rapidotrains Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Hi all, I'm not sure where to post this message but I am sure Andy will drop it into the right area. I spent a good chunk of December in China, visiting our factories there. I've posted a blog about the trip, which includes photos of the assembly lines and how the stuff is made: http://www.rapidotrains.com/blog/2014/01/07/the-twelve-days-of-china/ I also include a discussion of western perceptions of Chinese people (not sure if it's the same in the UK as in North America) and the celebration of Christmas in China. Thanks for looking! -Jason Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkSG Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 That's a really good article. I enjoyed reading it. And I'm still curious as to what your first UK model will be! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegheny1600 Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Hi Jason, Very interesting reading, thank you for explaining some of these things to us. I'm actually saddened that in NA some folk have turned against the Chinese people themselves, I don't think we in Europe have and I hope we don't. We may gripe about "everything" being made there but it's only made there so we can buy it much cheaper than if it were made "at home", we can't have it both ways. I would very much like to visit China someday and the few genuine Chinese (Nationals) people I have met have been really nice and very respectful, as indeed have all others of Chinese origin! Many thanks for all your hard work and all the travelling - I certainly don't envy that! Cheers, John E. PS good luck with future ventures! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 My kids (3 and 5) have been wanting to go to China for over a year. I think they think it's some sort of Santa workshop full of toys. The three year only has packed his bag a couple of times. Sadly the nearest we have been is to the Chinese takeaway over the road, but they are now pretty good with chopsticks! I would love to go to rural China sometime, preferably before it changes too much. Just need to earn more money and persuade the wife, or start up a model railway manufacturing company... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
railroadbill Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Excellent article, Jason. Originally picked it up from your newsletter. Nice to see you go into so much detail about your trip, and about how model train manufacture is carried out in China. Thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 It's time to bring it all back home. Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard brown Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Hi Jason I have read your blog and found it very interesting I liked how you said about Xmas being a status things which if you look at it in a lot of countries you have it about right. I also found it reinsurance that you will be peppered to put more money into a project if it doesn't meet your standard it was also interesting to see how model passes hands to be made. Richard you might want to email Andy York for a topic area for rapido trains as you are planning to create a English model. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Legend Posted January 14, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 14, 2014 Thanks for posting Jason. I didn't realise there were mould shops and then assembly factories assuming it all went on in the same factory, so this was very informative. I also lament the loss of industry to China, but I understand why, it's global economics, not China's fault! The hope is that all this trading , and the Internet making the world smaller, will lead to less conflicting the future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Thanks Jason. Your blog posts on your visit to the factory while they were making the Canadian were equally enlightening. It's great for us to get some idea of how labour intensive making model railway items really is and what the factory environment is like in China. And thank you for all those photos of the tooling. They're great for conveying some of the complexity of commercial injection moulding tooling. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rapidotrains Posted January 14, 2014 Author Share Posted January 14, 2014 Thanks for your comments, guys. As for "bringing it back home," here is a very short article I wrote in one of my newsletters in 2012, figuring out what one of our $100 passenger car models would cost if we made them in Canada: http://www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews39.html#anchor7 (Note that if you are reading it in Chrome the order of the paragraphs may get messed up. Chrome doesn't like my awful html coding.) To cut a long story short, we're looking at about five times the price! Best regards, Jason Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted January 14, 2014 Share Posted January 14, 2014 Thanks for your comments, guys. As for "bringing it back home," here is a very short article I wrote in one of my newsletters in 2012, figuring out what one of our $100 passenger car models would cost if we made them in Canada: http://www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews39.html#anchor7 (Note that if you are reading it in Chrome the order of the paragraphs may get messed up. Chrome doesn't like my awful html coding.) To cut a long story short, we're looking at about five times the price! Best regards, Jason Rapido, you are 100% correct, I wish, however it was not so. Good luck though with your UK venture. Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Corbs Posted January 14, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 14, 2014 Wow, if only you could sell the items that failed QC in the same vein as the 'box of broken biscuits'! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catkins Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 Hi. Thanks for posting about your experiences in China. I found it an enlightening read as I had imagined the Chinese assembly factories to be large halls filled with people hunched over work benches - not at all like the pictures. I hope that you go from strength to strength. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 As for "bringing it back home," here is a very short article I wrote in one of my newsletters in 2012, figuring out what one of our $100 passenger car models would cost if we made them in Canada: http://www.rapidotrains.com/rapidonews39.html#anchor7 Jason, the more people who get to read the excellent dose of reality you injected into in the "Moving Production to North America" post in Volume 39 the better! Thank you for highlighting it. We have referenced it here before. Thank you for your transparency. It certainly helped me better quantify the realities of model railroad production in today's global economy. Good luck with your UK venture. I'm sure that all those people foaming for an LRC will be pleased in the fullness of time. Good things come to those who wait. