Kohs & Company - The Finest in O Scale

12/25/08 - Merry Christmas to all and the happiest of New Years.

12/04/08 - The accolades continue to come in regarding our most recent delivery, the PRR G22b gondolas. I suspect that this project has stirred more response than most, because the results came as a bit of an interesting surprise. From the outset the reaction to our doing the G22b w/containers was being somewhat second guessed by arm-chair importers. Now that the results can be evaluated first-hand the project is being proclaimed as probably the best value to date because the models are literally loaded with detail. The feedback is rewarding, particularly from our reservation holders because they placed their trust in us early on and to hear their satisfaction is the ultimate reward. I have to again thank all of our extremely loyal clients that continue to make our projects possible, this core of supporters is ever present and willing to support the projects that we decide to undertake. It has been very tempting to provide price breaks up front or to raise prices once the delivery of a project starts, but that raises the whole issue of pricing, clouds the 'real' value of our models and we have always tried to deliver the best value possible. With closer consideration, it becomes apparent that the 'payoff' for those reserving models at the outset is that they have the pick of the crop so to speak and those buying late in the process have a much more limited choice. There is no secret that every project has it's 'plums' and it is seldom the case that they are still available when the project comes to delivery.

11/27/08 - To all of our friends living in the United States or from the United States living somewhere else in the world, we wish you a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING holiday. A special mention and a prayer goes out to our members of the armed forces where ever you are!

11/22/08 - It is with a very heavy heart that I must report the passing of a tremendous supporter of our modeling efforts, but more importantly a fantastic man. Jim Gillum, well known for his efforts with the Norfolk & Western Historical Society and particularly it's archiving efforts, died Wednesday night this week. Jim made working with the archives a joy, he was a man of his word and dedicated to the mission of the society and helping those with a common interest. Jim will certainly be missed within the railroading community and by anyone that had the pleasure of meeting or working with Jim. Our most sincere condolences to Jim's family...................... rest in peace Jim.

11/22/08 - I am happy to advise that all of our paid orders for G22b gondolas have been shipped! The feedback has been coming in from customers that have been reviewing the models and there seems to be two common threads among all of the messages; the first being that the G22b is the finest piece of rolling stock ever produced and secondly that it is very easy to understand the price once you see the finished model. If you imagine 2,400 of the hand-built containers all lined up for processing you can begin to understand why Mr. Sin our builder does not want to see any more projects that involve containers! Each container is constructed to the same standards as the car itself, with punched rivets, fully functioning detail and unique numbering all applied by hand. Needless to say, we are very proud of our combined efforts on this project. Many thanks to all of you that have taken the time to drop a note or call with your comments.

Our web updating continues and I hope that in the next few days we will have a full set of photos from our H-8 project finally posted, even though the project has been sold out for months. I will be adding a photo essay that illustrates the process of creating master patterns for casting parts and also the casting process itself. Having spent a day with Mr. Kim, the gentleman that produces all of the castings for our rolling stock, it was possible to photograph the process from beginning to end. Once you become familiar with this process you can better understand how it can elevate simple brass model trains to an art form when executed with skill and dedication. I hope in time to have all that are interested better versed on the processes necessary to craft fine model trains through hopefully entertaining 'educational' information I present on our site. Let me know if there are certain aspects of the modeling art that you would like to see presented.

There will be an new mail update going out shortly so I would request that if you are on our mailing list and have changed your address since out last mailing and have not updated your information with us, that you please do so right away. The cost of mailing our updates is substantial so when we receive returned update mail those individuals will be dropped from our mailing list whether the postal service has provided a forwarding address or not.

New online updates are coming for our other current projects so check back frequently to see the latest information.

10/19/08 - Having just returned from the TCA show in York, Pennsylvania I wanted to share a bit of the experience in light of the countries current economic situation. In preparing to leave for the show, it was done with great apprehension considering what has been happening with the financial/stock market and the economy in general; would it be worth the time and expense to travel to the show in York? In short, there were over 15,000 people in attendance and the universal feeling among the dealers I spoke with was, that this was one of the best shows in recent times based on sales. What a surprise, the mood in general was positive and people seem to be enjoying themselves more than usual, although there were a number of conversations overheard relating to the economic situation. For those of you we had the opportunity to meet and greet, it was a great time and I thank you!!

10/14/08 - Driven by requests, we have been working towards publishing a comprehensive listing of our production information for each and every project. Although most of the basic information has been available on our individual project sites, we hope to put it into a more user friendly form that can be filed away with other pertinent information. We will also include information on special very limited versions that have not been formally announced or previously discussed. As part of this effort we hope to provide information that can be filed away with estate planning documents so it can be used by executors in dealing with estate matters. We will be encouraging our owners to take advantage of this information in an effort to protect their estates against what we refer to as the 'vulture syndrome', the practice of friends and acquaintances looking for bargains in the event of an untimely death. If you have any specific ideas that may be helpful in this regard, please let us know.

9/30/08 - Just a brief update for tonight, Korea trip number 93 is in the books which is exciting because I am drawing closer to earning my golden chopsticks and getting a personalized complaint pad to use with Northwest Airlines. Number 93 was an interesting trip because aside from reviewing our current projects and discussing future plans with our two fantastic builders, Mr. Lee and Mr. & Mrs. Sin, which will be the subject of several future updates, it was time to make my annual effort to accept invitations from several builders to see what they have to offer someone interested in producing brass model trains. In short, times are changing rather quickly now and it is not making model production easier for anyone interested in quality production. This will be a subject line included in our forthcoming mail update because the situation is now a major factor in our future planning. Are we leaving the model business...........that is not our plan at this point, but careful planning will be required to accomplish the goals that we have set for our models.

We have considerable new information to offer on our current projects and have already started to do so on the individual projects sites, but there is more to come including photos. Be sure to check back for the latest.

9/18/08 - If you tried to visit our site yesterday around mid-day Eastern time you probably were unsuccessful. This has been a reoccurring problem that remains unexplained so far by our Hosting company Network Solutions. We are aware of this situation and are pushing to have the situation corrected. This has happened a number of times in the last few months and we understand that it is a real inconvenience for those interested in what we do. We can tell from the daily site logs that based on average daily visitation, several hundred people had problems accessing our site yesterday. Please be aware that we are working on the situation!

