The P&WV Hi-Line

[PWVJer]

New Intermountain Alternate Standard Offset 60-ton Hoppers:
... delayed, new IM release date, Late August, 2013 (our guess maybe late Nov. 2013.)

The IM P&WV Cov. 70-ton Hopper:
...delayed, new IM release date late Oct, 2013 (our guess maybe late Feb.
2014,) if at all.

No suprise! Is this the new oversea's business norm ( All-Scale-Models ) for the majority of South-East Asian Manufactures?
Hee hee...you pay your $$$ up-front,
and don't really know if/when??? you will see the product!
How in the world do these some-what small U.S. scale model co.'s
design, plan, make a small profit & stay in business?

[jayrod]

SSDD. I bet IM would kill to get their tooling back to the states.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod

[Rich_S]

[quote="jayrod"]SSDD. I bet IM would kill to get their tooling back to the states.[/quote]

I can't say this is the industry norm, but the last time I spoke with someone at Atlas a couple of years ago, they told me the overseas contractor developed all of the tooling and molds. Atlas just supplied the drawings and artwork. Of course Atlas had to pay for the production run up front and part of the contract involved the over seas contractor destroying the molds at the end of the production run. Long story short, if Intermountain operates the same way as Atlas, then all they've done so far is paid a large sum of money for a product they may never see. I honestly don't understand why these people don't setup their own manufacturing companies here in the United States? If China says the heck with Intermountain and never produces the products, how in the world can Intermountain take a million dollar hit and still stay in business??? If Mikes Train House, Micro-Trains and Athearn can stay in business by producing products made in this country, you'd think companies like Atlas and Intermountain would be able to follow suite?

Climbing down off my soapbox now........
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Regards,
Rich S.

[jayrod]

I think you need a taller soap box for this subject...

Early on, manufacturers actually moved the tooling to China. When you wanted it back, "Gee, we can't find it" or customs needs to check paperwork and inspect it for three years and then it's "Gee, we can't find it".

The destruction clause is probably in there as a placebo against theft and unauthorized use by another company/subsidiary/department/employee.

Injection molding machines aren't cheap: $50K for a small one 20 years old to astronomical $$$ for a new high volume machine. Then you have to have the 3D routing machine to make the mold. I think we should pool our money and set up our own Sanda Kan (or whatever it is now) in the US and be the job shop for all kinds of plastic molding.

OK. Rappelling down my soap tower now.
_________________
Eric Schlentner
Aka, jayrod