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 It reminds me a little of Japanese manufacturing 40 years ago. Lots of rather small family type workshops contracted to supply parts to the majors like Toshiba et al. Very interesting, Jason, and much better than some articles I've read on similar subjects in mags like The Economist - maybe you missed your vocation? Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Lamb Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 It reminds me a little of Japanese manufacturing 40 years ago. Lots of rather small family type workshops contracted to supply parts to the majors like Toshiba et al. Around that time a friend of mine was working for Honda. He was in a small town in Japan and saw some of these workshops. He asked the local Honda manager why they still used such facilities, rather than building a modern factory in an industrial area. The reply was that as there was no other work about and as Honda had been there for many years they had a moral duty to provide work and care for the families. I have since come across two large Japanese companies who also run there business on very strict ethical lines. I do not think such ideals are wide spread in China. It's all about the money, money. Bernard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 It reminds me a little of Japanese manufacturing 40 years ago. Lots of rather small family type workshops contracted to supply parts to the majors like Toshiba et al... Exactly so. Here is the industrial revolution happening which our forebears did for us (outside of our experience) with the resulting advantages we enjoy today. Once the Chinese have pulled themselves up economically there's still a lot more of Asia and Africa to go. This kind of manufacturing ain't coming back to the developed world for a century or more yet: lots more folks who need the chance that industrialisation brings to ride the escalator to decent prosperity, and the fair chance in life that we would not for a moment consider relinquishing. Should Jason stay in this business long enough he may be boarding the red-eye to Vietnam or Niger... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 15, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 15, 2014 Very interesting Jason and you answered my unuttered question about why workers in the main factory looked to be dressed for outdoors! Having worked with Chinese people in the past I always find it difficult to understand why they are not liked - probably the usual story of fear of the unknown among those who don't know or haven't bothered to find out. Hope your UK project is coming along nicely and although I'm a late steam/early diesel age modeller I'm still looking forward to seeing what you turn out and how good it will be - best of luck with it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted January 15, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 15, 2014 I think the two pics of Jason with the smiling lady in the yellow top say it all. She was having a ball with this Westerner, who provides her with a living, but turns out not to have two heads - and is happy to abase himself, not an easy thing for most in that part of the world, so I believe. People are just people all over the globe. There may be major cultural differences but as humans we are all much the same, really. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Jackson Posted January 15, 2014 Share Posted January 15, 2014 (Note that if you are reading it in Chrome the order of the paragraphs may get messed up. Chrome doesn't like my awful html coding.) Jason Not wanting to go O/T but it looks fine in Chrome to me Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
'CHARD Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 Not sure where best to post this link to a very interesting piece by the BBC's Robert Peston on the up, and down, sides to China's decades of ebullient growth: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25808279 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 .....I'm actually saddened that in NA some folk have turned against the Chinese people themselves.... This is not much different from them turning against the Japanese in the '70s and '80s, purely because the Japanese made far better, more reliable cars than the Americans....and still do. Around that time a friend of mine was working for Honda. He was in a small town in Japan and saw some of these workshops. He asked the local Honda manager why they still used such facilities, rather than building a modern factory in an industrial area. The reply was that as there was no other work about and as Honda had been there for many years they had a moral duty to provide work and care for the families. I have since come across two large Japanese companies who also run there business on very strict ethical lines. I do not think such ideals are wide pread in China. It's all about the money, money. Do have a read of "China's Silent Army" - an excellently-researched book. As someone who is of Chinese origin himself, I have often taken the view that mainland Chinese are quite happy to do anything if there's money in it, and the after-effects are not really their concern. As for ethics, well, it depends who you're talking to and who you're dealing with. China is able to take the non-interventionist approach in other countries' internal affairs because its trading strength is intervention enough. You may also be aware that the mainland Chinese (as opposed to Hong Kong, Taiwanese or Malaysian / Singaporean Chinese) diaspora in Britain owes its initial growth to the aftermath of 4th June 1989 in Tiananmen Square (still very much a dirty word in the CCP) and dissident groups such as Falun Gong - many came to Britain on the back of these, either as asylum seekers and / or illegal entrants. Decades later, not all of these have had their cases resolved - I still have some on my books. Now of course, the children of prosperous / well-connected mainlanders are sent to Britain to study in our many independent fee-paying schools (see Mill Hill School as an example) and universities (Middlesex University, ditto); in a great many cases, they come with their parents' money as one of the ways of channelling funds out of China. Preparing the ground, if you like, against future political repression. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 ...As someone who is of Chinese origin himself, I have often taken the view that mainland Chinese are quite happy to do anything if there's money in it, and the after-effects are not really their concern... As someone who is of mixed European origin, I can categorically state that the European entrepreneurs who made us rich by industrialisation did it exclusively because there was lots of money in it, and happily allowed the after effects to look after themselves. It's the proven - if messy -path to progress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horsetan Posted January 20, 2014 Share Posted January 20, 2014 As someone who is of mixed European origin, I can categorically state that the European entrepreneurs who made us rich by industrialisation did it exclusively because there was lots of money in it, and ..... ...more to the point, nobody had done really done it before them! Pathfinding. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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