9/17/08 - We have posted our initial findings resulting from O scale track comparisons and if you're interested in that type of information for your layout, you may want to check out what we have done. We undertook the comparison in an effort to answer some of the questions we have been asking for several years and decided to try and get the answers for ourselves. You can view this information by going to the Technical Information page.

9/15/08 - You may have noticed that we have been working at updating our web site and offering up the latest information for a number of our projects. We're not done yet, new projects will be listed shortly and there is more information related to current projects to share, but I had to take time to share some hot news. For the first time (that I are aware of) Kohs & Company has been immortalized in scale size on an owner's layout, notice the sign on the side of the building. The photos below illustrate Dr. Steve DeLoach's impression of our 'global' operation. I am flattered that I am shown with more hair than I actually have, thanks Steve!!

8/27/08 - If you have tried to contact us by e-mail in the last week you probably know that there has been a problem. On the 23rd we suffered a devastating lightning strike that destroyed all of our computers and networking equipment so we have not been able to respond to messages since that time. We have recovered all of our data except for messages sent to us during the time period of 8/16/08 through 8/23/08. If you contacted us by e-mail during that time please resend your message so we can respond as quickly as possible. Also, if we sent you a message during that time it would be very helpful if you could forward a copy of our message to you so we can maintain as complete a record of our communication as possible. All should be back to normal as of tomorrow. More updates will follow shortly.

7/14/08 - If you have been trying to reach us by phone in the past 3-4 weeks you are probably very frustrated! We have just gone through another bought of medical problems in our family and it has been a priority to spend most of my time at the hospital. I am back at it so to speak, so I should be available in the coming days. The first priority at hand is to get our new project information in the mail and to catch up on responding to numerous voicemail and e-mail messages. Your patience and understanding is again greatly appreciated! We will be posting information on new locomotive projects shortly, this too is overdue and we have had numerous inquiries about our future plans, this information will be forthcoming. We hope to see many of you at the rapidly approaching O Scale National Convention, it should be a great place to do some catching up!! More soon.

5/04/08 - Just a brief update to advise that our work continues, all be it quietly, our hands have been very full with model deliveries and our continuing family health issues which sap a great many hours out of our work week. We have several of our projects that will be released for reservations this month, our UP Challenger, PRR N5/N5b cabin cars and PRR FD2/FW1 flat cars among them. Beyond continuing the development of our announced projects, we have been working to fortify our position in Korea so we can optimize our pricing and delivery. As we all know, the U.S. dollar has been suffering against most other international currencies and that has not helped the brass model business much at all. We are happy to report that the demand for our projects has never been greatly and that certainly is reassuring all things considered. We hope to have a more regular update schedule in the coming weeks, but at least understand that we are working hard to achieve that goal with very full hands! We have had a huge influx of new inquires and orders from new people in recent weeks so we will be back tracking with our updates a bit trying to provide a better insight into our business for these new modelers so please bare with us, we'll try to make it interesting and informative for everyone.

2/21/08 - The new year has once again started out to be extremely busy, just past the holiday season and off to the shows! We are trying to minimize our show attendance until our model shipping is completed, but there are a couple of mandatory appearances that must be made. Unfortunately we again could not attend O Scale West, because the dates this year conflicted with the toy fair in Nurnberg, Germany where we displayed for the four year in a row. We understand that O Scale West has it's dates set for later in the month next year and we look forward to being there again, we miss meeting with all of the great modelers on the west coast when we can not attend.

Shown below are a couple of photos of our display at the toy fair this year, you may notice the 'Big Boy' on steroids that we had the pleasure of exhibiting with Mr. Lee out builder, this is his personal project that we ave previously reported on. Needless to say, the BIG Big Boy created quite a stir throughout the run of the show! For the record we displayed: UP Challenger, C&O H-8 Allegheny, standard production PRR K-4, weathered PRR K-4, PRR N5 sample, PRR N5 with collision posts sample, PRR N5b sample, PRR FD-2 flat car sample, PRR FW-1 flat car sample, version #1 PRR G22b gondola, version #12 PRR G22b gondola, N&W CF-2 caboose, N&W C2-1 caboose, weathered N&W C2-2 caboose, Virginian C10-1 caboose and our latest Sherman M4 tank sample complete with working scale brass track.

During the course of the show we greeted clients from a dozen countries including the United States and interested enthusiasts from many additional countries. We were again one of two U.S. companies involved in displaying in the train hall, for the record, Hall 4A, booth C-228. We would encourage you to attend the Toy Fair next year and we would be happy to help you in planning your visit including supplying passes to the show. There are a number of railroad related museums to see in addition to some wonderful German cities to visit.

Now back from the show, we are anticipating the arrival of the PRR G22b gondolas at our shop and the shipping of those models will begin as we wind down from the shipping of Allegheny and caboose models. As of this writing, we are working on a long overdue postal mail update that will highlight all of the new projects that we are working on and will introduce a couple of new ones not previously discussed. The reservation process for the PRR N5/N5b project will begin in the next couple of weeks as will the UP Challenger reservations. Our work to update the web site continues and there will be a number of new photos added in several locations, most importantly to the UP Challenger project site. One final comment in closing, for anyone interested in the development of the Union Pacific 1:16 scale Big Boy project, we are helping our builder Mr. Lee launch a web site dedicated to his personal projects his site can be located at: http://www.sjmodels.com.

1/28/08 - Just a brief update to advise that we continue our efforts to get all of the models we have on hand shipped so we can bring in the next load, the PRR G22b gondolas with containers! Shipping remains our focus above all else even though progress on other issues continues with the help of some extremely dedicated individuals. There will be more extensive updates as time allows, including information on our freight truck production, passenger equipment and new locomotive projects.

