Looks like Railflyer is gone!!!!

Despite his business model that kept a lot of modelers away, he had some nice stuff. It just turns out his goals may have been a bit too lofty.
lets hope someone like D/W or D/A picks up some of his parts.

......quote- D/W has never done etchings and has been dropping brass in place of pewter. California environmental laws I was told. True or fiction?

I worked for Details West for some time and Paul and I are still very close friends and still build models together.

The problem with the brass horns is that Terry Wegman passed away last year and he was responsible for all the brass castings for DW.
Paul has had a devil of a time re-doing some of the brass masters lost in the aftermath of Terry's passing and THEN finding a foundry that can do GOOD model castings.....Good foundries are very, very hard to find and get production time in their schedules.

Paul has a new company doing his brass castings and those are making their way back into the supply chain.....In the meanwhile, Paul cast up some horns in pewter to keep up with demand.

Keith Turley
The Original Whistle Stop
Pasadena, California

They had some nice products, but I think they got way in over there heads with the traction motors, PCB/MCU controls and that tablet controller. It didn't help that they got screwed over by a few factories in china.

I'd really hate to see Railflyer go under, although he's been teetering on the edge for years now. He offers a lot of fantastic products, but (as RCH mentions below) he's continuing to over-extend himself. It just seems like he adds more and more products to the line while still not completing the ones he's previously announced (and accepted payments for). I recall him mentioning at some point that small detail parts just don't pay the bills, but I think if he would focus on only those parts that are not currently available (such as the Q-fans with etched metal grills that I'd love to see him complete), it would encourage us diesel modelers to buy a lot more of the items in his line. It's just sad to see so many well-executed products that really require the entire system to be completed before they are really viable. I'll continue to buy underframe details (but not the underframes themselves), pilot details and cut levers, fuel tanks, etc. as long as he continues to offer them. I don't know if a hiatus from trying to produce the drive and control system would help, but I'm guessing selling his existing detail parts isn't going to pay the bills that he needs to cover right now. I would guess that he's still going to at least try to sell the existing parts he has in stock to at least make up for some of his expenses, so people like Jim and me who recently placed orders will hopefully still see those items.


That's what always bugged me, and was something that has been talked about a lot on various lists. A version of his frame system with interchangeable bolsters for Athearn, Atlas, and/or Kato trucks would have sold very well to many diesel modelers. That would have sold not only the frames, but the pilots, stepwells, sidesills, fuel tanks, and all those neat underframe parts - basically everything from the sidesill down. Many of diesel modelers would have been thrilled to build that sort of frame with Cannon/Atlas hoods, Cannon/Kato hoods, or Cannon/scratchbuilt hoods on top. I probably would have bought a half dozen or more immediately, plus all the associated parts, even if they sat on my shelf for a couple years before I got around to working on them. That would have generated money and also gotten the word out about his products to the wider modeling community. It may not be too late to take that path, but I'm not sure that Chris is any more open to the idea than he has been for the past 5+ years ago we've all been discussing it (I can't remember how long ago he introduced the frame system).

Jim - DW does produce some etched parts as part of their diesel upgrade kits. For example, they have a etched screen that goes underneath the Amtrak P40/42 - it serves as a guard to protect one of the low-hanging pieces of equipment on the underbody. Their late Dash 9 conversion kit also has some etched hood doors that replace the existing ones on the Athearn or Kato shell. I think the side window frame for the later style GE cab is also etched. They don't offer any straight etched kits (i.e. Plano-style), but they do incorporate etched parts into a number of their kits.

Dave

You are correct.

I have to admit I never quite got their business model.
They seems to have some nice detail parts but I never saw them anywhere for sale.
I wish him well........................

Newest info I saw was this.


Guys,

I want to keep this short, but I will update our status and projects at this
point in time so everybody fully understands where we are at and how things are
going.

I was venting the other night on our personal forum in regards to seeking
creditor protection. Yes the past few months have been very slow for sales and
we have in fact asked lenders for lenience on payments. The truth is we just
increased our equipment capital by over $200,000 at a time when we just lost a
bunch of injection mould tools in China and the economy in general is sliding
backwards again. So right now I am completely overwhelmed trying to get out
machining related contracts to generate another revenue source. We do have a
large number of OEM clients and contracts; the issue is we have to be shipping
usable materials to these people to get paid. The good news in all of this is
(A) we're now able to do all of our machining and injection mould tooling in
house, and ( the additional revenue stream will enable us to reinvest in our
equipment and capability to do more of the work required for our product in
house. Already, I have seen huge benefits to being able to manage an entire
project from start to finish with no third parties or overseas manufacturing.
The bottom line is we're hurting but we're not going under, in the contrary,
Railflyer is on track to be a very powerful player in the model railroad
industry in the next few months.



Tooling – most of the tooling we started in 2010 and 2011 is unusable except for
items related to the traction motors and the moulds for the Blomberg and HTC
side-frames. We are going to start machining new inserts for our mould base to
replace these lost items in October/ November. We have also started the process
of getting our own injection mould machine. This will be in place around
January. By then, we will likely have all machining done on a good majority of
our first kit releases. The goal at this point is to have everything done for
the initial kits around May 2013 which is very possible and could be sooner as a
number of key areas for other aspects of the project are near completion. We
are upgrading the injection mould machine to do MIM (metal injection moulding)
so items like the stanchions will be done in house.

Exhaust Hatch Sample – Railflyer


Electrical – sound files for seven locomotive types are completed. We are
about two weeks work to completion on the PCB revisions and firmware for the
initial motor control units (MCU's). I actually have to stop using this term;
we are now using the ARM7 processor for all variations. We're a bit behind on
payments to our contractor due to the CNC integration difficulties however this
project is a priority to be released. With the electrical system completed, we
have firmware and hardware for any and all of our future locomotive kits in
place. There is enough memory and features to keep this system ahead of
anything on the market for years to come.

Layout Control – This is still another priority. We are going with a
battery/wireless solution that replaces track based control signals.
Essentially your locomotive is now your DCC command station, the tablet is the
interface. While the goal of our system is wireless, you can still use any of
our electrical products on existing DCC systems. The tablets are done; we held
back the shipment until things pick up.

New Products – A number of new products are in production including the plows
and exhaust hatches. We're also going to do a number of wheel variations for
our traction motors and do new heat sinks for the motors as this will speed up
assembly time.

DP 6240 CAM – Railflyer

DP 6241 CAM – Railflyer



Restock & Shipments– A few items are very back ordered, they are going to start
being reordered over the next few months to catch up. Mostly, we need speakers
and some photo-etch items like DP 6556, DP 6610, and DP 6612. As sales pick up,
we'll direct the money into these items. DP 6556 GE Deck Ditch Lights will ship
this week from our supplier in sufficient quantities to take a chunk of the back
log out. I am also going to work on soldering more LED's to get caught up ASAP.
Some items like frame weights will also be machined and shipped to fill this
void.

Thank you for the patience. I know our online critics loved the news of us
going under but it's not true. We really did just amp up the game, however at
the same time, I have been completely overwhelmed by this process and hence,
everything has fallen to pieces the past few months.

The good news is that in the past two weeks I have really learned some good
lessons on machining and we're starting to see the type of products that I've
wanted now for years.

All the best,

Christopher Howard, Railflyer Model Prototypes Inc.
www.railflyermodel.com

Their site is gone.