I am wondering how others keep abreast of new offering from the various manufactures. There seems to be a hodge-podge of twitter, facebook, check the site or chicken bones to scourge through to find this information. Thanks, and hoping there is something.
It's pretty much as you've described. The two magazines, word of mouth, etc, etc. We do have an area here for new product announcements. Which several manufacturers do use. But we do wish more of them would utilize that forum to inform us.
I usually check BLW's new listings every day or two and NSS once a week to keep up with what is coming out. Between the two I usually don't miss anything...that wasn't my fault for not ordering soon enough (damn Atlas SP Daylight TOFC cars that they only made like 3 total of and sold out immediately)
A lot of manufacturers and some retail sites have email lists you can sign up for. Other than that just search on the 1st and the 15th when new is announced. Trey
Exactly what I don't want to miss, SP Daylight TOFC, which until now I didn't know ever was made. And if Centralia ever reruns the Lark, do they ever do that?
+1 I also subscribe to Kato's email notification, which always provides the earliest notification for almost everything I have any interest in.
I check a particular dealer's web site twice a day. They have an online inventory, and if something shows up I order it. Like I just did ten minutes ago for three FVM BNSF SD70ACes and three FVM UP SD70Aces. FVM's Facebook page showed them as shipping about now, but nonetheless I check the dealer's site religiously every day in case something shows up. Mainly because in N Scale if ya snooze ya lose.
And as a further lesson: the three BNSF locos are now shown as out of stock. Had I hesitated, I'd be lost. (Did I mention they also have about the best prices out there?) This particular seller does not normally restock except on certain things - FVM locos are not one of them, although IIRC they did do a restock on the first run of GP60s some years back...but I'm not gonna take the chance they won't.
I knew that the Atlas SP Daylight TOFC cars were coming out, I just didn't reserve any and figured (like most of Atlas cars) they would be available for a few days at least. Instead, they came out and I waited a week while something else I wanted arrived and they were gone. In the several years since then, only 2 have ever even come up for auction on 'that auction site'. If anyone ever sees any in their local hobby shop, I'll take them ALL (I was able to eventually get one).
