Originally Posted by Diok S:
A while ago, I was told that Menards rolling stock is produced by Golden Wheel Die Cast, in China. They have a very nice web site.
I got a Trojan Horse virus warning when I went to the Golden Wheel website.....be warned.
Trojan Horse. That seals it for me. Menards makes them as far as I am concerned. lol
One would think with all the detectives Lee has in his basement they could unravel,the mystery. As far as I'm concerned we don't need to know who makes them. Hats off to Menards.
Gentlemen,
Are the new Military Box Cars being made by the same vendor as these others? I just ordered 2 of them this morning.
PCRR/Dave
Originally Posted by Mark Boyce:
Trojan Horse. That seals it for me. Menards makes them as far as I am concerned. lol
Well, now you know what the factory looks like. Built by the Greeks and transported to Troy. Golden Wheel is just a front:
I understand the Greeks saved big money building it.
Rusty
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Oh boy, I wish I would have read page two first. I just deep scanned cleaned last night.
I got no warning though. Care to share what your system base and antivirus choice is? Or do you/it have the Trojans name so I can verify its not "got me"? I run a few different scans, some find what others don't, but saving time would be nice.
I run AVG......to be honest when I got the alert I bailed off the page and the warning went with it.
I checked the AVG log but since it shielded me....it didn't log it.
Originally Posted by jhz563:
Well, I still like the two cars I purchased, however prior to this thread I didn't realize they were "clones" of another manufacturer's product. I have an ethical dilemma with this.
I'll bet money and give you odds that Menards indeed has the right to the dies, they're the old KMT dies. I don't see any ethical dilemma here. They're not stealing anything.
I wonder if there is a list of roadnames for Menard's produced to date cars....? Think
we will see a Greenberg's price guide on these?
Wasn't able to attend this years convention but thanks for the pics. LOTS conventions have come a long way since I hosted the one in 86 with the first bus tour. Looking to next year with the return to this area (Philly/Valley Forge).
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Originally Posted by jhz563:
Well, I still like the two cars I purchased, however prior to this thread I didn't realize they were "clones" of another manufacturer's product. I have an ethical dilemma with this.
I'll bet money and give you odds that Menards indeed has the right to the dies, they're the old KMT dies. I don't see any ethical dilemma here. They're not stealing anything.
As I mentioned previously, the KMT dies ended up under Williams Electric Trains' ownership (now Bachmann/Kader). I suspect that Mernard's contractor (Golden Wheel) probably took a KMT boxcar (or even a Williams boxcar) and made their own castings of the body & frame. I very much doubt that Golden Wheel ended up with the original tooling.
I have a KMT UPS painted boxcar got it back in the later 80's, it is one of the few of the semi cars I have left. It was a keeper, nice car.
Well, where ever they got the molds, they look pretty good, I'm happy with my cars. 
I think they are real nice cars. I don't know if the quality for the price can be beat. John, Thanks for looking into how to fix very minor issues some of them have.
With all the talk of who owns what molds I was wondering, if Kader or whoever owns the molds to say a boxcar or gondola do they have the right to make said cars for anyone who wants them? Can they make boxcars with the same mold for Lionel, MTH, Menards, RMT, etc. at the same time? I've seen similar practices in a wholesale bakery where they put the same loaves of bread in different bags depending on what store wants to sell them as their brand.
Jerry