1/04/08 - I just wanted to confirm that we are again shipping model orders, both the Allegheny's and the N&W/Virginian cabooses. We had stopped shipping a few days before Christmas as a result of several alarming reports from customers that had received boxes that had been thoroughly trashed during the delivery process, happily there has been no significant damage reported. As we resume our efforts delivery services will be somewhat back to normal after the rush. Again, we do not make the overt decision to deliver our projects at this time of year, it is always as a result of the collective circumstances involving the builder, the airlines and U.S. Customs, given a choice, it would certainly not be this time of year.

1/02/08 - Happy New Year to all that are interested in our work! The new year is underway and we are getting back up to speed after a fantastic holiday season. Our web updates have already begun and there are many more to follow in the coming days. You may have noticed a somewhat different type of photo featured on our home page, it was provided courtesy of Dr. Stephen DeLoach. In the future when we feature a photo from an owners layout you will find the credit listed on the 'Introduction' page for our site. We encourage more of you to share both your railroading and photographic skills! ................................PLEASE!

A special thank you goes out to Joe Giannovario, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher of O Scale Trains Magazine for his review of our new Norfolk & Western and Virginian cabooses. You can read the review in your copy of the January/February issue #36 or be sure to pick one up at your local newsstand or better yet, consider a subscription that will support one of only two regular publications that provide coverage to our segment of the model railroading hobby.

12/24/07 - Merry Christmas to all!

12/17/07 - Shown below are the master patterns for our first two sculpted figures. The coloring shown is the modeled material of which there are several grades used based on the detail required. The finished figures will be offered either as miniature bronzes or fully hand painted with exquisite detailing. The two figures are separate and free-standing and their pose recreates a classic scene often seen when children had the opportunity to get close to one of those steaming giants.The male figure is modeled after a 6' tall man for scale and as you can see, the figures offer a great sense of scale for the tremendous size of even an average locomotive. More information will be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks.

12/14/07 - We have been diligently working to get our new models shipped leading up to the holidays and we have had our hands full to say the least. Progress is being made and we will push on until everything is delivered as quickly as possible without compromising the final quality. Our efforts are now so diverse in terms of projects that help has been enlisted to deal with shipping as well as project research and development, more on this as time allows, but I wanted to take just a couple of minutes away from shipping to update a couple of situations.

The decision has been made to hold off bringing the PRR G22b gondolas into the country until after the Christmas holiday. Shipping volumes currently are ridiculously high and even if we had the models on hand we wouldn't be able to get them shipped out until after the H-8's and N&W cabooses have left the shop. As a result the final notices for this project were held and will go out in the near term, there has been considerable concern on the part of customers that their notices were lost in the mail, but that is not the case, I apologize for any confusion as I struggle to deal with an overload of work! The production models for this project have been completed, are all inspected, packed for shipping and just waiting to head to our shop in Clarkston.

I have had numerous inquiries about having our models weathered and I am happy to say that service will be offered in the near future on an exclusive basis to our model customers. Samples of this work are shown below, one of our PRR K-4's (above) and a Virginian C10 caboose (below). This weathering is permanent and sealed with a clear-coat so that the models can be safely handled without affecting the weathering detail. More information will be provided about this service in the very near future, but needless to say, I am extremely excited to be able to offer this service, it adds another dimension to our models and the weathering process is an art form in it's own right.

In the past we have discussed the idea of developing high quality figures to display with our models to provide some scale reference for the prototypes massive size, we have made progress on this as well. We contracted with one of the foremost figure sculptors in the world, Alan Ball in Switzerland developed our first offerings and I have just received the master patterns for our first two figures. The masters will be photographed in the next couple of days and the photos will be posted so you can see what the first offering will be. This also adds another dimension to what we collectively are trying to do with our model developmentt. If you would like to see the type and quality of work that Alan does, please check out his web site.

Well, it time to get back to inspecting and packing models for shipment, we are spending approximately 16-18 hours a day on this process so please believe that we are making every effort to get the models shipped as quickly as possible. I recently had a customer ask why it's always the holiday season when we are trying to get models to customers and I wish that I had a good answer for that question. We put a maximum effort into every aspect of the development and production of our projects, but it seems that the delivery timing always works out to be at the worst time of year. I wish that I had more control over this aspect of the business, but I will settle for being able to deliver the absolute finest models available when ever we can get them completed! I will continue to take the occasional break during our shipping to offer up more information about what is happening with our current projects and I have some great photos to share that document aspects of the model production that have never been shown in detail before, I think you'll find these photos fascinating so stay tuned.

11/22/07 - We would like to wish you all of our friends in the United States a happy Thanksgiving holiday season, a time to spend with friends and family. A special thank you and good wishes to all of our men and women in the armed services as well as all of those dedicated to foreign service who routinely spend many holidays away from home. You are an inspiration to us all, be safe and know that we care!

11/09/07 - Just a brief update to advise that our shipping efforts continue with our two latest projects, the Allegheny's and the N&W/Virginian cabooses. The process is getting a bit faster, but there is no quick way to ensure the overall quality of these detail laden models. Please keep in mind that, as we always do, we are delivering the models in the order in which we received the final payments from the reservation holders, all of the models will be delivered before the big holiday that we always seem to bang up against each year! We have a number of new projects coming on line in terms of development and there are more to be announced in the very near future. The long ago promised mail update is nearly complete and should be going out to everyone on our mailing list in the nest 1-2 weeks.

We are u a bit of an overload situation at this time so if you are trying to contact us, the most efficient way to do so is by voicemail or e-mail if you are unable to catch us 'in person' on the phone. Hearing from all of you is very important to us and we will get back to you as quickly as we can, please understand that we are diligently working to deliver models to those customers that have been patiently waiting.

