Poll results
over 3 years ago – Sun, Apr 18, 2021 at 12:20:02 PM

Howdy backers,

We have finished tabulating our poll results!

The results are as follows:

Next project - rolling freight!

814 of you responded to our poll on what you'd like to see for our next project.   

Rolling freight was the clear winner, so that's what we'll be making next!   

Rolling freight: 52% (426)   

Engines: 39% (317)   

Silly option we didn't think hardly any of you would actually vote for: 9% (71)

We'll ask for input on what type of rolling freight you'd like to see later in the campaign. For now, we're still focused on getting these trains made and into your cute, tiny, trash-filled hands!

Wait, we're still thinking about our accountant. Sorry.

Add on train packs will probably be a thing!

961 of you responded to our survey about add on train packs. (From this we can deduce that over 2,000 of you really hate surveys!)

The results were loud and clear with almost 2/3rds of you (608 to 353) wanting the option to buy extra trains:

 
Of those of you who wanted add on packs, about 75% of you wanted the option to buy one pack with a mixture of all five train types.

Finally, 51% of you wanted the packs to contain 6 extra trains each, 38% of you wanted 12 extra trains each, and 11% of you wanted even more trains.

 
So, we've started the process of looking into making add on train packs. We need to run some numbers on packaging, shipping, etc. For a big project like this, that takes time. We'll hopefully have an update for later next week.

That's all for now.

Thanks for all of your support!

The Little Plastic Train Company

3,000 backers! And poll results! And a new poll! Four exclamation points!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 12:49:39 PM

We've reached 3,000 backers!

3,000 of you have placed your trust in us to give you some cool trains.

Thank you!

OK. Gotta find an animated gif to express how happy and excited we are. That'll show our backers that we're hip and relatable. 

Let's see what you got, giphy.com

Hmm....no....no...no. Ah, yes, this one!

3,000! That's a lot of you. As is tradition in this campaign, we now present some statistics to unhelpfully put this number in perspective.

• 3,000 is as many hits as major league baseball player Roberto Clemente made in his 18 year Major League Baseball career!

• In 1999, the American Museum of Natural History created a time capsule to be opened in the year 3,000. Among its contents: "a soccer jersey, a cell phone, a Beanie baby, a condom, a vial of penicillin, a gold nose ring, a Chia Pet, a can of Spam, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book and a box of Sudafed." So that's, um, something.

• It's been estimated by someone who is probably not a statistician that the average American eats 3,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lifetime. 

OK. Enough statistics. Let's move on to...

Poll results (and a new poll)

Over 940 of you voted in our poll asking what you'd like us to make next. The results were as follows:

Fictional engines: 276

Rolling freight: 238

Historical engines: 223

Stations: 130

Boats: 73

It would appear that we have a clear preference for engines, with a slight preference for fictional engines in that group.

Still, we don't know how the votes for stations and boats would have gone if they weren't options. (Yes, we know about ranked choice voting, but it didn't cross our minds as an option until the poll already went live.) Also, there are now many more backers than we were when we first released that poll and we'd like them to have a voice.

So, before we make a final decision, we're asking you to vote one last time.

Engines or rolling freight? 

Two track based means of conveyance enter, only one will leave!

Click HERE to vote. 

Please vote only once. We'll keep the poll open through Friday.

Thank you again for all of your support!

The Little Plastic Train Company

P.S. If at least 100 of you like this update, we will eat a spam and peanut butter and jelly sandwich and post proof. We don't just let our backers choose our future products, we let them choose our diet! How's that for personal engagement?

"Add on packs" survey error
over 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 10:36:32 AM

Due to some error on their end, Survey Maker, the website we're using to run the "add on packs" survey, hasn't been recording any responses for an indeterminate period of time. We've checked and it's been frozen at 30 responses for several hours.

We've submitted test votes from other computers with different IPs and, though the site reported those votes being counted, the results screen has not changed. It's not a web browser cache issue--it's a problem on their end.

Sigh. 

We're so annoyed we don't even have the energy to throw up a funny graphic.

We've changed poll websites. Let's try this again.

Because we cannot guarantee that your vote was counted in the previous survey, please go HERE to retake the "add on packs" survey.

We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is the only way to ensure that your voice is heard.

