July 12, 2006, a day that will be remembered in the History of HO, we received word, no IC_Jeremy received an Email that the K4 is ready to be shipped from M.T.H., but only to authorized dealers. None of us received an email, at least I did not get it.
Maybe they will make an F unit next. Now that would be a surprise for sure, since it has been almost a week since the last F unit was announced.
Jeremy, are you on their list or did a dealer email you??
Hopefully “next” year. [;)]
Jon [:D]
Space Mouse, you must be a Chicago Cub fan as they have been living that for the last 100 years. Next year …
Ken
Hi guys,
Well, I have a UPS tracking number for my MTH K4, which is predicted to arrive on Friday. My local train store received their shipment a couple days ago. I haven’t made it into the store to see and run the locomotive, but the guys I talked to were very pleased.
You talk about MTH having to earn respect in the HO world. This is obviously true. But Atlas, Athearn, BLI, etc. had best not make the same mistake Lionel did. Lionel wasn’t worried about competition from MTH until about 1999. By that point MTH had nearly caught Lionel in market share, and they did it by offering high quality, scale locomatives with the kind of detail those of us in O gauge had only seen in brass.
Those of us in HO have mainly heard of MTH in the negative light of lawsuits, patent complaints and rough advertising. But in O, MTH has built a reputation for offering a WIDE variety of top shelf products. What’s more they opened up the world of prototypical operation for a lot of people who had only run toys around a circle of track with DCS. When DCS came out in 2002 the only other command control system in 3-rail O gauge was Lionel’s TMCC, which at the time had not yet been licensed to the other manufacturers. DCS was able to run both systems and has become very popular.
As for something to drool over, I’m waiting for the first blueberry pie of the season[:)].
I think this sounds exactly as Microsoft advertising. Just wait until Vista arrives and everyone can live in a nice world without any problems. I have heard all this before, many times [:)]
It’s time MTH show us something more then words. Will they?
Dave,
If MTH doesn’t shorten HO model development time their presence in HO market will be fleeting. The HO market is very dynamic and with K4 MTH proved to be very slow on their feet.If they get their act together maybe they have a chance, time will tell. At this point I’m not optimistic about their chances.
As of this point I don’t think MTH has given Atlas,Athearn,BLI,etc. much to lose sleep over.JMHO
Jon [8D]
This sounds to me like MTH has set the bar very high for themselves. Starting with producing an engine that has been done before so there are others to compare it to. Making big advertising claims and creating a lot of buzz. Taking 2 years to get the product out the door. This all sounds like they are going to show us their very best. Setting the bar so high could prove fatal but then again those live by the sword, may die by the sword. Or the sceptics like myself my be suprised to see this thing live up to the hype. Of this I am sure, time will tell. LB
It really doesn’t matter what they come out with or how good it is. It is as simple as this.
DCS is a system that can never be more than a toy train.
Why? Becasue you can’t model anything. Suppose they had 20 differnt locos. You can run only the locos they have.
I can’t model the 1880’s because I can’t take the MDC, Bachman, and IHC models and convert then because there are no DSC decoders and DSC is not DCC compatible.
I can’t model 1917 Redwoods for the same reason. I have to convert old Mantua 2-6-2s into side tankers. Oops can’t run them. No decoders.
I can’t build a junky climax.
So until they put out decoders–oh wait a minute–their decoders run on 24 volts–they’ll fry the 16 volt motors. So they can’t release their decoders without damaging our current inventory.
DSC is a bad business plan.
OK, I “will” make a prediction, in fact TWO predictions: 1. Oil will hit $100 a barrel by “this time next year”, 2007 2. We will be paying an average of $1.20 more for our cars at LHS by “this time next year”, 2007.
Dave
Let us know how the K4 runs and if you are happy with the whistle sound. The whistle sound I heard on the video on the MTH web was disappointing to me. I watched the K4’s and they all had the passenger whistle during the late forties and used that whistle until the end of steam.
The sound on the video was the 1927 banshie whistle, much like the UK used on their general locomotives. My thought on this, they should have the correct whistle on the post war engine, You might be getting the early version and want the unit as it is. I emailed MTH about this issue and they emailed back that only one whistle sound would be available.
The smoke looked good and their #1 scale does a good job of puffing and timing the smoke to the chuffs, but you have to be careful not to run them dry of smoke liquid or it will damage the unit. Maybe they have a function to shut it down if it is low.
If you don’t mind, give us a user type of review when you get time. Try to run it on DC if you can and see if the MR review was correct for the top speed of 36mph on DC. This might have been corrected since that preliminary review. .
Thank you
I’m on the mailing list. Did you suggest I made the email up? hahaha WHY in the World would I bother?
I may be wrong but I believe all the engines will offer DCC in addition to the MTH DCS standard. Reduced features of course.
MTH will last in ho as long as Lionel did
You cant win the market over with lawyers.
MTH must learn to be like the Palm tree, you either learn to bend in a hurricane force wind or you get taken out by the roots…know your customer base, if you want to make a radical change, it had better be darn good.
I was just curious if you were on their mailing list or maybe a dealer emailed you. I thought I might have been on their list as I sign up for most everything, but did not get anything on the availability from them. No, I believe it is coming to market. Dave actually has one shipping out to him on Friday according to his email. It sounds like they are out and shipping.
