AZL February 2020 New Items Part 2

Well, that finally answers my question about whether or not the containers are new tooling.

Thanks for the BNSF Maxi-I's though. I am doing my best to support the release, although the Swoosh Maxi-I's are on the very tail end of my modeling era. One shiny new swoosh BNSF and one patched-over SP would be representative of what would be around in the mid-2000's, but I plan to get more TTX-variants and a couple of BNSF Circle Logo if they are in the plans. (yes, I saw your layout pic with the circle logo BNSF's, but that is no guarantee they made production)

For you to make these incredible doublestack cars yet continue to roll out these containers is a head-scratcher. Sort of like cooking a nice filet mignon and covering it in ketchup. I know you mentioned some new corrugated 53's are a possibility for being next on the agenda, so I hope the attention to detail matches what AZL has been giving on the latest locos and freight cars. But some new tooling for the sea cans would be nice, too.

EDIT: So I noticed the price on these has dropped considerably, which does make the fidelity issue a little easier to swallow.   At that price point they at least work as relatively inexpensive (and nicely decorated) filler until others can be procured.

Well, not exactly - but I'm happy to give you the real scoop as to what happened.

We initially thought it would make sense to make a new container (corrugated) to go with the Maxi-I sets, but a few things happened after we made the initial product announcement.

First, we got some negative feedback regarding the price - on this forum, and from other sources. So, we looked for ways to reduce costs. We had planned to include 10 containers with each Maxi-I, but realized that we could reduce the final retail price by close to $80 per unit if we did not include containers.

Second, the new containers were going to require new artworks, and that is a long process with our factories. We realized that in order for the containers to be delivered with the Maxi-I that we would have to limit them to about 5 or 6 paint schemes. There are about a hundred to choose from, and I can guarantee that which ever ones we chose, you would have wanted something else. Kato has had this problem with their Maxi units: people like the car, but don't want the containers that come with them.

Third, including the containers would have delayed the project by about 4 months. With current coronavirus issues, it would have been even longer. I don't think we would have been able to start deliveries before summer of 2020.

Last, we already had the tooling from the first run of containers, so it was very quick and easy to do a short run of the original 53' well car containers. We could sell those separately and allow people to mix and match as they saw fit instead of us having to guess what you want and package them in with the Maxi-I.

But we did include cavities for the 40' containers in the package!

Cheers,
-Rob(A)