01-29-2011, 09:42 AM
Where to begin, or at this point, whether or not to even bother.
Read your modeling magazines - where are the unlettered, un-numbered items that always used to be part of an offering. Everything now comes in whatever flavor the most buyers seem to like, but hardly beneficial to the market at large.
Surveys? I've never been asked to take a survey. However, since H0N3 was specifically mentioned, that's narrow gauge, a world all of it's own. Since we're on the subject, though, let's suppose that you are a circa 1900 N-scaler like me, in standard gauge? Big surprise here - many Western railroads were standard gauge at that time.
Where are the passengers cars, rolling stock and other equipment from that era? I can tell you definitively that the staff at the caboose don't know, and they don't care. Mr. Sleepy, the N-scale "sales associate" at the Caboose, didn't even understand what I was talking about, until I went through it for him three times, each time more simplified that the last. The answer, BTW, is that those cars only exist in the Bachmann and Athearn starter sets, and no where else. Strange, isn't it, to offer a "starter kit" that can't be expanded or matched?
So, an entire historical ere of railroading is ignored completely because it isn't A) narrow gauge, and B) no one knows. My LHS doesn't know either, but he does understand my issues, because I have informed him that I am constructing a layout, and he's losing a great deal of money because he isn't stocking the products I want. OTH, I understand his dilemna - I'm one of a very few N-scalers in his area, so the demand is low from that perspective. However, he understood me when I asked him how much diversity he expected in his local supermarket, or if he would accept only three types of vegetables, one brand of potatoes, two or three brands of cereal, nothing but hamburger, hot dogs and pork chops in the meat department and so forth. If he doesn't carry a wide enough range of products, I'll go elsewhere.
The market is stagnating, and being driven entirely by whatever seems to be the fad of the day. As they used to say - "that ain't no way to run a railroad".
Read your modeling magazines - where are the unlettered, un-numbered items that always used to be part of an offering. Everything now comes in whatever flavor the most buyers seem to like, but hardly beneficial to the market at large.
Surveys? I've never been asked to take a survey. However, since H0N3 was specifically mentioned, that's narrow gauge, a world all of it's own. Since we're on the subject, though, let's suppose that you are a circa 1900 N-scaler like me, in standard gauge? Big surprise here - many Western railroads were standard gauge at that time.
Where are the passengers cars, rolling stock and other equipment from that era? I can tell you definitively that the staff at the caboose don't know, and they don't care. Mr. Sleepy, the N-scale "sales associate" at the Caboose, didn't even understand what I was talking about, until I went through it for him three times, each time more simplified that the last. The answer, BTW, is that those cars only exist in the Bachmann and Athearn starter sets, and no where else. Strange, isn't it, to offer a "starter kit" that can't be expanded or matched?So, an entire historical ere of railroading is ignored completely because it isn't A) narrow gauge, and B) no one knows. My LHS doesn't know either, but he does understand my issues, because I have informed him that I am constructing a layout, and he's losing a great deal of money because he isn't stocking the products I want. OTH, I understand his dilemna - I'm one of a very few N-scalers in his area, so the demand is low from that perspective. However, he understood me when I asked him how much diversity he expected in his local supermarket, or if he would accept only three types of vegetables, one brand of potatoes, two or three brands of cereal, nothing but hamburger, hot dogs and pork chops in the meat department and so forth. If he doesn't carry a wide enough range of products, I'll go elsewhere.
The market is stagnating, and being driven entirely by whatever seems to be the fad of the day. As they used to say - "that ain't no way to run a railroad".