The Importance of Pre-Ordering

Model Railroad Manufacturers use pre-orders to determine how may of an item to make for sale with a few extras thrown in, very few. This allows them to limit losses due to over production and thereby getting stuck with excess inventory which has additional costs for storage (inventory takes up space and space costs money). So if an item doesn't generate enough pre-sales it will linger on in pre-order status for a while and may eventually just get dropped from production schedules. That doesn't happen very often but it does happen.

In September of 2023 Athearn announced pre-order availability of 3 different 5 car sets of Cuberland Mine Ortner 5 bay rapid discharge coal hoppers. They were due the first quarter of this year (now!). This author just checked with one of his retailers and these cars still remain in pre-order status, from 2 years ago, with no production date. See figure 1.

Figure 1 Athearn's pre-order announcement

It's really not that surprising due to this road being private (no connection to any other railroad) and having only about 17 miles of track that runs from the mine to the Monongahela River to load barges for further distribution. It is located 1 hour due south of Pittsburgh, PA. This is close to what once was the author's home in West Virginia and he runs this road on his layout. 

KATO made the SD38-2s that pull the hoppers. The railroad only has 2 SD38-2s and a single SD40-2. Thay have videos on YouTube under @ccrx 6700. You'll learn a lot about railroading. Dave is the narrator, works for the railroad and is a really good guy.

So, if you didn't know these were available for order, you didn't know these even existed or you're just waiting for them to come out. They won't! They'll never make them and will drop them from pre-order.  So if you're interested just do it and order them.

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