Thanks,

The Little Plastic Train Company

"Add on train packs" survey
over 3 years ago – Thu, Apr 15, 2021 at 10:34:44 AM

Backers,

First of all, thanks to all of you who have completed the survey that we send to every backer upon backing our project. We've read through all of them submitted so far. There are a lot good suggestions, most of which we'll need to think about and research for future projects (such as ultra-deluxe metal trains, tin storage solutions, and historical train notes).

Some of you have expressed interest in the option of purchasing "add on packs" of extra trains to accommodate games that require more than the 48 trains that come in each set (such as Ticket to Ride: Team Asia).

We think we could make this happen in this campaign. But first we need to see how many of you are interested in "add on packs" and how many trains you'd like in them.

So, it's survey time!

Please click HERE to take our "add on packs" survey.

We ask that you please take this survey even if you're not interested in add on packs so we can help determine how many of these to make or even whether we should make them at all.

In other news, more than 100 of you liked the previous update! We didn't really expect that many of you to read down that far.

Sadly, that means that the royal "we" will need to eat a spam peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

We are debating whether this should be done via pictures or video. At the moment, we're leaning toward pictures. That way, we can caption our culinary adventure.

Some of you have expressed disgust at the very idea of a spam and peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, Spam Brand is disappointed in you. 

They have an entire page of their website devoted to spam peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Complete with totally unnecessary instructions on how to, well, make what is a pretty simple sandwich.

We'll have to see when we do this exactly. We need our energy for the rest of the campaign and can't risk being laid low by such a beast. The update immediately after the campaign closes seems most climactic and the safest in which to fulfill our gastrointestinal promise.

It's been at least one update since we've had a bad train pun, so we leave you with this joke.

Why can't a steam locomotive sit down?

Because it has a tender behind.

The Little Plastic Train Company

P.S. If you're a new backer, you can also vote in our poll HERE to help us decide what we'll make next!

Important update: tin compatibility with Ticket to Ride inserts (a comprehensive guide)
over 3 years ago – Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 04:32:47 AM

Well, this isn't a fun update to write. But it's an important one.

It has come to our attention that our tins do not fit insert that comes with the most recent printing of Ticket to Ride: Europe.

Before we launched this Kickstarter, we purchased new copies of Ticket to Ride: USA and Ticket to Ride: Europe from local stores. Or what we believed were the newest copies. Our tins fit inside them. Just as they had fit inside the older copies of Ticket to Ride: USA and Ticket to Ride: Europe that we had tested them with.

But at some point--exactly when is unknown to us--the insert for Ticket to Ride: Europe changed such that the wells became small enough that they do not fit our tins.

Below are photographs to show you what we mean:

You'll see that the insert design is identical, the only difference being that the newer insert is glossier with slightly smaller wells. If your Ticket to Ride: Europe insert looks like this, the tins will not fit.

We apologize for not finding this out sooner. We'd tested these tins with different copies of Ticket to Ride: Europe and sent them out to others to test with their own copies. We thought we'd done sufficient due diligence, but this insert just escaped our notice.

Unfortunately, we cannot change our tins to accommodate this one insert. All the artwork would need to be redone for the new dimensions and we don't think a smaller tin would look as good. We're also not sure that our trains would fit comfortably into a tin small enough to fit into this insert.

We also want to make backers aware that our tins will not fit in the inserts that come with Ticket to Ride: Rails and Sails or Ticket to Ride: Marklin.

It's been a whirlwind week and we thought we'd included this information in on our campaign page. But as we were reviewing the page for this update, we saw that it accidentally got left out.

We have now updated our campaign page and FAQ to reflect these insert incompatibilities. 

If you've backed our project expecting that our tins would fit these particular copies of Ticket to Ride, and insert compatibility with these editions was important to you, we understand if you want to cancel your pledge.

The good news is that our tins still fit the inserts in most versions of Ticket to Ride, as shown by the photos below.

Transparency is extremely important to us.  Trust from our backers is important to us. That's why we wrote this update. We made some mistakes and we're correcting them.

We suppose it's possible that there may be other printings of Ticket to Ride out there with incompatible inserts. We have not bought, and could not buy, every printing of every edition. But, as far as we've been able to tell, our tins will fit in most inserts out there.

Though our tins won't fit every Ticket to Ride insert, we can assure you that they'll fit perfectly on any regular Ticket to Ride map and will look great. Hopefully, you'll agree with us that that's the most important thing.

The Little Plastic Train Company