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Manufacturing model trains has always required some concessions along the way. Certainly, the early days of the Arnold rapido product line had been filled with concessions, especially because of small radius of the curved tracks in the early product line and because it was a brand new product for a yet undefined market. But manufacture is a balancing act, for an item needs to be first manufactured at a realistic price, then shipped to dealers and in turn taken home and used by model railroaders. Some items have been so fragile that they require special instructions for removing them from their product box.
If an item is not realistic enough, the market will move toward items that are. If an item is extremely realistic, but it is costly and fragile, then many will not sell. In some cases, items produced are made by “boutique” manufacturers who never intend to sell many; these are the items which you see that sell for thousands of dollars. But a mass manufacturer such as Arnold was always faced with certain choices, and many such manufacturers cling to the old tooling until it is impossible to ignore the declining sales figures. There is no apparent indication that Arnold was having declining sales in the late 1960’s, but they saw that there was more competition in the marketplace and they responded successfully.
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