budget straight before I go down and buy it.
Most cases the engine arrives then you need to pay it. That is where the problem of sight-unseen orders come in. If you discover that the engine does not run or other problems it will need to go back for repairs tying up the capital.
Sometimes with this gauge it;s easy to see if a company has any desire to produce an item. At least it saves me the waste and agony of waiting a year or more while they decide if they want to make the damn thing.
Ultimately I think it is a very poor business model and one that does not work. If it did, all the other Manufactors like Atlas, Proto, Walthers etc etc etc will do it or already have done it.
Im sorry to be so negative, but Im very disappointed with this and expected better like they used to be under a orginal management.
PCM has been yanking us by the - you know - for almost 3 years on the Pennsy M1 4-8-2 in N.
The excuse-o-meter still reads low. I've already pre-ordered one. I ain't gonna order more.
PCM has pretty much shut any other manufacturer out of Pennsy N scale steam.
Here's a news flash, PCM! If you never make what you promise, NO ONE'S GONNA PRE-ORDER!!!
I'm just a lot P.O.'d at PCM.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
have they produced the models theyve said they would? Really I never pre-order unless I would be sure its a reputable company.
But I have a pre-order for the Sunset HO electroliner but they didnt need any money down.
I like What BLI/PCM has done for the hobby, but like any pre-order expect no product till release, period.
Got the N&W 2-6-6-4... decent....and never thought this model would get made.
there was a cartoon in one of model mags years ago, shows a model manufacturing company, a couple of guys standing around..
"Hey Frank, you think its about time we drafted, tooled and made that NYC Mohawk we said we'd do a year ago?"
PCM's track record... So far in N they've given us ONLY the E7:
Announced upwards of 2-3 years ago but not made:
N scale PRR M1 4-8-2
N scale E8/9
N scale PA/B
N scale N&W/PRR H2a hopper
HO scale PRR I1sa
There are others in HO...
PCM produces VAPORWARE.
WOW! I really don't like that meter, it inspires me to kick the dog. I refuse to pre-order, especially since I have not seen or heard the unit run.
I understand that the MRR industry needs some creative ways to stay in bussiness without alianating thier distrubutors and especially thier customers. Now if they had a better track record and have had many releases with success then maybe we could do this, but until then those of us who refuse to pay up front for some hope that a given loco get produced will continue to be creative in our solutions to get what we want. This has been the way most MRRers have moved foreward in the hobby without spending thier retirement money or selling off a child.
There was a time when I was in the market for a Concor model but couldn't find a shop with what I was looking for. When I asked the people in the shop about Concor it was the same answer everywhere, We don't cary Concor as when we purchase the unit at cost and cannot sell it Concor turns around and has a sale that undercuts them by a large margin. I probably would not carry them either, but Concor should have done something to help the retailer move their products. This is a bit different than the PCM situation, but it points out some of the complications that OUR manufacturers are having to deal with.
John
spidge wrote: WOW! I really don't like that meter, it inspires me to kick the dog. I refuse to pre-order, especially since I have not seen or heard the unit run.I understand that the MRR industry needs some creative ways to stay in bussiness without alianating thier distrubutors and especially thier customers. Now if they had a better track record and have had many releases with success then maybe we could do this, but until then those of us who refuse to pay up front for some hope that a given loco get produced will continue to be creative in our solutions to get what we want. This has been the way most MRRers have moved foreward in the hobby without spending thier retirement money or selling off a child.There was a time when I was in the market for a Concor model but couldn't find a shop with what I was looking for. When I asked the people in the shop about Concor it was the same answer everywhere, We don't cary Concor as when we purchase the unit at cost and cannot sell it Concor turns around and has a sale that undercuts them by a large margin. I probably would not carry them either, but Concor should have done something to help the retailer move their products. This is a bit different than the PCM situation, but it points out some of the complications that OUR manufacturers are having to deal with.
That History has repeated or is repeating itself these last few months with PCM cutting out the dealers, stores and distributors.
Safety Valve wrote: No. The Hobby Shop takes your order and sends it to the Distributor. Usually you pay up front and then wait a year if ever. . . . . . . . . . (In) most cases the engine arrives then you need to pay it. That is where the problem of sight-unseen orders come in. If you discover that the engine does not run or other problems it will need to go back for repairs tying up the capital.
