I was a little surprised to see Kato polling about this. I spoke
at length to someone from Kato about a possible HO scale E5 about
3-4 years ago at the spring meet. It was explained to me it was
easier to do in N scale as they already had the mechanism. So the
only development was the shell. He told me it was a little
difficult sell to Kato Japan for the N scale version because they
could only be released in one railroad. The N scale E5 project was
gap filler because most of the U.S. allocated development money
was allocated to a steam locomotive project at the time. They had
already done the passenger cars, so it was not difficult to
package it as a set.
He told me he estimated that to bring out a HO E5 they would need
to develop both the mechanism and a shell. He then estimated that
the retail would be $800. Pretty much a non-starter at that price
point he thought compared to where the rest of the market is.
I would think if they do an E5 they would be thinking about doing
other E unit shells to help spread the cost of developing the
mechanism.
Bill Hirt
On 10/30/2020 6:02 PM, Mike Martin via
groups.io wrote:
Unless Kato is able to replicate the stainless steel finish
similar to what Walthers and Broadway Limited are capable of I
don't know if I'd be interested in either the E5 or the
Pioneer Zephyr set from them. I don't think the demand would
be there for a Pioneer Zephyr set either unless people are
going to trade up from a Con-Cor set or Nickel Plate Products
set. The sets from Challenger are fairly available on the
second hand market and often for only about $600 or so which
is less than new. If I were Kato or another manufacture I'd
be looking at the Mark Twain Zephyr set with the idea that you
might be able to make the Twin Cities Zephyr set out of the
same power car tooling and possibly the passenger car tooling.
The cost of a Kato Pioneer Zephyr is also probably going to
be close to the cost of a used Challenger Imports set. I
don't see it costing for less than $600. If they could get
the E5s priced at $600 for an A/B set they could have a winner
on their hands. Again, if they don't get the finish correct
it's a non-starter for me.