7/23/07 - From the beginning of our model production we have routinely been asked about providing complete freight car truck assemblies for use on models other than our own production, until now we have not been able to do so. We have always been too overwhelmed getting our regularly scheduled projects completed to undertake the production of just trucks, but that situation has changed thanks to the effort of everyone involved in the production of our rolling stock. We are now exploring the possibility of offering limited numbers of completed truck assemblies (unpainted), but we need the input of those interested to make a final determination. We first need to develop a 'wish' list of trucks that are of interest to modelers and also determine if the market will bare the cost. We anticipate that the prices will range from $65-$75 (depending on style) for a pair of fully finished and assembled trucks, complete with all brake rigging, double insulated stainless steel Kohs & Company profile wheelsets running in stainless steel ball-bearings. These trucks would be built to the same level of quality as our regular production trucks in Korea, not China. If this is of interest to you, let us know what truck types you would like to see produced first. To make this offer has taken a bit of arm twisting with Mr. Sin our rolling stock builder, because quite frankly there is little profit to be made in the effort after factoring in all of the miscellaneous costs associated with the production and importation. We are looking at this situation more as a service considering the thousands of beautifully produced unfinished models that have been sold without trucks and with no suitable trucks available to complete the models. Please give us your thoughts, this is what many of you have been asking for!

7/06/07 - You will notice on our site index that we have updated several projects and we wish it were better news for several of them as we continue to struggle with our research efforts. You will also note that we have added a new project, the Norfolk & Western Class 'A', a continuation of our series of prototypes from that road. In the near future we will offer further adjustments to what we have planned as we need to work with projects for which we have adequate reference on hand. We will not be dropping any of the projects previously listed from our plans, we simply need to work around them until their reference is fully developed.

7/01/07 - Little doubt remains regarding what a master modeler Mr. Lee our builder is, but the photo below should give you further insight into what a talented man he really is. What Mr. Lee is holding is the rear engine bed of his personal project, a 1:16 scale Union Pacific 'Big Boy' ! All components are machined from solid brass stock, there are no castings utilized in what you see and when the model is complete, Mr. Lee intends to use a minimum of castings in the entire model in favor of machining as many components as possible. He is considering the very limited production of several units, so if you feel the need for something larger than O scale, this may well be just the ticket for your collection!

6/28/07 - Just a brief update to advise that we are now accepting credit cards directly for the purchase of our models and products. We have finally negotiate terms acceptable in all regards for our clients and we are pleased to offer this convenience for future purchases. Personal/business checks are certainly still preferred as that saves us all money, but in many situations the use of credit cards certainly can make things easier especially for our overseas customers since banks have started to charge rather high fees for the electronic transfer of funds.

6/04/07 - As a matter of explanation for our slow updates and more limited communication than usual, we have had our hands very full again dealing with multiple health issues in our immediate family. Understand that we are not vacationing, losing interest in our projects or anything of the sort, we have been forced to heavily prioritize our efforts to handle what has been thrown at us as effectively as we possibly can. All of our projects have been moving forward nicely despite what you have seen, or not seen, on our site and the individual project sites will be updated to reflect more accurately the current status as quickly as we can get to it. In addition to maintaining the pace with existing projects, we have been working on new ideas and quite frankly, some of these are among the most exciting we have considered to date. More information will be offered on the new once the old has been brought up to date! The demand for our models has never been greater and the future of O scale at least from our perspective has never looked brighter. We appreciate your patience as we work through our personal challenges, particularly those of you that are reservation holders for current projects. Being a small highly specialized company, it is not an easy task for just anyone to jump into the fray in the short term to speed 'things' up, so we have to rely on our finished products to 'carry the mail' so to speak in terms of securing our future and proving our seriousness of purpose. Please check back frequently for the very latest information.

5/06/07 - It has been several weeks since we have done a general update and it's time that we get caught up a bit on everything that has been happening in the interim. We will be updating individual project sites over the next few days and there is a new mail update in process which should go out to everyone on our mailing list in the next week or so. We will also be seeking input regarding our next projects and we will be offering information regarding our long anticipated passenger equipment projects. Please stay tunes for the latest information, check back soon and often!

2/06/07 - To avoid a lot of apprehension for some customers it should have been mentioned that the photo of the allegheny sample model below does not reflect the final paint detailing of the final production models. The white trim is yet to be added on the running board edge, handrails and tire faces.

2/04/07 - A new year is well underway and this is our first general posting to our web site and a fitting one it is as we attend our first show of the year in Nurnberg, Germany. We have tried to make a bit more room in our stand this year as the crowds have been much larger at least for us this time around. This year gave us the first sense of really 'belonging' here as part of the modeling community in this part of the world. It has been very gratifying to see the number of people, clients and general public alike, that have come looking for us at the show this year, in addition to the very generous coverage provided by more than a dozen magazines that have sought out our latest projects for inclusion in their pages. At one point on the weekend we had client visitors from five countries in our stand at one time, all meeting each other for the first time and discussing our projects together like old friends. Before leaving each made sure to exchange contact information to be sure that they could stay in contact with each other. It has been extremely busy, but below are the first of the images that we will post from the Toy Fair. The first image is a general overview of our stand location, the second image is of our new Union Pacific 'Challenger' sample which had caused quite a stir during the show and last but certainly not least is our first painted H-8 'Allegheny' sample. Needless to say, we will be posting a lot of new photos of the new sample models once they are back home in our shop.

We will posting some additional images from around the show so you can get an idea of what the atmosphere here is like, if the interest in model railroading is dying, you couldn't prove it by what we have again experienced here with the dedication of resources to this show by the major companies. We are among the two companies from the United States exhibiting this year, the other is MTH. More soon so please check back!

Kohs Models

KOhs UP Challenger

Kohs H-8 Allegheny

12/24/06 - Wishing all of our friends in the modeling community the a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This is the time to share with family and friends the spirit of the season in preparation for another exciting year ahead. We thank you all for your friendship and support. Sharing our passion with friends around the world makes what we do worth while for us and hopefully brings some happiness and diversion from the day to day responsibilities of life for all we touch

Be safe...............drink and drive responsibly...............PLEASE!

11/25/06 - In the last few days if you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer as your browser you probably have not been able to access our web site, but the issue has now been corrected. There was a technical issue with our hosting company that affected only Internet Explorer (most all versions) and we had been unaware of the problem until one of our German clients notified us of his difficulty. When ever you experience a problem with our site please let is know so we can resolve it as quickly as possible. Our apologies for the inconvenience and disappointment during this situation.