No. The Hobby Shop takes your order and sends it to the Distributor. Usually you pay up front and then wait a year if ever. . . . . . . . . . (In) most cases the engine arrives then you need to pay it. That is where the problem of sight-unseen orders come in. If you discover that the engine does not run or other problems it will need to go back for repairs tying up the capital.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Safety Valve wrote: No. The Hobby Shop takes your order and sends it to the Distributor. Usually you pay up front and then wait a year if ever. If they have enough orders the item gets made. When the order is complete for that production run, no more will be availible except returns and unsold stock (And eventually Ebay)
If this is how you're treated by the LHS, it's time to find a new store to deal with. I preordered 6 of the AC6000 units from BLI a year ago on May 5th. They finally arrived on the 21st of this month and my LHS never asked for a dime of my money. Now that they are here and I've had a chance to test them and inspect them, he'll be getting my hard earned money for the locomotives.
Don Z.
Research; it's not just for geeks.
R. T. POTEET wrote: Safety Valve wrote: No. The Hobby Shop takes your order and sends it to the Distributor. Usually you pay up front and then wait a year if ever. . . . . . . . . . (In) most cases the engine arrives then you need to pay it. That is where the problem of sight-unseen orders come in. If you discover that the engine does not run or other problems it will need to go back for repairs tying up the capital.I commented to username electrolove's similiar post of a few weeks past; I ain't ever gonna put money up front in this hobby for items which may or may not show up and which may or may not be worth what I pay for it if it does show up. I am not going to pre-finance these rinky-dink outfits products as this just becomes an excuse for them to develope the attitude that they can produce substandard merchandise. They were supposed to have had adequate capital to start in business in the first place and they are supposed to maintain adequate capital to stay in business.I didn't order my wife sight-unseen and I'm sure as aitch not going to order model railroad equipment that way either!!!
RT, "rinky-dink" outfits? It is those cottage industries that not only bring some nice products to our hobby, but most importantly, it is the very fabric of what built commerce in our great country.
There were these two guys name Dave and Bill who started a "Rinky-Dink" business in their garage back in the 1930's - Bill Hewlitt and Dave Packard.
There must be a solution whereby the manufacturers can produce and sell all of what they make instead of mass producing and having to warehouse a bunch of stuff. This is our hobby and we want them to succeed, right? I am not a bussiness man and I do not have a degree nor a certificate in production or planning but manufacturers must try new aproaches and if they are recieved well then great, if not I am sure they will go on to something else.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. I am not in the least bit disposed to pre-order anything. I have been too well trained by BLI et al to expect discounted versions of what I want to show up later. I suppose that the first time I don't get a loco that I really want, will be the start of my re-training. What happens if they don't get enough pre-orders for anything? They can't keep announcing projects and marketing them to great fanfare and then never producing any of them.
Does anyone else think it is ironic that the BLI/PCM web site is essentially saying Preorder at full MSRP, yet everyday I get an e-mail describing the latest "super sale" from FDT?
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
I pre-ordered through Merchandise Service, an online store that specialized in the Pennsylvania Railroad. They're offering it at a fairly healthy discount.
I noticed that Factory Direct Trains has limits... For example, there's a supersale on PRR E7Bs, but not the E7A to pull it. Heck, I already have a LifeLike E7B dummy with the right paint. It's the A I want, but FDT has them full price.
R. T. POTEET wrote:I ain't ever gonna put money up front in this hobby for items which may or may not show up and which may or may not be worth what I pay for it if it does show up. I am not going to pre-finance these rinky-dink outfits products as this just becomes an excuse for them to develope the attitude that they can produce substandard merchandise.
Produce the product first, then sell it. Don't try to make customers your venture-capital angels. You've got to assume risk (Like Hewlett & Packard did) if you want to run a successful business, and asking customers to order what's essentially vaporware is a poor way to try to avoid that risk.
Good grief. So preorder it from Factory Direct Trains if you want one. And no money of mine will EVER change hands until something either ships, or is in my hands. Right now as far as I know BLI/PCM is not planning anything else on my wish list, but if they do, I don't have a big problem with pre-ordering. Between gas prices and the total NOTHING coming from both political camps as far as immigration/securing our borders is concerned, a little meter that basically tells the current odds of a certain something getting made isn't going to set me off.
BLI/PCM basically told me they planned/hoped to do an N&W J and a Y6b 'someday', back when they first opened, and they finally did do both. I thought that was very positive. You guys want them to give you a definite yes or no, and the delivery date right now on everything. I'm still grateful to get something I want, that's reasonably prototypically accurate, and that runs decent... at all.
Virginian wrote: You guys want them to give you a definite yes or no, and the delivery date right now on everything.
You guys want them to give you a definite yes or no, and the delivery date right now on everything.
No, see on the PRR M1 4-8-2 in N scale, right now would have been almost 3 years ago.
