Update on the Springmill Depot preorder of N&W Caboose

[NW Modeling List]

Hi All;

There is ONE volume manufacturer of model trains in the world now.  They are used by ALL of the brands.  

Bowser had an announcement this morning, that their supplier is closing the factory:

"Bowser has been informed that our supplier has closed the factory.  We are working to find other suppliers but it is a long process.  All delivery dates are TBA.  Any new information will be posted on our web site.  Thank you for all the support of our products."

This is further not good news for us.

The problem that we run into is that the volume for model trains is very low and changing, making it not very desirable from the perspective of a factory owner.  A plastic injection molding machine is expensive, and the owner wants it running 24 hours per day making parts, they do not want it down for tool changes.  A good mold for plastic injection will last 1 million shots.  A mold for small plastic part like an HO scale locomotive shell will run at 3 to 4 shots per minute; over 5000 piece per day.  The factory owner would like to leave the mold in the machine for ~200 days until it wears out.  No model train brand can move that sort of volume of one model.  There are many other products that the factory owner can run that do take these and higher volumes, so the business case for model trains is not good.

Trying to get another factory interested is very difficult.

Nigel Misso


> On July 27, 2018 at 8:18 AM NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Gentlemen:
> Most of this dialog has focused on China and its problems with 
> supporting manufacturing, what is the state of the art with the 
> companies in Korea? Are there no Korean "non-brass" model companies of 
> equal or better quality and availability?
> Eric Raitch