I emailed Dean's Trains in Tennessee the other day about the Oriental O5s
after being shocked to read Scott's post about the announcement. Dean, who I
believe is a Burlington fan, had no more explanation for the announcement
than what was on Oriental's website. His price is $1100 with deposits due
now. Ted - if you have differing prices I'd be happy if you would share that
with the group. $1100, if that price is correct, is not anywhere near half
of the price of a Challenger model. I will stick with the one Challenger
model I have reserved. I had hoped the Oriental models might be in the
$700-800-900 range.
I don't guess we're going to probably get an explanation as to why an
importer announces a model the same month it's scheduled to come into the
country. This whole thing makes no sense and I'm very skeptical of what is
going on. This is not normal brass importer behavior. My advice, and this
is just an opinion, is get a Challenger reservation if you can or get one of
the older OL models from Samhongsa (the 1987 run). IF the price on these
things is half of Challengers (street price or full retail - HUGE difference)
then they might be a good deal.
Something similiar to this happened when Challenger did their run of "Q"
Hudsons. Sunset made an announcement (never advertised though) that they
would do this engine at less than half the price. Nothing ever came of this
announcement however.
Very curious to see how all this will play out,
Mike Martin / Peoria Heights, IL
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