Received an e-mail from Lionel stating that there is one week left to reserve these engines. The email also include revised prices for the engines. The steam engines have been reduced another $50.00 each and the diesel engines have been reduced by $25.00 each. These additional price reductions are no doubt in response to the fact that by eliminating the basic rebate, the price actually increased for many consumers that ordered the engine at a discount from list.
Yes, I think Lionel’s finally starting to see that most people don’t have enough money to spend on O scale locomotives of this degree. Even if most people did, I myself can’t imagine spending that much for one engine - $500 is about my limit, but I tend to only buy diesels. And I can’t help but wonder if some of the “Vision” features are just a little too much? For instance, I don’t see anything wrong with a steam whistle with actual smoke effects - at first - until I wonder at what frequency do you have to re-fill it with fluid? I mean, I like sounding the whistle A LOT. [:D] Even though MTH is coming out with the same diesels as Lionel - the Gensets and the Evolution Hybrid - for a much cheaper price, I still think Lionel makes the better locomotives. Still, their versions are almost double the price of MTH’s. I think MTH is going to win out on this one…
You would think that they’d sell cheaper, because most of the items are made overseas, in spite of the shipping and all of the marvelous thechnological advances.
If the overseas items cost so much, then imagine the higher cost of being made in the U.S.A.
This whole vison line, stinks for us little guys, when I got my catalogs the first thing I did was read the letter from Jerry and I it almost made me sick, I felt slimed, that is a used car salesmen pitch(no offense if some here sells cars) . Why would you have 3 seperate catalogs in these economic times? He even says this in the letter, Buy our outsight priced engines they are the best Korea can make!! This crazy! Am I the only one who see’s this??
Justin - I’m a “little guy” too, but the vision line is fine with me. It’s a niche market and I’m glad it’s out there for those who can choose to afford it. I’m happy for them. However, I think that folks like you and me can have just as much or possibly even more fun with hundred dollar used locos as the vision buyers do with their high dollar whizbang machines, because maybe we can appreciate them more. It’s all relative, but when you get down to it fun is what it’s all about.
I’m more of an HO guy, so I don’t know much about lionel yet, or their “vision line”, but personally I am thrilled that lionel is making such high priced, scale engines. I may not be able to afford them just yet, but this company makes me proud to be a model railroader. Even if I am never able to purchase them on my budget, its a great thing to see others in the o gauge community have a desire to obtain such realistic replicas. I am very happy for any person out there who can afford these beautiful engines.
Hopefully they’ll come down in the future as did the Williams brass engines made in Korea . They can now be bought for less than half the original retail price . One thing nice about the brass engines … if you don’t mind changing them … brass engines can be detailed to almost no limits with aftermarket addons … brass detail parts . Lionel did’nt have them made of brass though … did they ? If not they should have . I have’nt dug into and read the detailed specs yet … the prices stopped me . Has lionel announced whether the new - not yet released engines will be brass ? It does’nt cost that much more for brass castings from korea … and at the projected prices … they should be … just my opinion .
I gues what I was trying to say is, In this present economic crunch,for everybody, It seems stupid or arrogant to release 3 catalogs and have a line of items (aswell as all other items) this high priced! I love all the new cool stuff but, does this makes sense. Heres what I would do.
Reduce the # of catalogs to 1, have different colored sections to differiante the seperate lines. Send out a public announcment stating, “to keep our cost down, we must reduce our overhead, we are going to consolidate our catalogs into 1 and we will be only shipping out 1 catalog for 2010. We regret in having to do this but in the end it will benefit you, our loyal customers with keeping your cost down.”
Enlarge the “Conventional Classic line”
Reduce large over priced items. Shall we sell just a few hundred large pricy items or shall we sell 1000’s of lower priced items(not the high water diesel 's either)
Get more indorsements ie; Coors, Ford, Miller Lite, oh wait some one is already doing it. Lionel has to catch up. Nascar flopped, cut your losses.
I dont know it just seems that this vison line is for the super elite, all I know is I love trains and it seems like they are pricing themselves into a corner when they should be trying to cut cost and produce a good quality product, that more people can afford and enjoy(we need more new blood in this great hobby to keep it going)
In the car industry (what’s left of it), the higher line more expensive cars get all the gee whiz bang stuff and eventually it trickles down to the cheaper cars. Stuff like air conditioning, power brakes, power windows and locks all started out in the Chryslers and Cadillacs. And those people paid big bucks then.
Eventually some of this stuff will find it into the Legacy equipt systems, just takes time.
“Still, their versions are almost double the price of MTH’s. I think MTH is going to win out on this one…”
Not so fast. The preorder price on the genset is $539.99 at Charles Ro and Trainz(and probably most other places-those were the only ones I checked). I couldn’t find preorder prices on the MTH, however the MSRP is $429. Bear in mind, too, that MTH prices aren’t usually discounted as much as Lionel’s are.
Even if the street price on the MTH is $350, the differce is $190. Considering that the Lionel is diecast and the MTH is plastic, this is probably a more than reasonable price difference.
Yes, the prices are MSRP. The big dealers are discounting. The only pre-order discount price I’ve seen for the MTH Genset is from Trainz and it’s $490 and they have Lionel’s for $540. Vision is just a small portion of the catalog and there is a lot of nice mid priced stuff in the catalog. 3rd Rail is taking pre-orders for VGN 2-10-10-2’s at $2,000 and Kohs is taking pre-orders for Challengers at $5,500 so Lionel isn’t the only train company offering high end stuff. Lionel appears to be following Broadway Limited’s que of adding brass detail to diecast boilers with Vision steam. I dunno, it’s wait and see.
Good idea, yeah they should expand the conventional classics line and traditional line because thats there bread and butter. And have the options to buy cheaper versions of its traditional line trains with just signalsounds or full on railsounds, or with or without TMCC. And just build very limited numbers of high end trains, or maybe have the option of building them as “kits” to spread out the cost, but that is probably more expensive in the long run.
For what it’s worth, I just pre-ordered a Lionel Genset from Trainz. The preorder price is affordable for me, and the technical doo-dads are just good to pass up.
It’s due in September(Jerry’s been quoted as saying that heads are going to roll if it doesn’t make it by then), and I’m really excited about getting it. I’ll be sure and make a full report here once it arrives.
If any of you are on the fence about any of the Vision items, tomorrow is the deadline for preordering.