11/23/06 - We would like to wish all of our state-side friends a happy Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy family and friends, enjoy the spirit of the holiday and travel safe! A special note of thanks to all of you serving in the military that share our passion for trains, we honor your dedication and service and greatly appreciate the sacrifices that you make every day to help in keeping our country safe and strong. We understand that the holiday season can be particularly difficult as many of you are away from family and friends, at least know that you are in the thoughts and prayers of many who may not know you personally, but share your love of country.

11/01/06 - Shown below is the first of our new series of photos for our 'Allegheny' project. This is a sample of our Virginian 'AG' with a sample of our Virginian C-10 caboose. You begin to gain some perspective on just how large the 'AG' was when you compare the size of the tender to the C-10. The overall length of the locomotive and caboose is 40 inches. For more information on this project check out the 'Allegheny' project site. Be sure to check out the postings on our other project sites as well. We have been wading through a back log of paperwork and are slowly but surely beginning to get caught up which will allow is to make good on our promised web postings! We greatly appreciate your continued interest and patience.

Kohs & Company - The Finest in O Scale

9/20/06 - It has been way too long since our last update, but trust in the fact that our 'silence' has not been as a result of lack of activity or developments. On the contrary, we have never been busier with our projects, so busy that our web site and all of our paperwork has suffered. We are diligently working to catch up with all aspects of the business that have been wanting for attention as we have concentrated on advancing our numerous projects. In addition to updating our project information we owe some comments on the shows and conventions that we have attended in recent weeks. Just to recap, our active projects at this time are: the C&O/Virginian Alleghenies, Union Pacific Challenger, N&W CF/C2 cabooses, PRR G22b gondola with containers and the PRR N5/N5b Cabin cars. In addition we have been pulling together data for our next projects, we will offer further comment on this near term.

We will be attending the Indy O Scale Meet this coming weekend and we are looking forward to seeing many of you there. We will be displaying our latest H-8 and AG sample models which have just arrived and I guarantee that you have never seen models with the amount of detail these models offer. Allegheny customer updates are in the works and will be sent out next week for all of our reservation holders. A general update is also in process for our mailing list members and that will be going out at the end of next week or the first of the following week. When you have a chance to see what we have been working on, you'll better understand why we have not been out front and communicating as usual. We will be offering some observations regarding he current state of the brass model business as we get caught up and I know that there is a lot of interest in that subject based on the conversations we have had we a number of you in recent weeks.

Just to confirm, we are alive and we'll be updating more shortly. Thanks for your continued interest and support!

8/08/06 - We are getting back to a more normal routine these days and will be updating our site substantially in the next few days. Many thanks to all of you that have offered great words of encouragement and support in the last several weeks!

6/26/06 - With the impending show schedule I felt it important to let all that are interested know that we will be trying our best to keep our schedule as posted on this site. Although our personal family situation has not improved as much as we had hoped for, it is of obvious importance that we try to maintain our commitments as best we can. We have a lot project activity to report and show despite our distractions; we will be showing a pre-production sample for our Allegheny project, we will have a sample of our next locomotive project which has not even been announced, we'll have our Norfolk & Western caboose samples which are in production now, our PRR G22b gondola w/containers will be on display, we'll have an assortment of 'Pennsy' K-4s with us and we are very excited to have our lead designer from Korea traveling with us as well.

We are working very hard at this point to get back on task and caught up, we may even be able to prove those announcing or predicting our demise wrong! The concern and interest expressed by many of you for our family has been greatly appreciated and I publicly thank you. The care of the elderly in this country is a disgrace and many of you have experienced the same situations our family has based on your messages. As time allows I plan on putting together a web site dedicated to our experiences and how we have gone about dealing with them, the purpose being that it may help some of you that are facing or will face the same sorts of problems. Be proactive on behalf of those you love, few will care more or as much as you!

6/11/06 - I have to take time to offer an apology to all of you that have tried to get in touch with us during the last three weeks, we have again experienced serious health issues within our family and it has taken our attention away from our usual business activities. We sincerely hope that all will be back to normal beginning this coming week and we will be working even more overtime than usual (if that's possible) trying to get caught up on our messages, shipping and correspondence. Thank you so much for your continued interest and support! Be looking for numerous new postings in the coming days, there is a lot happening despite the distractions!!

4/23/06 - We regret that we were not able to make our scheduled show date at the TCA show in York, Pennsylvania this past weekend, but the time was put to good use in trying to get caught up with our shipping responsibilities on our latest project. We certainly missed the opportunity to meet with those of you that we normally see at the TCA meet.

Shown below are two photos of the completed Norfolk & Western C2 (top) and CF (bottom) cabooses. These photos were taken in Korea by Mr. Lee and Mr. Shin just prior to shipping the samples to our shop, we expect their arrival early this week. Once we have the samples in hand we will be do a complete photo review to be posted to the N&W caboose project site. We are extremely excited about the potential for this project and we plan on making the official offering in the next two weeks with a mailing going first to our existing customers per our usual practice. If these projects are of interest be sure to check back over the next few days for complete photo coverage of the samples.

N&W C2 caboose

N&W CF caboose

4/08/06 - Just a brief update comment to highlight new information that has been posted to a couple of our project sites. You'll notice that we are making great headway on our new rolling stock projects and that is due to a new operation that has been formed explicitly for these and future projects. The operation headed by Mr. Seon Bong Shin is called S.B. Models, Mr. Shin has 29 years experience in the business of building models and we are thrilled with his companies work to this point, be sure to check out the project updates to have a first hand look at what is developing. The new operation is being developed in close cooperation with our primary builder S.J. Models and the future looks very promising.

We will be updating our K-4 and H-8 project sites shortly to offer the latest status on those particular projects, we are behind in our updates because our focus remains on shipping K-4 models to anxiously awaiting customers. In addition, we'll have some new announcements regarding future projects, both 'for sure' projects and a couple that we are seriously pursuing, so check back soon.

