Shinohara update

[Alan]

Received this today from Dallas Model works. The important takeaway for me is in bold. My entire layout is exclusively Shinohara.

Sayonara Shinohara

An iconic brand says goodbye and what it means for the rest of us

Hi Alan,

In case, you missed the news back in April, the Japanese track manufacturer Shinohara announced that it would be ceasing track production.

This means that the Shinohara and Walthers Shinohara brands will soon be no more.

(This brings a bit of a nostalgic tear to my eye because my very first layout was built largely with Shinohara track.)

As you know, Shinohara makes all kinds of awesomeness such as curved turnouts, double crossovers, and double slip switches, Shinoharaas well as flex track, bridge track, and other goodness.

All that will soon be toast.

The good news is that our rep at Walthers has informed us that the Walthers Shinohara brand will live on, albeit under another name.

They are currently in talks to have another manufacturer produce the track. The bad news is, no one knows how long that will take. If you remember a few years back when Atlas switched (pardon the pun) track suppliers, their track was unavailable for a couple of years!

The gooder news is that we still have Shinohara and Walthers Shinohara track in stock.

(As usual, our site only shows what is in stock and available -- not the stuff that is currently n/a.)

Walthers is also expecting one final shipment from Shinohara and we have dibs on some of that -- although Walthers (and therefore we) don't know exactly what we'll be getting or when.

So the upshot is, if you need some, get some while you can. We'll also let Members know when the final shipment arrives and that product will appear on our site when it does.

http://www.dallasmodelworks.com/

[Alan]

Couldn't help but to be sad that I just consumed two more boxes of track that I cannot replace. In retrospect maybe I should have bought some jumbo spike head Atlas for this project. Oh well, water under the bridge now.

[G8B4Life]

Now now Alan, don't lament, With your meticulous planning I fully expect the LK&O to be the model railroad version of the Jiayuguan Pass and there will be exactly one length of track left over without having purchased a single extra length over what's on the original list 

Wasn't Walthers going to take over / make there own exact compatible version? If not then Peco does some very nice Code 83.

- Tim

[Alan]

Now now Alan, don't lament, With your meticulous planning I fully expect the LK&O to be the model railroad version of the Jiayuguan Pass and there will be exactly one length of track left over without having purchased a single extra length over what's on the original list 

Wasn't Walthers going to take over / make there own exact compatible version? If not then Peco does some very nice Code 83.

- Tim

I think I will make it with what I have on hand. There was a thread on MRH in 2014 that attempted to calculate train capacity of a layout. It indicated I had more staging than necessary which mirrored a comment made to me by Byron Henderson of LayoutVision. About the same time I was trying to solve a construction complexity problem at the east end of staging. Reducing staging length removed the construction problem and brought the train capacity numbers in line. Killed two birds with one stone and used less flextrack. So, who knows, maybe I will finish with a single length of track left over. 

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/magazine/mrh-2014-09-sep/publishers-musings

Walthers did begin making track again although I have yet to see it in person. The new part number for C83 flex is 948-83001.