Grinch done'd stoled Christmas

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

In the wake of Polar Express, I expected to see Walmart and Target flooded with these or similar trains.

Boy was I disappointed. Someone really let the ball drop on this.

In the wake of other movies, toys moved. Star Track junk, you name the movie and the toys followed.

The lame reasoning goes something like this:

Kids haven’t grown up riding, watching or playing with trains like us old farts.

Hogwash!

Take a stroll in the kids area of a bookstore or waiting room and watch them gravitate to the Brios. Polar Express, the movie, is a hit, as were other children’s train films of the past (or films that had trains in them like Harry Potter).

Someone should be held criminally responsible for this negligence of missing trains from stores.

The other lame reasoning goes something like this:

There are plenty of trains, just go to the toy train hobby store.

Well, dear forumite. Train hobby stores in Northern Virginia for the most part are not located in malls where all the people traffic go. They are often hidden, like the biggest one in my area, The Train Depot, behind storage sheds and up an alley.

Moms won’t take their kids there; it’s usually the dad’s who find it, and they have to be persistent in looking.

Moms will frequent the malls, where all the purses, shoes and makeup are located, and let little Johnny run to the toy section to gaze at all of the nice die-cast cars in N, HO, S, G and even Z scale, but of course not in O. Even the Corgis at Target and Walmart are 1/64 (S).

Someone please go get a gun and shoot the grinch who stole Christmas.

2

Dave, I have always said some of the best train stores can be found in the worst neighborhoods. Two words, CHEAP RENT!!! [swg]

3

After my grandkids (girl - 6 and boy - 2) saw The Polar Express movie, they wanted stuff from the movie. I have the train on order, but I had to go to a Hallmark store for expensive Polar Express Christmas decorations and then to the Internet to order the book with cassette tape and bell.

Definitely a missed opportunity! Even a sequel for next Christmas will be lame unless marketing of the “franchise” begins immediately.

4

It amazes me the amount of empty retail space in local malls and the ludicrous rent they charge per square foot. Top that off with the crapola that the existing small stores sell and then watch the annual turnover of the “crapola” stores. It is extremely unfortunate for all hobbies that toy, RC, train, doll stores and the like cannot survive in a mall due to the costs.

5

Welcome to my world at the Mall of America.[swg]

6

F G and J said;

Moms will frequent the malls, where all the purses, shoes and makeup are located, and let little Johnny run to the toy section to gaze at all of the nice die-cast cars in N, HO, S, G and even Z scale, but of course not in O. Even the Corgis at Target and Walmart are 1/64 (S).

But I saw a very nice 1/43 model of a 1967 ( I think ) Pontiac GTO in K Mart. I almost bought it, but I have so many 1/45 and the like cars from Road Champs and Matchbox Collectible that I didn’t get it.

George

7

I said it once and I will say it again…

8

You can’t find them in the stores because they are all on E-Bay !!![V][V][2c]

It sure would be interesting to find out how many of the Polar Express Sets
being sold on E-Bay, at EXTREMELY inflated prices, are by Authorized Lionel Dealers.[:slight_smile:]

9

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

Even if all the stores were filled $300 Polar express sets, not to many people out side hobby would by them. I know several yong families who do not want to spend that kind of money for something that would only be played with for a few weeks if they 're lucky.

Now a cheap $50 set might sell.

By the way , Does anyone know how well the ‘Hogworth Express’ sold?

10

Passenger trains have limited play value. Kids who play with all of the video games would be bored quickly with a train running around the track. I bet a lot of the “Polar Express” train sets end up in the closet after Christmas. You can’t build on this set like Thomas the Tank engine and his buddies.

11

one word…and its a very lucrative word that companies spend millons of dollars on each and every year because it works…
A D V E R T I S E

12

(oh, cant forget…manufacture enough sets for demand!!)[B)]

13

and a lot of kids do not put trains on their christmas list because there is no publicity/propaganda,tv comercials ofering trains, but when it comes to video games its another history, i seen a lot of comercials on tv about hot wheels,tyco,barbie,but not lionel trains! so think about it! and yes THE HOGWARTHS EXPRESS its sold out, in H.O scale of course! and[8D] i dont like ebay!support you local hobby shop!and lionel sales department/publicity they just dont cut it!if they want to amass newcomers to the hobby they got to come up with better & afordable train sets!!!BNSF RULES!!!

14

In an earlier post, eZAK said

“Now a cheap $50 set might sell.”

I agree. This past weekend, I was looking (OK, drooling) over the Lionel sets in a department store (Boscov’s) when an older couple wandered into the aisle. After looking for a while, they asked my wife what she thought of one of the HO sets. My wife, having experience with kids and trains, suggested that the larger gauges (O and G) are better for young kids. The looked at the Lionel sets, but it was clear the prices ($200 up) were out of their price range. The looked at the HO sets some more and eventually left without any train. My wife felt bad that she had discouraged them, but the truth is that what she said was right and Lionel, K-line, MTH, etc have dropped the ball. A few years back, I purchased a Lionel safari set (after Christmas) for about $75. It’s a great set–nice engine and cars, a play mat, and some figures and animals to play with. Put in some nice track and maybe a sound chip in the tender, and set the price initially around $75 and that couple would probably have left with a Lionel train. The MPC cars and engines may not excite the collectors, but they are good for kids. In fact, one of my “great finds” at York were the plastic, 4 wheel Kalamazoo cars that one of the merchants was selling for $2-$5 each. Put them with some track I had laying around and a beat up 8209 Lionel engine, and my 3 year old (at the time) had a great set that he could run around a temporary loop of track loading cars, dumping stuff at the station. That set couldn’t cost more than $40. Make it battery operated (even rechargable) so Mom and Dad don’t need to worry about wiring and an outlet, add some sounds, a manual switch, some figures, still keeps the price around $50. (I’m assuming the manual switches cost far less to make than suggested by retail price.) Anyway–I think it could be done.

