Recent Dispatches

Recent Dispatches: (Home)
Copyright © 2001-2006 Railway Classics. All rights reserved.
Revised: October 19, 2006.

10/19/06 - Announcement. As most of you know, this has been a year of challenge for Railway Classics. Doug's wife has been ill, limiting the time he can spend on Railway Classics. The dollar has been devalued against the Korean won, increasing the cost of projects 20%. As was announced on July 22nd, Railway Classics is in "Hibernation Mode," selling in stock items and taking reservations on announced projects, but holding out for better prices from our builders. At the end of March, I found other employment and have been helping out as I have had time. Some of you know this time has been extremely limited, and my responses to your requests have been slow. For this I apologize. Doug and I have discussed the situation as a whole and have agreed that it would be best to end my involvement with Railway Classics. That will become effective October 31^st but we are beginning the transition now. Please start using the Eagan phone numbers for Railway Classics – (952) 997-2711 and faxes should now go to (952) 997-2712. Emails should now go to Doug at RailwayClassics@aol.com. I’ll still be monitoring the Georgia voicemail and emails, forwarding them to Doug in case anyone forgets. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with each and every one of you, and will miss you all. I'll still be involved in the model railroad business, operating my dealership Q Connection and I wish all the best for you and yours!

7/22/06 - Announcement. Late last fall, Ajin informed us that they are no longer interested in building passenger cars for us, but were willing to continue to work on the EMD E-unit project but at a much higher price. We have been seeking replacement builders for our passenger car projects who will meet our demanding quality requirements and do so for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, even after a trip to South Korea, we have not been able to come to agreeable terms with any of the builders on price, especially in light of the unfavorable exchange rate. Due to this impasse, we have decided to place Railway Classics in "hibernation mode," placing our current projects on hold and cutting our expenses to a bare minimum until the business climate improves. David has taken a full-time job away from Railway Classics, but David and Doug are still continuing to handle Railway Classics business on a limited, part-time basis, continuing to take and fulfill orders for in stock items. We have no plans to cancel any of our HO scale projects and will continue to take reservations on them. Unfortunately, due to very low reservation levels, we are canceling all of our N scale projects. Refunds on the N scale Creek Series Observation deposits will be refunded to our Dealers shortly. We value our Dealers and our customers and ask for your patience and understanding during this time.

12/14/05 - NEWS!!! We are pleased to announce that we will be offering the Northern Pacific Heavyweight Observation Lounge cars Nos. 1710-19 as an individual car - the new catalog number is NP16. Since this is a part of the NP Heavyweight North Coast project - we MUST have your reservations in for this car no later than January 31st. Please contact your dealer ASAP!! Also, due to customer demands, we have reinstated the DM&IR "tender booster" versions of the 0-10-0 switchers - catalog numbers DMIR10 (black) & DMIR12 gray).

12/8/05 - NEWS!!! Update your address books - David is moving! On January 1st David's family will be moving to Savannah, Georgia. Dave@RailwayClassics.com will still be the primary email address for reaching David, however, effective January 3rd, David's Railway Classics phone number will change to 912-330-9347, and his fax line will be 912-330-9314. If you need his mailing address, drop him an email to get it.

RERUNS!!! We are pleased to announce that we will be offering a rerun on both the 1948 NYC 20th Century and New Haven Merchant's Limited cars - both sets and individual cars. These will be done with new names and numbers so that the cars will not be duplicates of those in the first run. PLEASE NOTE there is a VERY LIMITED reservation period that closes on January 31, 2006. At that point we will determine if the demand is great enough to do the rerun and will announce it here. Get your reservations in to your dealers quickly!!

Update: Updated statuses on most all of our pages to bring projects current. Added new pages for the Seaboard Air Line E4 Locomotives, we've added EMC's E3 demonstrator unit #822 and KCS E3 units, we've added the C&EI "Meadowlark" and matching C&EI E7 units to the "Whippoorwill" project. We have expanded our offering on the Pullman "American Flyer" project to include most of the railroads that purchased them - BAR, KCS, NYNH&H, SAL, SP & SSW and in several variations. Attention: Illinois Central Modelers & Collectors: We are pleased to announce two new IC cars that were purchased from the C&EI in the early 1960's. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the Rock Island AB6 models - there were just not enough reservations to do these. We are still doing the E3, E6 and E7 units for the Rock Island. Added a new area to the web "Collections for Sale" where the staff at Railway Classics are selling items from our own collections.

10/31/05 - Update: New Offering! Added a new 1958 Budd Diner to the N Scale NP North Coast Limited project as an individual car. We are making two cars in the N Scale CP Canadian project available as single cars - the CP01-N55 Baggage Dormitory Car - CSB series - Nos. 3000-3017 in the original "Tuscan Red" scheme and the CP02-N55 Coach - PB Series Nos. 100-129 in the original "Tuscan Red" scheme. Updated the Parts page to show that the TR10 trucks are now sold out.

We've tried to make the site easy to navigate, with several index pages with links to the detail pages. We are interested in hearing your impressions on the site and welcome any suggestions for improvement. Drop us a line and let us know what you think!