I think that's a reason to be a little upset. 6 months? A year? No problem. Two years? Uh, okay... not great, but I'll wait. It's been almost 3 years and now they say March 2008 at the earliest. That will be pushing 4 years! But then, they keep pushing the date back.
They also have changed their story. The old excuse was that they had to switch production facilities. Now it's pre-orders. Do they have a number, or do they just want "more?"
I sent them another e-mail asking how many more pre-orders will it take after 3 years.
By the way, for you other folks, I've pre-ordered, but the dealer I went through won't charge me until the thing is made and on its way. So really I haven't invested anything other than time and frustration.
Midnight Railroader wrote: R. T. POTEET wrote:I ain't ever gonna put money up front in this hobby for items which may or may not show up and which may or may not be worth what I pay for it if it does show up. I am not going to pre-finance these rinky-dink outfits products as this just becomes an excuse for them to develope the attitude that they can produce substandard merchandise. Exactly.Produce the product first, then sell it. Don't try to make customers your venture-capital angels. You've got to assume risk (Like Hewlett & Packard did) if you want to run a successful business, and asking customers to order what's essentially vaporware is a poor way to try to avoid that risk.
Virginian wrote: You guys want them to give you a definite yes or no, and the delivery date right now on everything. I'm still grateful to get something I want, that's reasonably prototypically accurate, and that runs decent... at all.
BLI/PCM has had a poor QC track record in the past as well as many detail errors/paint on their locomotives..That will hurt their pre-orders as modelers are "gun shy" of ordering sight unseen.
Now a lot of the club members are happy with their BLI locos but,will not pre-order them because some had problems with their Hudsons and SW7/NW2s.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIE wrote: BLI/PCM has had a poor QC track record in the past as well as many detail errors/paint on their locomotives..That will hurt their pre-orders as modelers are "gun shy" of ordering sight unseen.Now a lot of the club members are happy with their BLI locos but,will not pre-order them because some had problems with their Hudsons and SW7/NW2s.
That is one reason I sold my first run NW and replaced it with a second run set that SEEMS to run ok, without the problems that plagued the first run (Front truck and reversed wiring)
Im not TOO picky about the paint when the engine hits the 3% grade it's time to earn it's pay and am concerned that Brass is the ultimate goal of this company.
My dealers do not charge me until the thing actually ships. However Im suffering apathy and enough is enough. Make life a little easier on everyone. More fun to go to the store or online and actually buy what will ship THAT week... not wait a year.
To the poster about the selective decisions on A and B unit pricing, I offer a supportive problem related to the E units. Apparently I can either buy an A-A for the B&O or go to Proto and get a Dummy B to go with the A and spend another 200 dollars to equipt the B unit with power, dcc and sound. I may just do it but first things first....
I would have bought all of that months ago almost instantly or via pre-order... except that Im a firm believer in all locomotives serving as it's own power, DCC and sound platform with each unit pulling it's share of the load. Not a A unit towing a 10 pound sled before the rest of the darn train.
Good call on the emailing. I finally unsubscribed because the Hobby Shops wont like to order, the discounters have the thing half off and the website is never updated to get rid of the gauge, MSRP pricing etc.
Now if anyone bothers to research my postings on the forum, they will find that I have been faith ful to BLI from the beginning ever since they got back into HO steam in a big way with that Hudson. I have several of thier engines and think enough of them to actually budget an upgrade of the QSI chip to get Back EMF (THANKS for nutting lawsuiters!) I oughta charge them the 30 dollars per unit at the court.
It's been a long road and a enjoyable one. But if this is what the future holds, I definatly dont want to be a part of it.
Especially as I have said before, other manufactors consistently produces and makes availible a variety of engines on time, on schedule. and without much fanfare. Kinda hard to enjoy an item when the Marketing team has beat the dead horse long before it arrives anywhere.
I'll give you odds that the reason that FDT is sending all those sales is because they've found they ordered too many units relative to what actually sold. The idea of the pre-order is to gauge interest, and only produce what will actually sell, keeping the leftover inventory to a minimum.
I saw the same thing happen in the wargaming industry over the past decade. If it weren't for the preorder process, my favorite game would almost-certainly be dead by now. That publisher uses a similar process, albeit without the fancy graphic (see the Multiman Publishing preorder page). They actually put something up for pre-order when development is a product like 50% done- about the time that the next steps are the really intense in-house work like layout, and the expensive work like printing. If you look, you can see that there are a number which have hit their "P#", and so will go forward, while others are below the P#, and either are getting close (likely will eventually get enough interest, and therefore buyers) or nowhere near (and likely won't ever move forward). Note that initially, there was a LOT of resistance to this process, but it has resulted in a semi-steady output of quality produce, and nowadays, most of the gamers buying this product accept the process, even if they're not thrilled with it.