BTW, I’ve not seen any other train manufacturer in any gauge marketing a “Polar Express” set. Is that right? W

15

Oh for Pete’s sake!

LIONEL is shipping EVERY SINGLE Polar Express ordered in '04 BEFORE Christmas!

They were required by their Warner Brothers agreement not to ship any before the movie’s release in Novemeber, and actually over-produced the number of sets. So just relax!

You will not find Polar Express stuff in Walmart and Kaybee because they sell only crap with low prices and high turnover. You may remember the “Safari” set LIONEL produced for Toys R Us. It was so crappy that it almost did irrepairable damage to LIONEL’s reputation.

Having worked in a hobby store for a number of years I can tell you: the image of LIONEL in the typical shopers’ mind is that of a “heavy, cast iron engine…they weigh 20 pounds”. You try to sell them something else, and they just don’t buy it! You just can’t throw starter sets into the world of mass-merchandised crapola. They’ll get damaged, broken into, stomped on, and broken.

Selling trains requires “selling”. Walmart, K-Mart, Toys R Us just want to “display” and “check-out”. If you want a mass merchandising opportunity, align LIONEL with Radio Shack, and you might get somewhere.

By the way, BRIO also makes a Polar Express set. You will also not find BRIO in mass retail stores for the very same reasons listed above.

Jon [8D]

16

eZak.

To answer your concern, the one word is “Volume”

If Lionel took a chance (or some other company), and mass produced a set such as Polar Bear and brought the price down to $30, (which actually is more in line with other electronic toys), they could get filthy rich. But timing is everything and the wave that crested with Polar Express movie is about to break, so it’s too late. Lionel, it seems, never misses an opportunity to screw up.

As Jon said, you would not want to market a crappy set.

17

Bachmann actually made a G scale Polar Express train set to go along with the book around 10 years ago. It doesn’t look anything like the train in the movie, though. It’s a model of a Colorado narrow gauge train that is done up in Polar Express colours. Most kids probably wouldn’t care though. Of course, this isn’t really a cheaper alternative either as I saw one sell on ebay for over $400 not too long ago.

As I and many others have said time and again, Lionel NEEDS to get their trains in large chain department stores! Right now all my nearest Wal-Mart has for trains is a small New Bright Christmas villiage set in the Christmas section and a battery powered O gauge set made by a Chinese company called Hip Chong in the toys, both of which sell for under $20. At Zellers (a Canadian store that’s just like Wal-Mart) they have a bit of a better selection of trains. There’s a Bachmann HO set with a GP38, 6 cars and a bridge for $114, an O gauge battery powered set for $24.99 (I bought an identical set at Wal-Mart last year for $15) and a G scale battery operated remote control set for $80. I own one of these sets and it actually does have a lot of play value to it as it includes a crane and switches that you operate by remote control as well as just running the train, so it’s a good set for kids to get started with.

These prices are in Canadian dollars, but nevertheless, couldn’t they instead have gotten a $114 Lionel or K-Line set instead of an HO one? Mind you, those HO sets have been sitting in the store since last year.

It seems that trains of all types are disappearing from store shelves. I remember as a kid always getting excited when the Home Hardware (also a Canadian chain) Christmas catalog would come because they would always have a full page of HO trains and accessories. In this year’s catalog all they have is one Life-Like HO set and a New Bright Christmas train, which are squished down on the bottom of a page of other toys. The Sears catalog is even worse!

18

Sask,

My child memories are getting trains at Wooworths (1960s) and selling Christmas Cards for Lionel or Flyer sets from the Boy Scouts.

19

My first Lionel for Christmas, circa 1962, came from a Western Auto Store. It was a non-catalog set, but I didn’t know that until many years later when I learned that the red satellite car was one of a kind with a price tag of over $100. The orginal cost of the whole train was less than $50.

20

I just put up the little tree in my office yesterday; runnning around under it on a circle of 027 is the Rail blazer set from 1987. I think my Ex paid less than $90 for it new that Christmas.

Does it have a die cast engine? No.

Does it have the bells and whistles? No.

Does it have operating couplers? No.

Does it have sprung trucks? No.

Will it appreciate in value over the near term? Hardly.

But the thing runs like a top, the cars have decent play value–flat car with load, gondola with cable reel, and there’s a manual crane–and the engine is easy to control with its DC motor and power pack.

For kids it would be a great set. The one problem is the compatability issue, but the little e-unit board that converts the current in the other DC-motored engines would add only pnnies to the set’s price. Other than that detail, this would be a perfect starter set.

I really object to the prejudice people have against the basic sets. Young kids neither know nor care about the differences in trucks or couplers. They want to load up the cars, uncouple and couple them by hand, and run the trains off the track. LATER, once they get bitten by the bug, those things will matter, nut not at first.

My own first set was a Marx with a manual log dump car and a gondola. I played with it for hours and hours. The #490 bears the scars of many a collision with a friend’s clockwork Marx. But I still have it, it still runs, and it got me hooked. What more can one ask?