@PSM posted:But it boggles the mind that they have not created a system where when a container of high end stuff comes in, Ryan and Dave either are brought samples or go down to the floor and take just a cursory look before it goes back out the door to dealers.
Well, that just doesn't happen in that way. Dave has said before as well as Ryan, that they get pre-production, and production samples throughout the process. Some things are either very early samples while others are in a few phases before being done(to head to full production of whatever it is). Demos with Dave has had a bunch of different items in different stages of being made. I think one of the ones from several months ago actually had some different things going on about it which Dave commented, was one of the steam locomotives.
These being passenger cars there is probably a big difference to the high end engines, but there would still be something sent, maybe the shell to look over, but not necessarily this particular one. Perhaps they send a shell of whatever is being developed, say they have 5 different rail lines using the particular model. The color schemes maybe viewed over email, videos, who can say exactly.
To have a container come in, and them to look at it right there is just about as useless as that old saying about bulls. The cat is already out of the bag, and looking at it at that point just doesn't do anything for them. Having said that, yes, they need to have way better QC on everything. If they want to cure the color issues, they need to have someone who knows exactly what it is supposed to look like when the first painting of EVERYTHING THAT IS BEING PRODUCED gets painted. We went through the nightmare of high tone silver smoke boxes and fire boxes that should have been graphite(dark, dark color as opposed to white silver). That was a huge nightmare.
