CPR Passenger Car Exclusive from MTH

Great to see O Scale Cars in the crowd-sourcing domain!  I wonder if the MTH McKeen Car (2020040-1) would have come to fruition if crowd-sourcing were used to cover tooling expenses.

Thanks GWILEY for posting this useful information.

Copter

This is a really good idea approached in a creative way and it ought to result in a convincing representation of the CP wooden passenger equipment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I wish you well with the project.

Crank

Lets see we need 100 people to pay full for a 6 car set in order for this to be made??

For Canadian's ? would be exchange rate which way will it go if we pay in full right now ahead of time ?

Is this site legit ? Is it a safe way to make a full down payment for a future project??

As for the cars I think that it is a great match for the orginal cars pretty close.

had been considering trying to find some of the older cars like this from MTH in a different road name and repainting them to Canadian Pacific, but that would be a lot of work.

Interested in them but really going to have to think about doing a full payment to an unknown 3rd party company?

A deposit to a local Hobby shop I would do to get them no problem.

This is a good hobby shop by the way they have been around for a while now, many years in Calgary. Visited them last year and picked up a few things when in town.

With the state of the hobby industry these days, I think a lot more items will be produced this way. I hadn't heard much about crowd funding until I looked at some other projects on the Indiegogo website. It must be working because there are a lot of people using and supporting the crowd funding concept.

Just posing a question for thought.  How is crowd sourcing a project fundamentally different from a pre-order?  Granted, the hobbyist has more control over what will ultimately be manufactured, but with a pre-order there is usually no money out of pocket vs. having to buy it now and wait for it to be produced.

Not really saying one or the other is better solution, but wondering if it really is that different.

Biggest issue with this set up is there are a lot of old guys in our club that would like a set but not that savy with computers and reluctant to order on line.

Most orders for the 3rd Rail Canadian Pacific Canadian set are not through web site but local hobby shops across Canada.

If you pay full now and it does not fly what will the exchange rate be for Canadians for this set if $ refunded??

Was on par a few months back so would have been $500 for a full set.

about $550 Cdn today!

What about taxes ??? PST in some provinces GST in others??

I asked the guys from Chinook Hobby West about that when I saw the cars at the train show. There are no additional taxes as they are included in the posted price. Being an "old guy" myself, I understand the issue some of your older members have. They can phone the store to order them if they prefer. I live in Calgary and I'll probably just pay for them direct if I pick up a set. I'm still undecided. 

It's best to read what happens when crowd funding fails to reach it's targets, yet the money has been spent already on early engineering.  You're likely not to receive either the product or the refund.

I think I can wait for it to show up in a manufacturer's catalog.

Is this soley a 3-rail or hi-rail project? Or will scale O versions be made available?

MTH makes replacement O scale 2 rail passenger trucks for this car with power pickup for lights.

It is simple to take out screw for 3 rail trucks and screw in the 2 rail set.

They have this for nearly all freight and passenger cars with an easy mount on most for Kadee couplers.

Lucky I already have a set and there has been many fine steam engines from Weaver and Sunset 3rd rail in CP that would look great pulling this set of cars.

Going to 2 rail my set if it gets made!

Sunset's D10 4-6-0's would be perfect!

I saw these also at the show and was really impressed. Rob has done a nice job on these and is taking the big plunge with his store into O gauge. Since I know him, know the store and his staff, I also ordered the set. For me, I don't see too much of a risk and I feel this is my way of supporting the LHS. But, I dont have the right engine to pull them! Mo money, mo money!

I have a friend who used Indiegogo to raise funds for a project and am familiar with how it works. This passenger car project is a fixed funding campaign which means if they (Chinook and Hobby West) do not reach their funding goal by the end of the campaign period, then all the money raised is refunded in full by Indiegogo to those who contributed. All contributions are held by Indiegogo during the campaign until the campaign period is over. If the project reaches its funding goal, only then are the funds transferred to the campaign owner for production to go ahead. Unlike other projects, this one probably doesn't have any engineering hurdles to overcome.   

This seems very risky to me, so un -American. Why does the hobby shop just have them made and sell them?

Fred

Fred

This is a Canadian hobby shop doing things the Canadian way  like a co-operative

This is hardly "Un-American!"  This is in no way Socialist.  Quite the opposite!  Crowd funding is simply a new way to bringing investment banking to the masses and is a proudly capitalist endeavor.

Indiegogo offered two types of fund raising campaigns; fixed funding and flexible funding.  

Flexible funding campaigns are often used for what we think of as more traditional "fund raisers" by groups, including non-profits, looking to raise as much money as they can for some project.  Whether the fund raising "goal" is met or not, you made a contribution and you're not getting it back.  If the campaign offers something (Indeogogo calls them "Perks") for a certain level of contribution (think PBS station offering a DVD or tote bag), the campaigners are on the hook to deliver the perks whether the goal is met or not.

Fixed funding campaigns, like this one from Chinook & Hobby West, are essentially an escrow sales agreement.  It's more like buying a house on a MUCH smaller scale.  You agree to buy something at a given price and then wait for delivery.  It's entirely up to you to decide if the product is worth the wait.  As FERRYMAN70 mentioned above, if the campaign fails to reach it's goal of $50,000 by the deadline all contributors are refunded  in full.  Jonathan asked above...

How is crowd sourcing a project fundamentally different from a pre-order?

The only real difference is that you MUST put your money in up front, whereas most hobby shops and manufacturers take pre-orders without requiring a deposit.  But you're not entrusting your money to the hobby shop unless the goal is met.  You're only entrusting your money to an escrow company (Indiegogo).  If the goal isn't met you loose the opportunity cost of what you might have done with your money between now and the end of the fund raising campaign (May 14th).  This is one of the ways Indiegogo or any other escrow firm makes money.  They get to collect interest on your money while they hold it.  If the campaign goal is met, the money is then released from escrow to the hobby shop.  The hobby shop is then responsible for following through with placing the order with MTH and shipping the product when it is delivered.  You also incur the additional opportunity cost from May 14th, through to delivery.

In the end, you the customer incur a small extra cost to receive the product.  Given how low interest rates are these days, even if it take a full year for the passenger cars to arrive you're loosing less than $5 in interest to buy via escrow.  Your interest cost is less than 50 cents for the period until the campaign ends.  Your >50 cents risk has removed the $50,000 risk for the hobby shop if they funded on their own.  Not a lot of hobby shops have $50,000 lying around.  The risk is even less than with pre-orders because the shop isn't relying on your word that you will actually buy when the product arrives.  They get to know that the cash is sitting in escrow.  So, a product that might never be made by MTH directly now has a chance because the risk has been spread around among people who have freely chosen to take on that risk.

Gordon asked about an interesting wrinkle above...

If you pay full now and it does not fly what will the exchange rate be for Canadians for this set if $ refunded??

I don't see a specific answer to that on Indiegogo's website, but I would have to assume that they refund the same number of US dollars as they took in.  Canadian customers would be incurring an additional risk during the campaign period and should judge that additional risk for themselves.  This is one case where the risk can go both ways.  The exchange rate may move in Indiegogo's favor or yours.  You have essentially entered in a short term foreign currency investment.

Crowd funding is really nothing new.  It's just an escrow purchase agreement.  Thanks to the internet, those agreements can now be offered to large groups of "buyers" at a tiny cost, and sellers can remove most of the risk in offering a new product.  It's the All-American WIN WIN!…  and the Canadians want a piece of that action!