American Models Has Reformatted Their Website

Land sakes that Mop RS-11 looks SOOOOOO good!!!!

Andre

I stumbled across new American Models website as well. Nice looking site but yes, a work in progress until all the "kinks" are worked out. Not all of the links seemed to work yet. And anything "new" takes a bit to get used to. The inventory reduction sale page appeared to be absent. Also, out of stock or no longer in stock items were gone. Is there an archive of past AM products other than NASG? I'm sure Ron will get things sorted eventually. Hey, if he can afford the IT time and cost, business must be good!

Bill

Kelso, WA

AM has posted a picture of some tooling mold blocks on a S Gauge Facebook group strongly implying that something new will be announced soon.  No clues given however...

Ben

I saw that post on Facebook, but there nothing to indicate it was new tooling for a new product. Ron has all the tooling for his line as it was returned from China some time ago so he has tons of tooling to photo.  Guys here are so pleased with American Models stuff I think that they look for any indication of new items.

Gee, Bill, next thing you'll be telling us there ain't no Santa Clause. 

The RS11 was new tooling, and while AM is poorly represented in any form of social media, and does not communicate information any better than MTH, they have said that there are new products in the works.  I had a conversation in 2016 at the S Fest with them and they indicated as much.  For that matter, so have the folks at S Scale America.  And as we all know, AM does not really let the cat outta the bag until the cat is made, and available for purchase.  

Bill could be right, but he could be wrong too....

Ben

NotInWI posted:

The RS11 was new tooling, and while AM is poorly represented in any form of social media, and does not communicate information any better than MTH, they have said that there are new products in the works.  I had a conversation in 2016 at the S Fest with them and they indicated as much.  For that matter, so have the folks at S Scale America.  And as we all know, AM does not really let the cat outta the bag until the cat is made, and available for purchase.  

Bill could be right, but he could be wrong too....

The flyer AM sent in December about the Seaboard sets also indicated they are working on some new products, but got delayed because of their move.

Ben

Roundhouse Bill posted:

I saw that post on Facebook, but there nothing to indicate it was new tooling for a new product. Ron has all the tooling for his line as it was returned from China some time ago so he has tons of tooling to photo.  Guys here are so pleased with American Models stuff I think that they look for any indication of new items.

And exactly what's wrong with that?  While waiting 4 years for MTH to deliver the F3's, AM came out with the Budd dome and RS11's.  While the domes are built on existing Budd frames, the body was new.  The RS11's were entirely new.  Also freight cars lettered for T&P.  AM also delivered GP9's new roadnames: B&O and T&P along with GG1's in Conrail, Amtrak and Penn Central.

One thing about AM, when they announce a new product, it's either ready to ship or will be available in weeks, not years. 

Rusty

Roundhouse Bill posted:

I saw that post on Facebook, but there nothing to indicate it was new tooling for a new product. Ron has all the tooling for his line as it was returned from China some time ago so he has tons of tooling to photo.  Guys here are so pleased with American Models stuff I think that they look for any indication of new items.

And exactly what's wrong with that?  While waiting 4 years for MTH to deliver the F3's, AM came out with the Budd dome and RS11's.  While the domes are built on existing Budd frames, the body was new.  The RS11's were entirely new.  Also freight cars lettered for T&P.  AM also delivered GP9's new roadnames: B&O and T&P along with GG1's in Conrail, Amtrak and Penn Central.

One thing about AM, when they announce a new product, it's either ready to ship or will be available in weeks, not years. 

Rusty

Not a bad way of doing things.

Note to MTH:   One more missed date on the shipping of the 2016 S Fest cars, January 2018!

Ray

Roundhouse Bill posted:

 Guys here are so pleased with American Models stuff I think that they look for any indication of new items.

Absolutely!

Chuck K posted:

Roundhouse Bill posted:

 Guys here are so pleased with American Models stuff I think that they look for any indication of new items.

Absolutely!

And there's one more thing about American Models:  S scale is all they do.

Rusty

American Models gets high praise from me,  too!

Another big fan of American Models here. 

I think if AM offered their locomotives with TMCC boards and Railsounds from Electric Railroad, they would rule the S gauge world.  The biggest deficiency with AM trains from this operator's viewpoint is no factory command control option and basic/primitive sound systems.  But they sure do run well.

Scott Griggs

Louisville, KY

I think another factor limiting AM is that Ron thinks Lionel has flooded the market with steam engines and since steam has the most expensive tooling he is not planning to build new steam or rebuild his old steam.

We need new steam!! 

While I like steam, it doesn't matter to me if AM does another steam locomotive or not.  Particularly when the Legacy Berk MSRP's for 50 bucks less than the AM AC Northern with sound (of which all roads are sold out and AM's sound doesn't even hold a candle to FlyerChief let alone Legacy sound.) 

Besides, there's still plenty of diesels needing to be made in S.

Imagine if AM did an SD40-2...  I don't think they'd be able to produce them fast enough.

Rusty

sgriggs posted:

Another big fan of American Models here. 

I think if AM offered their locomotives with TMCC boards and Railsounds from Electric Railroad, they would rule the S gauge world.  The biggest deficiency with AM trains from this operator's viewpoint is no factory command control option and basic/primitive sound systems.  But they sure do run well.

Scott Griggs

Louisville, KY

Scott,

That's the nice thing about AM's offerings.  If you get the straight DC option, you can install (or have installed) the control system of your choice, but it DCC, TMCC, or whatever.