HAVING A COW, OR MAYBE A HERD ON NK!

[G3750]

Who gets to decide the color ? All these crap toy trains are made in China. Who looked at the shells before they shipped them....

That's the true problem when you ship control of your whole enterprise overseas and put it in the hands of clowns who only care about getting paid.

Despite all the promises made, no one overseas has enough skin in the game to feel pain when promises aren't kept. And the importers, be it Lionel, MTH, or Atlas, are basically standing there with their d**** in their hands.

Part of this is our fault for always wanting the lowest price, part of it is the trade agreements of the past that gave away a lot of America's leverage, and part of it is the crappy manufacturing that goes on overseas.

George

[webenda]

Pick a color / era / condition for the model based on its history, advertise it, and then meet it. Period.

George

Period? Period at the end of the sentence means, the things said in the sentence are definite and no change is allowed.

Phooey! I am starting my own thread to express my opinions on Lionel's Fake Catalogs.

[J. S. Bach]

Phooey! I am starting my own thread to express my opinions on Lionel's Fake Catalogs.

[chuck]

Before the collapse of the paint market you used to be able to buy UP Armor Gray from Floquil, PollyS, Badger, and some others I can't even remember. I had jars of paint of allegedly the same color that were "close" when dry but none were dead on matches to each other. I doubt any were matches to the prototype. I've seen photo's of prototype equipment where the paint wasn't an exact match between multiple unit consists or cars in a train set.

The subjective nature of perceived color is insane. When I was in school back in the early to mid 70's there were studies done on color perception. This was all done with RGB lighting and the subjects were allowed to dial in the amount of RGB and adjust the intensity/saturation of each one. They were supposed to try to match a preset dialed in by the experimenter. The equipment was routinely subject to verification by spectrometer and intensity meter. Most participants were off on the matching. Not only were they off, but they were repeatedly off, aka what they saw wasn't what was actually dialed in. A very few had the equivalent of "perfect pitch" for color sense. Overall women could see more variations in red.

Having said all of that, this has nothing to do with what the factory in China did with these toys. Silver isn't "grey", it's silver. That's just sloppy or non existent QA. Maybe that's what helped Mike Reagan decide to leave?

The people making the trains have no idea what the stuff really looked like (and they don't really care). All they have is whatever reference material was provided. I can say that trying to match this stuff is not easy. When I did the kitbashed Erie RS-3 I had a lot of trouble matching the yellow used on the Micro Scale decals with any of the bottled paints "Erie" yellow (and that included the much vaunted Floquil). I think I made up a custom mix of several shades of PolyScale to get the color "right".

[E7]

Before the collapse of the paint market you used to be able to buy UP Armor Gray from Floquil, PollyS, Badger, and some others I can't even remember. I had jars of paint of allegedly the same color that were "close" when dry but none were dead on matches to each other. I doubt any were matches to the prototype. I've seen photo's of prototype equipment where the paint wasn't an exact match between multiple unit consists or cars in a train set.

Back in my "Hot Car" days, I was told by a painter, that factors like humidity and air pressure (from the compressor) could cause color variation in the same paint. In all due respect to those 3 rail "rivet counters" silver is NOT gray.

The subjective nature of perceived color is insane. When I was in school back in the early to mid 70's there were studies done on color perception. This was all done with RGB lighting and the subjects were allowed to dial in the amount of RGB and adjust the intensity/saturation of each one. They were supposed to try to match a preset dialed in by the experimenter. The equipment was routinely subject to verification by spectrometer and intensity meter. Most participants were off on the matching. Not only were they off, but they were repeatedly off, aka what they saw wasn't what was actually dialed in. A very few had the equivalent of "perfect pitch" for color sense. Overall women could see more variations in red.

The easy example that all is not equal among various people is color blindness. Considering the disparity of all other human traits, why would anyone think that it was? Anyhow, what I see is the TRUE baseline!

Having said all of that, this has nothing to do with what the factory in China did with these toys. Silver isn't "grey", it's silver. That's just sloppy or non existent QA. Maybe that's what helped Mike Reagan decide to leave?

The people making the trains have no idea what the stuff really looked like (and they don't really care). All they have is whatever reference material was provided. I can say that trying to match this stuff is not easy. When I did the kitbashed Erie RS-3 I had a lot of trouble matching the yellow used on the Micro Scale decals with any of the bottled paints "Erie" yellow (and that included the much vaunted Floquil). I think I made up a custom mix of several shades of PolyScale to get the color "right".

I think we're screwed until the invention of the Star Trek replicator.

[webenda]

Back in my "Hot Car" days, I was told by a painter, that factors like humidity and air pressure (from the compressor) could cause color variation in the same paint. In all due respect to those 3 rail "rivet counters" silver is NOT gray.

Gray?

From OGR: TEXASSP/8/27/18
The Mopac and T&P blue was very unmistakable when seen in person. I would almost call
it understated as far as a blue goes, much to Number 90's description, not really Navy,
definitely no Cobalt, that hint of green. It's a pretty color and then the white cream type
color, not silver by any means.

It is cream! We must all be color challenged.

[webenda]

From OGR: BLUE STREAK/8/27/18
I just received an email from Nassau Hobby this morning saying that Lionel / Ryan is
working on a solution with the factory.