3/14/06 - Our K-4 shipping efforts continue, we have our head down and are working full force to get caught up with our deliveries. During this time it will continue to be difficult to get in touch with us by phone, if you would like to speak with us please leave a message and we'll get back to you just as quickly as possible. E-mail is a good option for contacting us as well because we can answer your messages well into the early morning hours. We apologize for this inconvenience, but it is the only way that we can possibly get caught up. You may note that we have updated several project sites and we'll be doing more of that, although we are in the 'shipping' mode, work on new projects and in particular the next project to be announced have not ceased so we need to bring you up to speed as time allows. We are working to get back to our timely posting schedule for our site and we hope to be there soon!

2/20/06 - Our situation is slowly getting back to 'normal' after being overseas and then returning home to deal with a difficult family situation, the patience of those of you that have tried to contact in the last couple of weeks has been greatly appreciated. We are working full force at this point to deliver the completed K-4 models and we should be up to full speed in the next day or so. The K-4 delivery is more complex than most because of the final detailing that is required, all of the data plates have to be selected and applied individually and we chose to do it our shop to make certain that it was done correctly, if mistakes were made by the builder it would only be that much more difficult a situation to deal with. More comments will be offered on the K-4 update page regarding this project.

We have a new general mail update prepared and ready to go, but unfortunately since the U.S. Postal Service raised it's postage rates, they failed to provide stamps in the correct denominations for mailing anything other than a first class letter. We hope to have the correct stamps available in the next day or two so we can finally get the mailing out to all of our customers and those of you that have requested to be on our mailing list.

A special thank you goes out to John Bush and the Union Pacific Historical Society for the fantastic two-page article that they published in The Streamliner regarding our UP 9000 project. You may remember that John was the coauthor of the Union Pacific 'type' two-volume set of books along with Bill Kratville and was the source of most of our development information for our project. We are honored that they once again turned their attention to our efforts and we look forward to working with them again in the future. If you are not currently a member of the Union Pacific Historical Society we highly recommend that you pursue a membership, the organization is doing a fantastic job of not only preserving historically significant data and information, they are making it easily available to the membership, be sure to check out their web site.

Be sure to check out the individual project sites for new updates, our new projects are beginning to move very fast and we are working hard to try and keep up with the efforts of our builder.

2/08/06 - A special note for those in attendance at the Nurnberg Toy Fair that were hoping to see us on the last day of the toy fair; unfortunately we had to leave the show a day early due to a death in our family. We offer our sincere thanks to the show management for making accommodations for our early departure and our apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to meet in person many of our new international clients at this years toy fair and it is our loss for anyone that we may have missed due to our early departure.

Further comment will be offered regarding the Nurnberg Toy Fair this year in due course.

2/06/06 - The Nurnberg Toy Fair is under way and we are taking great pleasure in exhibiting our latest projects. We have been having a good deal of trouble accessing the Internet from the show as planned due to problems with the wireless infrastructure. If we can not get additional photos and information posted while still at the show, we will be sure to provide more information once we return home mid-week this week. The photo below shows our booth this year, although much the same in outward appearance, we have a whole new selection of models on display including our H-8 sample model and four production 'Pennsy' K-4's.

toy fair booth

In the next photo Mr. Lee our builder is happily posing with the wall of K-4's. It was a real pleasure to have Mr. Lee with us for a couple of days, but then he headed back home to continue working on our latest projects.

Lee and models

As we mentioned, we hope to post more info in the next day or two so please check back soon. The first printed update of the new year has been printed and is ready to be mailed just as soon as we return from overseas, it should be showing up in your mail box next week if you are an existing customer or you have requested to be on our mailing list.

1/22/06 - We have posted new photos and information to both our H-8 and K-4 project sites, be sure to check them out. We have a new general mail update in production now that will highlight what we are working on as we begin the new year., the update should be in the mail hopefully before we head to Nurnberg Germany to participate in the Toy Fair there. Speaking of the Toy Fair, we will be trying something new this year in that we hope to be making real-time photo postings to our web site from the show so you can get an idea of just how big and impressive that show really is. You can visit the Toy Fair web site by clicking on the image immediately below.

Unfortunately the Toy Fair is in conflict schedule wise with O Scale West in California this year so we will not be attending that show for the first time in about nine years. We will certainly miss being at O Scale West, it's a great group of people that put the show on and it's always one of the high-points of the year in terms of show attendance for us, we hope to be able to return next year if the scheduling works out. We would like to attend another west coast show this year to make up for our absence in Santa Clara, so if you have any good suggestions for us on shows please pass them along. Shown below is the first photo of our completed H-8 sample model, as always, please keep in mind that corrections, changes and modifications are yeat to be made.

12/24/05 - We want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and the best of New Years! Thank you all for your support and interest in the past year and we are looking forward to an exciting and rewarding new year. A special thank you goes out to Mr. Lee and the fantastic craftsmen and women at S. J. Models in Korea and the fantastic staff at Dallee Electronics, they are the back bone of our efforts. With two 'Pennsy' projects in the last year, Nick Seman has offered the guidance necessary for us to make every effort to get it right, a special thank you also goes to Nick.

Be watching in the next few days for new updates!

11/27/05 - The time available for updating our web site has been minimal of late; a major effort has been underway to ship our 'Pennsy' N5c cabin cars to all of you that have been patiently waiting, we have had hands-on involvement in wrapping up our 'Pennsy' K-4 project, we have been continuing the development of our 'Allegheny' project, we have been pulling in reference materials for future projects and a serious evaluation of our future planning was in order. Preference always has to be given to completing projects that are in the works rather than spending time promoting. Our desire to be a larger organization on some days to allow for great productivity ultimately has to be tempered with the reality of the situation while keeping in mind what is best for our long-term survival. Updates will be forthcoming for each of the projects mentioned above on their project specific sites.

As part of our future planning we have to evaluate situations and circumstances in the market place that directly affect our business. In recent weeks we have seen a competitor using a photo of one of our models in their advertising with the direct assistance of a publication, we have seen another publication apologize to a competing importer for daring to tell the truth to it's readers about the accuracy of one of the importer's models and we have competitors continuing to jump on projects that we have announced first. Where are the ethics and where is the concern for the future of the hobby? Our purpose in recounting the above is to acknowledge the business environment in which our future planning must take place.

