Walthers North American Ethanol Series

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I see your point Chris. But i have actually had a few other people besides myself reserve some of these kits for when they are released. One of the guys is building a European Prototype Ethanol Plant, so he has reserved a massive amount of these kits for a HUGE set-up hes planning. I also asked my Walthers rep about how many others have reserved these new kits so far, and he said there were a fair amount of people reserving them so far. I think this series will be right up there with there Steel Series that is out right now, and be a great seller and very popular quite honestly. True they are expensive, i agree with you there....

But the great thing about these 10 new kits is that they can easily be used in virtually any industry you can think of and model, and are not just unique to the Ethanol Plants, which i think will really catch modelers eye and say "hey, this kit would be great to use to model my xxx industry"

I'm not surprised that they are selling well. I think if i had the space and money, i'd almost do it (though ethanol REALLY doesn't fit Conrail or New Jersey that much, lol). It is the modern popular industry though, and as far as rail traffic, i admit that it brings in a good variety. any structure that can bring in more than one type of car works for me. Still, i'm willing to bet its going to be like those Ford Licensed structures. You're going to see a few of them pop up at train shows, but when they are gone, their gone, and i doubt they'll get re-run.

As far at the steel mill goes, the steel mill is actually interesting (it blows the socks off an eco friendly ethanol plant. Blast furnace for the win! ), and its production buildings all have interesting and unique facilities and machinery. I haven't yet been able to convince myself the ethanol plant is all that exciting, and it takes up the space of a small layout just to have all the buildings there. that is the other problem, relatively few of the buildings actually receive rail traffic. you'll get one track for hopper unloading and another to load the ethanol cars. all the rest of that junk probably isn't necessary.

I'll give you that in some cases, the kits can be re-purposed for other models, but i still think that a buildint that is essentially a big roof piece with some big wall pieces with nothing special about it should not cost nearly $80, especially when i can get styrene parts and build something for a fraction less, and all i need to do is cut carefully from wall stock, if i can't already find modular rix pieces. I suppose they'll catch all the people unwilling or afraid to do anything but a kit.