Soon those who keep their bright blue and silver units will have a rare factory error collector's item worth million$ (in their dreams.)

[G3750]

Phooey! I am starting my own thread to express my opinions on Lionel's Fake Catalogs.

[G3750]

.
.
.

Having said all of that, this has nothing to do with what the factory in China did with these toys. Silver isn't "grey", it's silver. That's just sloppy or non existent QA. Maybe that's what helped Mike Reagan decide to leave?
.
.
.

{What follows is pure speculation on my part}. I would love to know the "back story" on why Mike Reagan left, but I suspect it has to do with pushing for quality and maintaining standards in a corporate culture swimming in the opposite direction. Frankly, his work on parts logistics and repair facility standardization was nothing short of magnificent. And I'm sure he was pretty much on his own except for a sponsor high up in the company management chain. Maybe that sponsor left.

George

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Before the collapse of the paint market you used to be able to buy UP Armor Gray from Floquil, PollyS, Badger, and some others I can't even remember. I had jars of paint of allegedly the same color that were "close" when dry but none were dead on matches to each other.

They would be for Floquil if from the same lot number on the bottle.

I doubt any were matches to the prototype. I've seen photo's of prototype equipment where the paint wasn't an exact match between multiple unit consists or cars in a train set.

I think in some cases they were and in some they were laughably wrong.

Variability in reality is what's important for folks to accept - it's also readily available for manufacturers and imports to use - do the research, pick a color from a photo, archives, chip chart, whatever, and present that as what the product will be and then deliver what was advertised.

Apparently that's too hard to do.

The people making the trains have no idea what the stuff really looked like (and they don't really care).

That should serve as notice to stop buying the stuff.

[webenda]

Who gets to decide the color ? All these crap toy trains are made in China. Who looked at the shells before they shipped them....

That's the true problem when you ship control of your whole enterprise overseas and put it in the hands of clowns who only care about getting paid.

George

The sticky thing about controlling orders in China is that you can give the factory a list of 9,999 things to do and not to do, but they will still find something that’s NOT ON THE LIST!

You’ll see factories make decisions that, in a million years, you would not have considered they would make. Something random, such as change the color when no color change was ever discussed, mentioned or needed.

Their response: “Well if you didn’t want it that way, then you should have told us!”

Your response: "What did you think the paint chips were for?"

Their response: "The contract said to, 'use the paint chips as a guide.' There was no specification on how far the toy color could deviate."

And speaking of specifications, many Chinese factories operate under an old slogan, "這對普通人來說已經足夠了," meaning, "It is good enough for the common man." Meaning the common man could not afford the product if it were quality controlled to perfection.

Back to Quality Assurance.

If you put 100 percent control in the supplier's hands and don't hire a third-party inspection company or send an Lionel QC inspector to the site to conduct their own review on your behalf, you are going to receive the factory manager's idea of what is good enough.

Contrary to popular belief, the buyer has total control here. After goods are inspected against a clearly detailed set of requirements, the inspection details and a pass/fail score must be sent to the buyer for review and final approval. This prevents the supplier from hastily shipping product without the buyer learning of any quality issues that may exist. The buyer can then demand product be reworked or can conditionally approve an order for shipping if the quality issues are minimal or non-critical to product performance.

A few years ago (25 March 2012) Dapol announced their Class 08 shunters were shipping. I ordered one. I received it on 20 December 2016. Why the delay? Dapol kept rejecting the samples from their Chinese supplier, over and over and over again.

It takes more than paint chips to get the color "close enough." The seller of Chinese manufactured model trains has to take an active part in the QA process.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The seller of Chinese manufactured model trains has to take an active part in the QA process.

That's true regardless of their country of origin.

[webenda]

The seller of Chinese manufactured model trains has to take an active part in the QA process.

That's true regardless of their country of origin.

As Hughes Aircraft found out when they started making circuit boards in a maquiladora plant in Mexico.
The former lettuce pickers were so surprised when they learned that an IC chip had a front and back end.
After all, they fit both ways on the circuit card. Why would it matter?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The seller of Chinese manufactured model trains has to take an active part in the QA process.

That's true regardless of their country of origin.

As Hughes Aircraft found out when they started making circuits boards in a maquiladora plant in Mexico.
The former lettuce pickers were so surprised when they learned that an IC chip had a front and back end.
After all, they fit both ways on the circuit card. Why would it matter?

That's an example of poor instruction being given to workers.

[webenda]

That's an example of poor instruction being given to workers.

Whose fault was that? The Mexican Circuit Assembly plant claimed they had skilled/trained workers.

Of course, such things happen in the USA also. Hughes Missle systems hired someone with a degree in agriculture and put him to work as the engineer on the cable assembly test sets. He apologized to me for not knowing anything about electricity the first time I was called to troubleshoot a problem with one of his test sets. I explained the troubleshooting process leading to finding a broken wire in the umbilical cord that connected the test set to the missile harness. Then I warned him not to do that himself because of union rules. Ha, I woke the electrical engineer inside of him and from then on his repair orders stated what part needed repair or replacement.

It was the same with the maquiladora plants. As soon as the workers had good training there were far fewer problems.