Our policy in the past has been to avoid announcing projects that other importers have expressed an interest in first and were actively working on, but our future decisions will be based solely on the interests of our clients and what makes sense for our long-term planning. We have been operating at a great disadvantage while being committed to the complete-as-possible historic research of our subjects; while we struggle to pull together hundreds of blueprints and photos and search for seemingly nonexistent data, a huge window of opportunity has been open for our competition to decide that, if their thinking about it, it must be a good idea. With a hand-full of photos, a couple of line drawings from an old magazine and an HO sample model their off to the races on producing the same model we have announced. We have often heard from our clients, 'why worry about what the others are doing' and the answer is simple; the worst model from the worst importer will an affect on all O scale brass importers because the market is small and there are only so many dollars to be spent (consider the size of a typical production run). Our future efforts will include trying to enlighten potential model buyers as we work through the process of selecting projects and also how our decisions relate to our competition. As the cost of brass O scale models continues to climb we hope to help future buyers make better investment decisions. This hobby is suppose to be about fun and not investing, but considering the necessary cash outlay, if you can purchase a model of a prototype you desire and make a good investment at the same time, so much the better!

Future project announcements will be coming soon along with a more detailed explanation of what goes into making the selections, check back often.

11/26/05 - HAPPY THANKSGIVING! For all of our international visitors, today is a traditional and very special holiday in the United States, we would like to share our good wishes with all of our friends and visitors this day.

More Business news tomorrow.

10/20/05 - We are overdue for a general update and we felt it was time to bring you up to date at least briefly on where our current projects stand in terms of completion. As you may have seen elsewhere on the site, our 'Pennsy' N5c project is finally finished, the models are inhouse and the shipping is beginning. We are extremely pleased with the results of this project although it took far longer than anticipated. The K-4 project is nearing completion, we have only about three weeks to go and the models are looking fantastic. The K-4 project site will be updated shortly as it has fallen a bit behind as we have concentrated on wrapping up the N5c project. The H-8 project is by far the fastest selling project we have done to date and we are about to close the reservations. The first dedicated project update is in the works now and will be going in the mail once the photos of the first completed sample model have been included in the write up, this of course goes to all of our H-8 reservation holders.

We will be providing information on our new projects in the very near future, both on our web site as well as in the new mail update that is in preparation. Our approach to project selection and completion will be changing somewhat near term to reflect the current state of the hobby, it would seem that we have been too concerned with making selections that did not interfere with other importers and we feel that it's now time to only worry about the interests and satisfaction of our customers. A more detailed explanation will be forthcoming and your input will be welcomed as always.

One additional brief note regarding our mail updates; as your are probably aware these updates go out to all of our customers as well as those that have requested to be on our mailing list. In the past when we have received returned copies that could not be delivered due to addressing issues, if there was a forwarding address provided we would update the address and send out the copy again. Beginning with this next mailing we will no longer re-mail returned updates unless it is for one of our existing customers, anyone else that is really interested in receiving our mailings will have to make certain that we have a current address on file.

Check back for more news soon!

9/15/05 - We have received a number of communications in the last few days regarding Sunset/3rd Rail having used a photo in their promotional materials showing a Norfolk & Western Y6b model that we produced without proper acknowledgement of that fact, we want to confirm that we are aware of this situation and thank those of you that have expressed concern. Let it be said that we have had discussions with the appropriate parties involved and we'll leave it at that.

There will be more project news soon!

9/01/05 - The speed with which our projects are moving now has made it difficult to dedicate the time necessary to do our normal web site updates. With projects moving along quickly, we have had to pay close attention to every aspect of the projects to make certain that they are headed in the right direction. It's critical for us to provide the immediate guidance and support that our builder needs so that the final product is what we are all looking for, unfortunately this has impacted our normal level of web activity. With the delivery of our N5c cabin car project our normal updating should return.

Our attention has not only been focused on currently running projects, we have had to continue our efforts in developing our future projects as well. More information will be forthcoming soon as we are at the point when we will be looking to move forward on our passenger equipment projects, but there are several questions that must be posed to those interested in those particular projects. Quite frankly, the level of input and feedback that we receive regarding these projects will be a big determining factor in how we proceed.

The bottom line for the moment is that be assured that even though our level of web activity is down, that only means that our productive activity is at a very high level. Check back frequently as we strive to provide the latest and most important news regarding our modeling efforts.

8/22/05 - We apologize for the delay in posting new information to our site, but we have been extremely busy managing the details of the currently running projects. Our N5c 'Pennsy' cabin cars are to be finished by the 10th of September and our 'Pennsy' K-4 will not be far behind, making certain of the final details is critical at this point, so again please bare with us and we'll have new information available during this week.

8/05/05 - Our work and experimentation with the issue of DCC technology continues and we have reached several conclusions which we will share over the course of the next several days. We have looked at what we feel is the best of the equipment available and we are very encouraged with some of the new features that we see being incorporated in some new equipment coming a bit later this year, more on that soon as well. The bottom line for us at this point is that we will have an involvement with the technology, the only question remaining is how we will approach and utilize what is available. More soon!

7/25/05 - Our latest postal mail update has again generated considerable interest in our current and future projects, we thank all of you that have provided feedback in one form or another. Again with this update we have received a number of returned updates due to out of date addresses, we are correcting the addresses when possible, but we will not send the current update again. If no forwarding address is provided by the postal service the listing will be deleted from our database. We have never charged a fee for our updates so the expense involved just in the postage is considerable, if you want to continue receiving our mailings please make certain that we have your latest address.

7/06/05 - Please be advised that our network servers will be undergoing maintenance beginning at 10:00PM EST on the 9th of July, this will affect access to our web site and E-mail delivery. This intermittent outage should last 4-6 hours and we thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.

7/04/05 - It has been too long since we have taken the time to provide a general update regarding what has been going on in our modeling world. We have been extremely busy with our current project production, planning for the launch of new projects and selecting future projects, in addition to all of these activities, we have taken the time to attend some shows with the hope of seeing many of you there. Perhaps the subject of shows is a good place to start.

