Elden

If flat cars don't sell, then who do we have to thank for
Proto, Red Caboose, Walthers, Atlas, and Intermountain
flat cars? And Athearn recently spiffed up their TOFC cars
and is offering the old MDC cars with R-T-R loads.

I'm not convinced that (1) vendors know what they're talking
about or (2) even if they do, would they reveal what they are
really thinking to a consumer with access to email lists? After
all, we've all heard

"Nobody cares about prototype accuracy"
"Nobody cares about that level of detail"
"Nobody will buy a plastic freight car for $40"

and so on and on... and the next thing you know, someone
surprises us with an amazing new model.

I can't keep up with all the new stuff, and I'm going to have to
sell off a good amount of older models that have been replaced
with far better models. I would have thought the market was so
saturated that we'd be seeing far fewer new releases, but the
opposite appears to be true. Where it is all going I do not know,
but someone is buying almost everything that is made.

Tim O'Connor