China Trains

UP appealed. It could change and be retroactive. The company's hedging its bets.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

The station wagon of the 90s.

Uh, yeah, missed that. But a lot of stuff still moves by truck, thanks to the ICC decisions deregulating trucking back in the late 50s (that spelled the doom of the North Shore Line, among others).

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

I don't think it is a bleak as the picture you paint. I am fairly new to this hobby but I still find Model Railroader to be interesting. I do agree that the LHS might be in trouble but time will tell. Horizon? Who knows how that will turn out. I think everyone will still be able to buy from mail order discount dealers with only the basement guys being hurt. I would think that is where most modelers buy their stuff anyhow. Thanks Marty Hall

JCunington ( snipped-for-privacy@aol.comjkelm) wrote: : >I suspect that Chinese factories and workers are much more energy-efficient : >than US factories and workers are; : : One certainly doesn't have the pollution control expenses there. :

No, check out the picture of smoke pollution in Benzi, China:

Health Effects of Air Pollution

CNN.com - 'Asian Brown Cloud' poses global threat - August 12, 2002

: I don't know about energy efficiency, but I suspect that in China human : labor is cheaper than machine labor. Machines cost about the same pretty : much wherever you are. I've already shown that Chinese labor is at least : 20 times cheaper than US human labor. : :

Communist China is no workers' paradise:

Worked Till They Drop (washingtonpost.com)

"SONGGANG, China -- On the night she died, Li Chunmei must have been exhausted.

Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. When the quitting bell finally rang shortly after midnight, her young face was covered with sweat.

This was the busy season, before Christmas, when orders peaked from Japan and the United States for the factory's stuffed animals. Long hours were mandatory, and at least two months had passed since Li and the other workers had enjoyed even a Sunday off..."

--Jerry Leslie Note: snipped-for-privacy@jrlvax.houston.rr.com is invalid for email

I can say with reasonable certainty that I haven't bought from any "basement guys". Mostly because I'm always broke at train shows. I've been going to Trainfest for 8 years and Madison off-and-on for 7. I haven't bought much beyond decals and tools yet. Mostly the "deals" just aren't happening anyway, except when I was in Madison 3 years ago. Proto 2Ks were moving at a steep discount then.

The LHS? That's where I get my stuff. One of the guys has thousands of slides and knows everything about everything, and if he doesn't he'll tell you so. Lately I've been there for BS and scratchbuilding supplies. Your local LHS might be in danger, but it depends on how much money gets spent there. If it's enough, the guy'll stay in biz. If not, he'll fold. Talk about service, inventory, etc., but what it comes down to is, does enough money get spent there?

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

This is a fact but the LHS has to be down on close to mail order price. Mail order shipping cost are offset by local taxes. In some cases, if you order enough, there are no shipping costs. Most LHS I have seen are right up there on list price and it is my money so I will buy from the cheapest place. I visit one LHS, a large one, in the Dallas area. He runs 20 to 30 percent off on most items. If he can do it, and he is a trains only shop, then I don't see why they all can't do it. I buy a lot from him if I am there in person, the local Texas sales taxes, about 9%, are a little steep but usually offset the shipping charges if I mail ordered it. Thanks Marty Hall

"The station wagon of the 90s."

Nope. The mini van was the station wagon of the 1980s; the SUV was the station wagon of the 1990s.

Eric

It was noted that Kato's N Scale Rio Grande F3 sets carry a $3.00 price premium, and that:

It was then suggested that the denial of UP's trademark claim:

And that:

UP does have the limited trademark rights to two other D&RG trademarks ("Rio Grande The Action Railroad", #74003586 and "Rio Grande" #74003575), but those marks specifically apply only to class 39 use for "RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, NAMELY, THE TRANSPORTATION OF FREIGHT AND PASSENGERS" and have nothing to do with model trains.

The "MAIN LINE RIO GRANDE THRU THE ROCKIES" trademark (#76479578) DOES include "toy model train sets" (a Class 28 use), and a final refusal to register the mark was issued on 11/24/03. There's no evidence in the USPTO database to indicate that an appeal was filed in the 2 1/2 months since then.

But the denial of UP's trademark application presumably won't affect Kato -- which has agreed to pay the UP for the use of the names ANY of the UP's claimed 1800 predecessor railroads, whether or not the UP owns the trademarks.

JRH

Salvé "JCunington" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m01.aol.com...

vehicles particle filters (rather more recently) on diesle vehicles, and a yearly test for every vehicle over two years of age a vehicle can be red tagged( not allowed to move except to a workshop) for a scratched widscreen, the tests are extremely severe, here in sweden banging away on the floor of the car with a screwdriver or awl to check for rust...........The regs are more or less the same now throughout all of Europe. beowulf

Salvé "Steve Caple" skrev i meddelandet news: snipped-for-privacy@netnews.comcast.net...

Harder in a Reliant van....they fall over....they have only three wheels :) Beowulf

Well, the newer ones, at least the sedans, are one of the sweetest highway cars I ever had. I took it out to Kansas on a 14-hour jaunt. On the straight stretches I could theoretically take my hands off the wheel for a half-mile. I like a car that floats over the bumps, and those little 2500-3000 econo-cars just don't do that.

In snow the car definitely begs for traction control. It has no bite on the rear once the flakes get under the wheels. Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Point 1) PRICE Point 2) Variety of offerings Point 3) The jobs are not leaving here, most American unions have priced themselves out of the worldwide economy and forced the ones who OWN the jobs to move them where it makes better economic and profit sense.

Clif

The '95 Passat is quite happy booming through Montana at 95 mph essentially hands off. Their 60 mph at night is silly, though - just when you've got their lights to see 'em coming by, you have to slow down; 75 or 70 would be better. But then that's probably when the locals are on the way home from the bar, so I can see some logic in it . . .

But can you put a 4X8 sheet of anything in the back? It can be done with my sedan, but I also have to hang a couple 2X4s out the back to support the stuff, then do the red flag thing. I'd rather have a wagon. Had one until frame rot and a disintegrating harmonic balancer did it in. I didn't feel like lifting the engine out to get the chunks out of the oil pan. My wife hated that car ('80 Pontiac Safari). I only hated the gas mileage. Cheap insurance, cheaper parts.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

You can put a 4x8 sheet in the damndest things. A friend and I once loaded one in a Fiat X-1/9. We took the top off & stood it up behind the seats. Biggest spoiler in the world. Doubt if we could've gone over 40 if our lives depended on it.

- ken

I'd almost pay money to see that.

I didn't know those things had 4 feet on the inside!

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Perhaps you have not been involved in the outsourcing of jobs overseas. I have and I can tell you the jobs are leaving the USA. The administration even came out today and said the overseas outsourcing of jobs from America is good for our economy or something like that. Go figure then vote for Kerry, thanks Marty Hall

"We lost 53,000 jobs last year. That's good for our economy." Huh?!

In the past week I've called over two dozen computer firms looking for work. Fully 1/3 of them have been disconnected, meaning out-of-business. How is this a good thing?

Kerry was a member of Skull-and-Crossbones too, just like Bush (Yale secret society). Do the math. Two peas in a pod (although Kerry seems to have a good centrist agenda according to what I read in Time).

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"