Our most recent show was in St. Louis for the O Scale National Convention and I would like to extend publicly a sincere thank you to the Big Bend Model Railroad club for their effort in hosting the event. It has to be said that it was not a well attended event, but we enjoyed the opportunity to meet with those of you that were there and we managed to accomplish a number of important tasks. What was probably the most surprising realization was that Kohs & Company was the only brass importer represented at the show. On the other hand, Atlas and Weaver apparently understood the importance of supporting the convention, their presents there affirmed that fact, we'll leave it to you to reach your own conclusions. Our next show is the NMRA hosted National Train Show this coming weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio. At the show we'll be showing three (3) production samples of our 'Pennsy' K-4 project as well as a production sample from out 'Pennsy' N5c cabin car project. In addition we'll have something special to show to those of you who attend. We plan on attending a number of shows between now and the end of the year and we look forward to the face to face exchange of ideas that those opportunities afford, we hope to see you at one of them!

Shown above is a photo of our latest K-4 sample model, this is a 'post-war' version with a 130P75 tender. Be sure to check out our individual project sites for the latest information on all of our active projects. In addition to our currently running projects we have been planning well into the future for new projects so that the appropriate reference material will be on hand when the active design work begins. Beside the usual core reference materials, we have been soliciting the hands-on involvement of the most knowledgeable individuals possible in terms of our newly selected subjects, announcements will be made regarding these selections in the coming weeks.

We are not only looking at new locomotive projects, but we are looking to develop new rolling stock as well, both freight and passenger. Shown below is a test 'shot' of an early production Sherman M-4 tank that we cast in brass, it is an exact 1:48 replica and may well wind up being a future flat car load consistent with our desire to develop a complete war-time (WWII) consist appropriate for a number of different roads.

We could go on and on with all that we have been working on, but there is a new update in the mail headed to all of our customers and those of you that have requested to be placed on our mailing list, the update should be arriving this coming week. We would like to leave some fresh information for the update and once they have arrived we'll continue our on-line update. It has to also be mentioned that the reservation brochures and forms for our 'Allegheny' class project are in the mail and should be arriving for all of our customers in the next few days, there has been extreme anticipation over the start of this project and it promises to be our highest demand effort to date.

5/08/05 - We want to provide a bit of a 'heads up' regarding a special offering that we will be announcing in our forthcoming newsletter; as we have previously done, in conjunction with Dallee Electronics we will be offering a special price on the finest throttle unit available for any scale, the Dallee Engineer. This offer will be available for all of our existing customers for a limited time only, the details of the unit and pricing will be in the newsletter. We thought that advance notice was appropriate since there will be a limited number of units available for this offer, if your interested act fast!

4/15/05 - Once again we find ourselves having to apologize for the incompetences of our hosting company, if you have tried to visit our site in the last five days you know that it has been unavailable. Although we have just moved to this new Internet home and initially had high hopes for consistent performance, our confidence has certainly been shaken by a problem that should have never taken five days to resolve! We will begin to update our project sites now that 'things' are hopefully back to normal. Again, we thank you for your patience during this past week.

3/30/05 - If you have tried to visit our site in about the last twelve hours you know that it has not been available, the outage was due to a technical problem with our new hosting company. The Network Solutions system shut down countless web sites as a result of their system indicating that web sites had exceeded their bandwidth provisions, this triggered the automatic shutdown of sites. The situation has hopefully been corrected! We relocated our web home to a faster hosting location which also offers greater flexibility and advantages for the future..............at least when the sites are up! We will be doing some site revamping so the move was required to meet our expanding needs, the most basic benefit of the move is that you should be able to access our site and larger files more quickly.

Many of you know that we have recently experienced the sadness of a death in our small family, this has had us very distracted from our normal routine, but we are working to get back to normal as quickly as possible. We will be posting new information regarding several of our current and future projects in the next few hours, we had hoped to due this last night, but the outage problem prevented us from working on the site.

3/13/05 - Since posting our initial comments after returning from the Nürnberg Toy Fair, we have received considerable feedback and inquiries about what our plans are for the future. In short, our efforts will not diminish or lessen in terms of what U.S. prototypes we produce, but we have struggled for the past two plus years to increase our production capacity and we now need to decide what is the most effective use of that capability. We must determine what additional simultaneous projects our current dominate market will support, we will not change what we have planned, but we can certainly add to it. Many of you know that we have been quietly pursuing the development of EMD 'F' units as a pet project, with all of the times they have been done they have never really been done 'right', is there enough firm support for us to advance this effort along with what we already have in place? Other possibilities that we must consider near term are the Pennsy BP-20's which have only been done once rather crudely and another favorite of ours, the Union Pacific 'Big Blow' which although previously produced, has not been developed to the extent that we would like to do it. The other possibility which many have assumed we are favoring is the production of European prototypes, while we have already selected two likely candidates that we would really like to develop, no firm decision has been made in that regard. We make mention of our deliberations in an effort to be responsive to our supporters and to begin providing some insight into where we are in fact headed in the future. As we do with all of our efforts, we will be actively seeking input on the subject and more specifically, trying to determine what specific projects will garner enough 'real' support to make them viable in concert with our current agenda. If you have thoughts on the subject, now is the time to let us know!

Our Internet home has moved in the last two days so if you have experienced interruptions while trying to view our site that is probably the reason. Our new home will provide greater capabilities and will hopefully be faster in response to our ever increasing viewership. If you encounter broken links or missing files, please let us know so we can correct the situation right away, we hopefully haven't missed too many at this point!! We should also mention that our E-mail was probably briefly affected during this time frame, so if you tried to send us a message and it was returned, please send it again. A major factor in our move was in fact due to problems created by SPAM, our last hosting company tried blocking more of the flood of spam and wound up blocking much of the communication that we normally receive from the 'Pacific Rim' area of the world, our apologies to those of you in that area that have been affected, we are pretty certain that the situation has been corrected because we have already started to see the return of mail from your area.