There you go again with those stratosphere priced hoppers! As HW said, twenty grand is more than most of us can afford.
Exactly. We all already know there are limited brass runs and kits of correct N&W hoppers and cabs out there. The problem is there's a huge segment of N&W guys trying to get at them all. It's simple economics, demand has waaaay outgrown the supply, hence why one needs to shell out about $400 for just one. And even if as HW suggests you did have about 20K to blow on a full train of these things, it would probably also take something like 20 years to gather enough of them. Jumping on a plane to fly out of state to find all these hoppers at a show is also not exactly in the feasibility department for a lot of us.
Given how beloved the N&W is in American RR culture, it still blows my mind that none of the big guys have stepped up to the plate on this. They'd literally have the market all to themselves on affordable and correct O-Scale N&W equipment, and then all those expensive brass gems might come out of the woodwork at better prices too.
