Heljan new models announced

"Fred X" wrote

We already taken far more advance orders for 'Kestrel' than we ever had for 'Falcon', but then it did work off Hull Dairycoates for a while. Incidentally not all orders for 'Kestrel' have come from those with a local modelling interest.

John.

That does surprise me, given the short time that Kestrel spent in the UK, and for many months 40 years ago it was only employed on Shirebrook-Whitemoor coal trains (very long coal trains - mind you).

The cynic within me suggests that people may be looking to 'cash-in' on a limited edition, with a quick resale on Ebay in mind.

This is what I'm so worried about, it will actually cause the death [1] of our hobby when Bachmann, Hornby and Heljan realise that they can make as much money from collectors salivating over short production runs and high (re)sale prices.

[1] or at least reverting back to it's old status of kids with 'train sets' and kit builders with 'layouts', as it was 30 years ago

I can see what you are saying, but I'd venture there is room for "specials" as a cash generator for the maufacturers, as long as they don't over do it. I'm not entirely convinced that relasing the NRM Deltic as a limited edition, and then releasing exactly the same (as far as I know) model for general production is wise. If I were a user rather than collector I'd be a bit miffed about that! Time will tell, I suppose.

Cheers Richard

I detest limited editions, lets say I cannot afford today but can in two years - I'll buy one then - provided still in production - but they all tend to batch so should be OK