Finally, again, if your LHS is demanding the full price up-front, you DEFINITELY need to look somewhere else. I doubt that most of the manufacturers are requiring full price up-front for reservations, so the LHS is probably pocketing at least some (all?) of that money, getting to do with it what they want until such time as either a) the manufacturer delivers, or b) you decide to cancel your order. My LHS has placed a few orders for me (waiting for word that the BLI AC arrived...), and in most of the cases he has asked for no money down. He was originally going to do his Tower 55 orders like his brass orders (something like 20% down, IIRC), but eventually changed that policy, since I didn't need anything down for my ES44.
Overall, I think the PC AC would be beautiful, but I just can't justify that much money spent, at least until I've got more time to run something other than the Foamboard-Pacific.
spidge wrote:I just don't get it. Why don't the manufactureres do limited runs and if all goes well do another run a few months later. It seems to me that Microtrains does this very thing.
Because they are not actually manufacturers. Virtually all the companies we purchase from, and most certainly BLI, subcontract all their manufacturing to Chinese makers. They commit to a specific production run. The size of the production run they commit to is as a result of some basic business decisions. At some point a production run is too small to make any business sense. The cost of development, design and tool creation for the model has to be amortised over the entire run resulting in far too high costs for a small batch. At some point the production run is too large. If the number of locos shipped far exceeds the market demand, then the company faces having thousands of dollars tied up in dead inventory. Based on the continued fanfare from Factory Direct Trains, I think we can surmise that BLI had been way over producing. Now they are evidently being far more cautious.
In the ideal world the marketeers and decision makers at companies like BLI would know their market well enough to accurately predict demand for a model. They would then contract for a nice profitable run and neatly sell out. Not willing to take this decision themselves they are asking us to predict the market with pre-orders. The problem with this, as we already can see, is that many modellers are not willing to pre-order, either because they don't want to, or perhaps never even know about the proposed project in the first place. Projects that might actually do well may never get built.
I think you guys are asking too much. You want the maker/distributor/whatever-you-call-it to accurately gauge the market, without using anything to do so. He must accurately gauge the market in order to have exactly the right number of items, and not charge too much up front, or sell any at the end via discount, on another website. If he goes ahead and makes a few too many and then sells the ones that do not go quickly fairly cheap, he gets castigated for that, too. Preorders is a way to try to accurately gauge the interest. But we don't like the online meter, we just want him to go ahead and make the particular model we want, because we want it, and darned soon. And because he has had the temerity to mess with us, he won't get our business, we'll just buy it from someone else... uh... wait a minute... I think maybe we are all caught up in a Catch 22.
I have not heard anyone requiring a pound of flesh on deposit, but I have not heard everything, yet.
Okay, you are a producer. You wanty to make a Mud Flats and Eastern 2-7-3 in the pre-war and post-war schemes. You have a decent estimate of the total cost to manufacture. How do you accurately gauge sales if you make it? And don't say just ask people, because every single study ever done shows that people lie. They just do. They lie about their age and earnings on anonymous surveys. So how should they do it?
Virginian wrote: I think you guys are asking too much. You want the maker/distributor/whatever-you-call-it to accurately gauge the market, without using anything to do so.
I think you guys are asking too much. You want the maker/distributor/whatever-you-call-it to accurately gauge the market, without using anything to do so.
In fact, companies building model railroad merchandise did and do so, too.
Yes, it takes work and yes, it takes risk. That's part of running a business.
All those who just REFUSE to pre-order, prepare to be running nothing more than the equipment you already own, or more generic models. It's only a matter of time before Walthers/P2K moves to this same pre-order method. They are pretty much the last ones left making at least somewhat specific models that don't do preorders. Atlas has been doing it for a while now, and now BLI/PCM. Face facts, these companies don't sell enough, ESPECIALLY of a very specifically detailed loco, to build some quantity with an unknown sale potential. Remember the early days of BLI? Sound loocs avaialble at close-out prices that were less than the cost of just the sound decoder, because they sat around in inventory. Remember how everyone was moaning about how this must mean BLI was going bankrupt? Right here in these very forums. And in all likelyhood it probably almost did. Remember there was a huge lag after the first couple of models before any more became available?
ANd remember, this works both ways. How many of you have been unable to find a model you wanted because it was produced in limited quantities and sold out? If you have one on order you are at least guarenteed of getting one in your hands. And at least with the people I deal with, you are under no obligation to take the model if there is something wrong with it.
I pre-ordered my PCM T-1, and have been very happy with it. Don't think a particular sound is correct? Loksound lets you change the sounds.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.