Model Railroading > Lessons from KR Models

Apparently there are a few key things KR models did wrong:

Occasionally rude customer service, leading factor.
Poor quality on many releases, contributing factor.
No sense of social media marketing at all and getting bad press on social media like YouTube and Facebook, especially from the lead train video person in the UK: Sams Trains, contributing factor.
Pay in full based pre orders, contributing factor.

I think these things ended KRM, hopefully others will take note.

 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/26 13:23 by GregoryS.

Agreed.

Pay in full for preorders ... hmm, Class One?

What I got from reading several threads on British forums is it appears KR ended up using a lot of the money they had in hand for paid preorders on fixing problems with earlier releases, some of which were reported to be as simple as loosening some screws overtightened at factory a quarter turn or so. British consumer protection laws are a lot stronger than their US counterparts, which forced them to do a lot of warranty work that might have been blown off in the USA. I have no doubts the company also got hit with a lot of the substantial price increases the last couple years, especially in electronics.

The biggest issues I saw reported about them involved poor communication, belligerent attitudes towards people trying to help them, and quality and prototype fidelity issues with a couple of their models. On the Shay they did have a test model a couple years ago that looked good, they did indicate at the time they uncovered something with the design they wanted to fix before full production but that ended up costing the model its assigned slot in production process as the factory moved on to something else. Will be interesting to see what happens with the Shay models now as they are apparently sitting at the factory ready for shipment.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

Posted from iPhone

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> Pay in full for preorders ... hmm, Class One?

Although class one has delivered up to now, not having the bankroll to just allow for pre orders is a bit concerning.  Nothing but the threat of jail time keeps a company from folding and holding the money and that threat may go away in certain types of declared bankruptcies. 

GregoryS Wrote:  Well the Class One GP40s - pre-paid - have also been pushed back at least a month.  Thdey were due in July.  
-------------------------------------------------------
> CPR_4000 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Pay in full for preorders ... hmm, Class One?
>
> Although class one has delivered up to now, not
> having the bankroll to just allow for pre orders
> is a bit concerning.  Nothing but the threat of
> jail time keeps a company from folding and holding
> the money and that threat may go away in certain
> types of declared bankruptcies.