Big sale at BLI

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I guess discussing the bad behavior of MR advertisers is taboo, since the BLI - MTH thread is now locked dispite no flaming and declining activity in the last day.

I was going to post this there, but at the risk of deletion or locking here goes:

Today Factory Direct Trains, by e-mail announcement, is allready beginning the closeout of the NEW, improved, Paragon2, smoking J1E NYC Hudson from BLI.

Is this to get rid of them before trial day? Is this to raise cash to pay the lawyers? Is this simply because BLI is allready cash strapped?

Just another fine example of why the business practices of this company are not good for the hobby. If I had just bought one of those things 3 months ago (how long have they been out?, not long?) at say only 20% off retail, I would be very unhappy to now see the same source selling them for 43% off, especially so soon.

Ken may be a real nice guy, I don’t know him, but as someone who has a business background, has worked in the hobby business, and has been a modeler for 40 years, I can tell you the actions of his company are not good for the hobby or his company in the long run.

Ken - suggestion, get some more money or scale back, or give it up. This constant dumping of product only undermines the value of your products as a whole in the market place, as does your constant problems with Mike Wolf (Ken, you may be in the right, but it looks bad no mater what). OR be like Bachmann and just lower your prices and move more product.

I for one will NEVER buy another BLI product unless the price is in that 40-50% off range. But look at the bright side Ken, I will never buy an MTH product, period.

Sheldon

2

No, it’s not good for the hobby. Any small or medium hobby shop owner would have to have rocks in their head to stock BLI products, knowing that they’ll soon be available at less than wholesale like this.

3

I’ve been getting BLI / FTD e-mails about this sale for a couple of weeks now, so the timing with the MTH announcement may be coincidental. My guess is, the market for smoking Hudsons isn’t as big as they anticipated, so they’ve got excess inventory to unload. I bought my BLI Hudson a few years back from Trainworld - no smoke, but QSI sound, at the sacrificial price of $129.

My question is, though, where did they get my e-mail address? I’ve never dealt directly with either BLI or FTD, so some other model railroad organization must have sold them my name. I’m not terribly upset by this, since they are sending me potentially useful information, but this is how the Spam chains start.

4

That may be, sometimes I delete their e-mails without reading.

But how can that be? Acording to Ken and Mike, EVERYBODY wants station sounds and puffing smoke - even if Ken is wrong, surely Mike Wolf is not wrong.

Well they do have my e-mail by direct means, I purchased some undecorated PCM F3’s from FDT when they where giving them away for $50 a set, but only after calling BLI to make sure it woud be easy to rewire them to do away with the “lash up” - What “MTH/Lionel” kind of idea was that?

Sheldon

5

Sheldon,

BLI does these sorts of deep-cut sales on a fairly regular basis. So, to jump to these conclusions is a bit premature - at best.

This is just a suggestion: Why not express you views with Ken directly instead of posting them here. He’s more apt to read them that way. [:)]

Tom

6

I’m still waiting for BLI to release their Dreyfuss Hudson which has been “Coming Soon” for about three years. Somebody told me they really, really, really, were going to release it this December. I’ll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, MTH has beat them to the punch with their Dreyfuss Hudson and also the Empire State Hudson but at a list price $100 more than BLI. I’m in no hurry so I’m going to wait and see how this all shakes out.

7

“Is this simply because BLI is allready cash strapped?”

Tom,

This possible reason is largely unrelated to the lawsuit and is a point I and others have made before. So its not premature at all. The lawsuit simply brings it to the forefront once again.

And again, this is bad for them and the hobby.

I have expressed these thoughts diretly to Ken/BLI, as recently as today in fact.

Sheldon

8

I don’t understand this dumping of inventory either. The review for this unit came out just a couple of months ago in MR, and now it’s closing out. I’m fairly new to the hobby, but I’ve never seen any kind of products available in such limited releases and certainly with such high price swing. Not only does this hurt all resellers but it also makes it hard for customers to get the engine you want at any given time. If you missed release time - you might have to wait another couple of years.Or you pay close to retail when product come out and then watch engines sell 1/2 price 3 month later or you don’t buy it right away waiting for sale and then see product suddenly disappear from stock.

I guess it makes comprehensive user review of such engine kind of useless, because by the time someone reads your review - the product is gone.

9

My guess would be that Kalmbach sold our e-mail addresses to them (I could VERY well be wrong). I started receiving those in my inbox, and was wondering about the same thing myself. This is the only model railroading type website that I am registered with, so it makes sense to me.

