Point Pedro
January 2004 Newsletter
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2003 Newsletter
For those of you who have not already noticed, perhaps the biggest news for the new year is that you can now purchase all New England Rail and Standard Car Co. items via the internet, without leaving the comfort of your home or office. Work for this change was completed during the second week in December and the first order was received and shipped within the first twenty-four hours. Please note that whether you order by mail or on-line, if you provide us with an e-mail address we can let you know when your order has been shipped and/or seek answers more quickly to any question that may arise from your order.
We have run into a problem with the supply of our window glazing that warrants a cautionary note at this time. John Hitzeman, of American Model Builders, first approached us with a proposal for his company to supply this material to us some three years before the items were introduced. After he was advised that we would like to see some samples, and given what he needed to produce them, it took John nearly two years to prepare them. That probably should have been an alarm. Once samples were approved, and a selling price satisfactory for both of us was worked out for the #399 set, which both firms were to offer, orders were placed for the first six items. We soon found that AMB was offering the same set as our #399 for $1.50 less than we could to offer it for and, thus, returned most of that item. We then attempted to order the remaining two sets and found we were now required to work with someone other than John and that all terms had changed. John refused to become involved any further or to provide any explanation as to why all terms had changed, leaving us in an impossible situation.
Since we cannot do business under the new terms dictated we are seeking a new supplier for our glazing material. As good as the material is, we will discontinue any effort to offer glazing if a new supplier cannot be found. At the moment we are out of item #400 and cannot predict when, or if, it will be available again. The #401, #401P, #402 and #405 glazing packages are still available at this time and can be used in conjunction with AMB's own glazing for the Rivarossi 12-1 to complete most projects. We regret this problem but had no idea of the headaches that would arise with A.M.B. when it was decided to accept that company's proposal to supply these items.
We have been surprised over the past year by the number of Pullman Conversion Kits sold in relation to the number of Coach or Combine Conversion Kits. Is everyone running all Pullman trains? Doesn't anyone include a first class or other coach or a combination baggage-smoker? To spark some interest in our #300 Coach and #301 Combine Conversion Kits, and bring their sales back up to former levels, we are offering a special price for multiple purchases of them while the current supply lasts. With any purchase of three #300 Coach Conversion Kits together with one #301 Combine Conversion Kit, or with any purchase of four #300 Coach Conversion Kits, we will add an additional #300 Coach Conversion Kit at no additional charge. This is an extra $5.95 value for free!
For those unfamiliar with our coach and combine kits perhaps some descriptive information about them might be helpful. In addition to it's own Pullman fleet of sleepers, parlors, diners and other extra fare cars, the Pullman company also constructed regular passenger cars for many different railroads. These included coaches, combines, baggage and other cars. Some of these coaches and combines utilized the same basic carbody that Pullman used for its sleeper and parlor car fleet, though their floors usually contained less concrete, reducing their total weight somewhat. Some coaches and combines were constructed with paired windows while others were constructed with single windows. Our coach and combine kits produce cars of the single window variety. While similar coaches and combines were constructed for several roads, ours are based on New Haven R.R. prototypes. The prototypes for the coaches are the New Haven's #8100 - #8158, and smokers #6800 - #6843, while the combines were of the #6100 - #6105 series. On the New Haven at least, these cars were always refered to as "deluxe" coaches and smokers due, no doubt, to the superior ride they provided when compared to lighter cars. Those needing paired window examples can convert them using our #200 Pullman Paired Windows in combination with our #211 Pullman 5 ft. 6 in. Baggage Doors for the combine. We will try to have diagrams of these cars added to the website to help you compare them with similar cars constructed for other roads. In the meantime you can go to our "Gallery" section and scroll down until you find them to see examples of each.
We continue to sort out the various pieces of equipment required for us to offer a Steam Ejector A/C System. As noted in the November Newsletter, we have begun to use a poured resin material for some of our passenger car detail parts when injection molded styrene does not appear to be appropriate. The roof hatches used with the steam ejector system are certainly a case in point. Generally, two hatches were used for each installation. Both of these hatches have roughly thirty latches of the screw-down variety that simply cannot be reproduced in injection molded styrene in a way that any modeler would ever tolerate them. The only practical way to offer them is either as lost wax castings, at a very high cost, or as poured resin castings. The latter is still not cheap but appears to be the most cost-effective way to offer these items. We have received sample castings of the roof hatches from our molder, photos of which will appear here within a week or two. Once seen it will become apparent why it is not practicable to offer them in any other medium.
Our efforts with the under body parts for this system continue. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a bit of variation here that must be worked out so that we know exactly what everything is used for and how it differs from one application to the next. And therein lies the problem. There appears to be less standardization in the application of the steam ejector system to Pullman cars than with any other Pullman work I have come across. As applied to Santa Fe assigned cars one style of installation was used and that seems to vary from that used by the Southern or the Erie, two other large users of the steam ejector system. If anyone has any thoughts on the application of this system to the cars assigned to various roads I would appreciate hearing from them. In the meantime, work continues on the underbody parts.
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