I hope they produce their next model in a shorter time frame if they want to be competitive. Lionel started up on HO three different times and stopped production three times for various reasons. It is always good to have competition in the Model Railroading market to keep prices in check.
I can only speculate but I wonder since it was their entry into the market they wanted to make sure they had a superior product. I guess we will find out soon.
Like I said earlier my experience with them is O scale. Impressive. Sound is
The HO market is fast and furious and with all of the new products announced at the National Show and products already announced, my money available to purchase duplicate products like the K4 is ruuning short. I received the BLI K4 almost twelve months ago to add to my PFM and Spectrum models of the same engine. I do like PRR, having been raised watching the K4’s run, but only so many K4’s are needed.
If the new product had been anything other than a duplicate of an existing model, they might have done better in the start up HO sales.
I would be curious to know how many of the K4 models they imported and is a second run coming like most of the companies follow up on. Remember, the second run of the Lionel and Turbines are the ones they had to blow out. I think most of the first run sold, but as problems were reported, the sales slowed down. I had to rebuild my Lionel Challenger just to get it to run and four other Challengers that I know of were sent back for repair to Lionel. Even the lighting on my engine did not work correctly.
MTH will have to have deep pockets to continue in HO for sure and I don’t believe they have received any money from the Lionel judgement, at least from what I read in the publications.
One thing I’ve noticed is MTH seems to be trying to get into the HO market using a somewhat offensive-stanced O-scale competing with Lionel mentality, but going against HO manufacturers.
The HO market is different, and I predict that unless they tone down their chest beating and focus more complementing what’s already available, MTH will fail in the HO market.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think you can use a one-size-fits-all marketing scheme. You need a little more creativity than that, and the HO market expects you to be more of a team player and not so much of a single source vendor like MTH is trying to be in the much smaller O-scale market. [swg]
I’ve got to imagine MTH’s next HO locomotive won’t take nearly as long to develop. For the K4 they not only had to do the locomotive tooling, but they also had to come out with an entirely new electronics package. Personally, I’d like to see a diesel or USRA design for their next locomotive. Something that can be offered in many different road names.
As for DCS, it is NOT a toy system, and it dosen’t require 24 volts. In fact, MTH posted on their website that the MR review speed tests were not accurate. On 16 volts DC the K4 is supposed to do 75smph, and 16 volts will runn DCS just fine. Obviously MTH must offer decoders for us to install in our other equipment so we can model a particular time and localtion. However, DCS offers a level of control beyond what we currrently have in DCC (even with the CV set to 128 throttle steps). I like modeling the Cascade Mountains in O scale. Running a W1 electric on the point of a 60 car freight consist with an R-2 (2-8-8-2 steamer) working as a helper on the rear, I can run up the grade to the portal of the Cascade Tunnel and uncouple the R-2 ON THE FLY just like the Great Northern. Two operators running DCC could pull this off if they worked well together and their locos were programed very well. But in DCS it’s easy to do by yourself. All locos run in scale miles per hour, with cruise control, so changes in grade and load won’t muck things up. I’ve run more modern consists with three Dash-9’s on the point and a couple more cut in the middle for distributed power (something we used to see quite often in Seattle and over Stevens Pass). When I would look down of the coupler in front of the pair of locomotives cut into the middle, the slack would be running in and out without tugging or shuving on the cars ahead. Esentially I had two trains running in intimate proximity. I’m under no illusions that DCS is going to take over HO. DCC is he
[quote user=“dave hikel”]
I’ve got to imagine MTH’s next HO locomotive won’t take nearly as long to develop. For the K4 they not only had to do the locomotive tooling, but they also had to come out with an entirely new electronics package. Personally, I’d like to see a diesel or USRA design for their next locomotive. Something that can be offered in many different road names.
As for DCS, it is NOT a toy system, and it dosen’t require 24 volts. In fact, MTH posted on their website that the MR review speed tests were not accurate. On 16 volts DC the K4 is supposed to do 75smph, and 16 volts will runn DCS just fine. Obviously MTH must offer decoders for us to install in our other equipment so we can model a particular time and localtion. However, DCS offers a level of control beyond what we currrently have in DCC (even with the CV set to 128 throttle steps). I like modeling the Cascade Mountains in O scale. Running a W1 electric on the point of a 60 car freight consist with an R-2 (2-8-8-2 steamer) working as a helper on the rear, I can run up the grade to the portal of the Cascade Tunnel and uncouple the R-2 ON THE FLY just like the Great Northern. Two operators running DCC could pull this off if they worked well together and their locos were programed very well. But in DCS it’s easy to do by yourself. All locos run in scale miles per hour, with cruise control, so changes in grade and load won’t muck things up. I’ve run more modern consists with three Dash-9’s on the point and a couple more cut in the middle for distributed power (something we used to see quite often in Seattle and over Stevens Pass). When I would look down of the coupler in front of the pair of locomotives cut into the middle, the slack would be running in and out without tugging or shuving on the cars ahead. Esentially I had two trains running in intimate proximity. I’m under no illusions that DCS is going to take