10

IBL

David B

11

The timing for this is kinda made weird by the conjunction of the MTH/BLI thing ----

I’m just thinking that a lot of “pre-orders” plopped out.

Desperate times and desperate measures—

12

$200 bucks for a paragon 2 with DCC sound and smoke? I’m buying one! I don’t have any steam loco’s yet on my layout, I’m just looking for a tourist train for an excuse to run steam in 1995.

I know nothing about steam engines. BLI offers 5 versions. I assume just different numbers and slight model year differences? Does it matter which one I buy? And what passenger cars do I need to buy to make this authentic? Dual 3 axle?

13

If you really want to be authentic, avoid any locomotive that was not in ralifan service in 1995, or couldn’t have been because they are all gone, extinct, scrapped. That would include the NYC Hudsons.

14

I also think its just bad timing, at all the recent train shows I have attended with my friend that sells there, also has a brick and morter hobby shop here in town. The things selling havent been the high $$ engines, but the RTR freight cars from Athearn/Roundhouse and other brands, along with vehicles, buildings ect. The last 3 months we might have sold 3 engines total. We usualy have the newest from Athearn and Bachmann with us. The only thing that sold well was the DD40AX the first show after thier release, I think we sold 4 at that show as thats all we had in stock. And the lack of sales isnt from the prices, his are some of the best around, even at shows. Its very unfortunate to have these two guys constantly going at each other. The two need to clear the air and focus on differnt aspects of the hobby instead of fighting over the same small piece of the pie. As for Mr. Mike Wolf, I will hold my comments as I dont care for him or his general attitude/business style. It might fill his wallet, but it defiantly doesnt earn him much for friends. I refuse to buy any MTH product on principal, I can buy a vintage brass engine for usualy less than his sell for, but then again, I enjoy making them run nice. Lets hope this blows over and we can get back to the fun aspect of the hobby. There is way way to much repetition between companies right now. If limited runs are the future of plastic models, lets seem some really obscure items produced. Heck, 10 years ago, if you asked anyone if we would see UP big blow and veranda turbines in plastic, they would have said no way!, no how! Only one road owned them! But look what Athearn has done and has announced and they sold well from what I hear. Lets see some good running turn of the century steam, how about a Broadway quality, mostly diecast 4-4-0 either the Jupiter or a correct version of the General with the outside frame she had durin

15

For $200 I choose not to be authentic [:)]

16

I feel the same way about purchasing any BLI products early since history has proven that the BLI big blow out sales will happen on most of their models if you wait. The only problem with this approach is some items do sell out and if you really wanted it, you missed it.

AS for MTH products, I have the MTH N&W passenger set reserved after I viewed the pictures. If they don’t look like the advertised pictures, I am sending them back.

What to do??

CZ

17

This particular sale is limited to Hudsons only. That makes me think that this sale is strictly based on production exceeding demand for this model.

There is another possibility, though. They may be coming out with a different model in a few months, possibly with a different sound system, or maybe without a smoke box. Once the newer model hits the streets, demand for the older one would dry up, so they’re moving them now before announcing the new one.

Question - is this one of the models that has a sound decoder but no motor decoder? Again, if they are planning to come out with the same engine equipped with a motor decoder as well, that would devalue the current inventory.

I like my Hudson, by the way. All other things being equal, this is probably a chance to get a nice engine for a good price.

18

Did you read the next to last post in that thread? Clearly a violation of the forum rule “No personal attacks or name-calling.”

19

To the poster above - Paragon 2 Hudson are DCC and Sound equipped engines. With smoke they are in direct competition with MTH offerings. I’ve seen Hudson in person and I like the detail and features, but I think the Paragon 2 needs some improvement both in operation and in sound department (better sound enclosure?). But at $200 - I think is a fair price for this engine, maybe even a steal, depending on your expectations.

20

ATLANTIC CENTRAL, something apparently sailed past me in the dark and I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about. I sense, however, that MTH has found some reason for bringing a suit against BLI for something-or-another. This guy is litigation crazy! One of these days he’s going to lose and when he does he is going to get smacked so hard that his head will ring for months.

There is some controversy about the quality of MTH’s offering as there is similiar controversy about BLI’s. I am reminded of that old ballyhoo about “If you can’t dazzle’em with brilliance baffle’em with BS”

My curiousity, by-the-way, has now been tweeked; can someone provide me with the title of the posting that has now, apparently, been locked, or at least the forum name of the original poster?