Be a patron of the narrow gauge model building arts??

Posted by Jim Courtney on Oct 27, 2021; 11:42pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Be-a-patron-of-the-narrow-gauge-model-building-arts-tp17065.html

Bill Meredith and I have been corresponding a bit lately.

With every email, I politely suggest that this DSP&P car or that C&S car would make a great Sn3 kit for Leadville Designs to produce. And with every reply, Bill politely reminds me that Leadville Designs is his bread and butter, keeps a roof over his head, food on the table, etc.,etc.

I was surprised to learn that of all the kits produced to date, the kits with the best revenue stream and return on investment are HOn3 offerings to the RGS folks (and I thought most HOn3 folks just collected Blackstone locomotives and freight cars)! Kind of explains why, out of the blue, he did the AC&F stock cars and the St Charles boxcars as kits in all three scales--the Miller cars!  Gives the RGS guys an alternative to black stock cars and 3000 series boxcars. The TOC versions are after accommodations; once the basic design work is done it is just a matter of burning fewer holes for grab irons and altering a few details.

Bill has just announced a new "Modelers Co-Op Program: https://leadvilledesigns.com/

Basically, if one really, really (really) wants a kit of a specific freight car, one can underwrite the development costs of research  & design (typically $500-$800 per kit). In return the investor gets unlimited kits at a discounted price. Additional kits sold to others yields a commission to the investor. Multiple investors on the same project receive prorated commissions proportionate to their individual investment.

This isn't a new idea . . . Bill Peters used a similar system with his "Advance Reservation" program. If enough "investors" paid the AR price (usually 1/3 of the estimated sales price) the brass project proceeded. When the brass models began to be assembled, another installment of 1/3 was due. At delivery, the final third installment was paid, though discounted (usually $100-$200) if one had been an AR investor. It kept P-B-L from having to front many, many dollars for a project that might or might not sell well.

I can see the merit in Bill's program: Say you're Geoff Hamway, modeling Telluride in the year 1905. You might need 20 or 30 of those D&RG 3000 series boxcars, in the as delivered 1903-1904 configuration, to fill the yards. Or say you're Pat Student, modeling Marshall Pass in the year 1924 -- you could also use 20-30 of those same 3000 series boxcars, pre-1925 rebuild, but with USSA appliance hardware. Nothing to stop Geoff and Pat from jointly collaborating to underwrite the production of the kits. Since the original 3000 series cars were so ubiquitous, they might even break even or turn a profit on their investment, especially if the HOn3 guys like them.

Or take yours truly. I covet about 10 laser kits for the Peninsular 30 foot coal cars:



The tapered side sills and stakes (as well as the circular cutout on the bottom of the original stakes) are a natural for laser cutting. The stakes could also be produced as 3-D prints (to avoid inserting all those 100 and 101 Grandt NBWs in to laser burned holes). A similar, simpler kit for the Peninsular flat cars, leaving off the stakes, sides and ends, could also be produced.



I could underwrite the project in Sn3 and if anyone in HOn3 or On3 wanted to join as investors, the kits could be produced in all three scales. Anyone interested??

Although the C&Sn3 Discussion Forum isn't really a "Historical Society" (though we generate more prototype info than most), there is no reason that the Forum couldn't sponsor a specific C&S / predecessor road car kit once or twice a year. Perhaps straw polls could be conducted to determine the most popular prototype to sponsor and in which scales.

Let's hear everyone's thoughts . . .