Getting back to Michael’s original post, that could be a concern.
If someone’s a monopoly, that can lead to being “fat, dumb, and happy” and figuring they don’t have to try too hard anymore. Having a competitor breathing down your neck tends to sharpen your thinking and increases your efforts if you want to stay in business.
Possible competitors? Well, there’s Atlas “O”, but their forays into O gauge have tended to be tentative and half-hearted, almost like they want the business but aren’t sure they want it. Their product line’s erratic, it doesn’t have Lionel’s or MTH’s variety. Know what I mean? Like they can’t make up their mind.
Williams by Bachman? I’m not sure about them either. Bachman recieved a good conventional O gauge line when they purchased Williams, but as I’ve said before considering how they’ve gutted the product line it seems like they got it and then didn’t know what to do with it. Unless they bought the line just to keep someone else from getting it?
Menards? The way they’ve come in going “great guns” I’m surprised they haven’t gone all the way and come up with a locomotive line. Maybe now?
There is RMT, or “Ready Made Toys,” but I don’t expect much from them, they seem happy with the way they are. Small, on the fringe, and preferring to stay there.
Walthers? They’re certainly big enough to swing a full O gauge push but again they may be happy with supplying the HO and N gauge markets and not concerning themselves with anything else. But I could be wrong.
I see some of you have a beef with Mr. Mike, and I’m sure you have your reasons which I won’t try to argue with. But I’m still s
Yeah Becky, considering “Pennsylvania House Furniture” became “Peking House Furniture” ( [:-^] ) a few years back anythings possible!
Then there’s the political situation between China and the rest of the world which I am not going to get into! [:$]
Wayne
PS: I’m heading over to the MR Forum to see what they’re saying about MTH, but NOT to join in! It’s a bit of a of a closed society there, kind of like the grumpy old men on the “Ogre” Forum. I got burned there once or twice.
PPS: Broke my word, I did say “Hi!” to all the names I recognize from the “Trains” Forum.
They’re up to 86 posts over there on this subject! C’mon people, you’re just not trying! Are you gonna let a bunch of HO-ers beat us on this? [;)]
Not all are that bad…I’ve posted on both. I play for both teams…I have HO and N, as well as 3 rail O and love them all. But yeah, this topic got a lot of posts in different directions. I still think Lionel should consider buying the HO line since they want back into HO.
You just have to remember it really is an HO and N scale perspective over there.
The lost of MTH is pontentially very disruptive to you guys over here. In HO MTH means nothing. BUT, many in HO have always been upset with MTH about the law suits, about the incompatiblity (lets call in not full compatiblilty) with both DC and DCC, and to many MTH asks a pr
I could be wrong, but I suspect that HO has actually been a colossal flop for MTH.
If you pay attention to the comments on the MR forum, not hardly anyone says they have any MTH locos.
I suspect the forums represent only a very small percentage of the modelers out there, but I also suspect that forums like the MR forum, are very much a cross section of the HO hobby.
LIONEL and HO is another story, but the same story as MTH, a story of repeated failure for the same reasons. No understanding of who buys HO trains or why.
I worked in the hobby business from 1970 to 1980, I have been at HO since 1968. While the market has changed, HO is still the builder scale, the scale modeler scale, products with more of a toy or collector appeal have a limited market within that segment.
What LIONEL has done so far is not likely to get much traction, BUT, a lot of the MTH product would fit right into their way of thinking.
But if I’m right about MTH and HO, it would be no different at LIONEL…
(And you folks should see some of the pictures of his home restorations! Wow!)
I need to remind folks of something. Remember the flap 15, maybe almost 20 years ago now, of Union Pacific versus the model railroad and railfan publishing industries? How UP was trying to put the squeeze on both for some heavy payouts concerning the use of UP’s (and the predecessor 'roads UP aquired) logos, heralds, and markings? Remember all the consternation in the hobby? I do.
In the past railroads were thrilled to see their names on toy trains, it was free publicity! Hey, back in the 40’s The Santa Fe, the New York Central, and EMD even chipped in to Lionel to pay for the tooling to produce Lionel’s classic F3 diesel! But not this time, UP was after the bucks.
Well, it was Mike Wolf who negotiated a settlement amenable to all, both the rail model industry and Union Pacific. As I recall, overall UP DID suffer quite a bit of embarassment, there was a lot of negative press concerning the mess. I’d be surprised if someone at UP didn’t lose their job over it.
So if you’re a Union Pacific fan* and you model “Uncle Pete,” give a little thanks to Mr. Mike. He’s saved you quite a bit of painting, hand-lettering and decaling!
No question, that is a very important good thing that Mike Wolf did for the hobby.
But I can’t buy his locos even if I wanted to. They will not run on my layout. I still run DC, and I use Aristo Craft Train Engineer wireless radio throttles. And the power supplies I use put out 13.8 volts, because the HO standard is 12 volts.
But an MTH loco on DC will only go about 30 scale miles per hour at 12-13 volts. It takes about 16 volts for them to run at a reasonable scale top speed.
Your reasons for not buying MTH HO are sound ones Sheldon, obviously they don’t fit your purposes so there’s no point in your spending money on them. Can’t argue with that.
It’s for the same reason I have no interest in purchasing any of Lionel’s “LionChief” only controlled products. I want that conventional control option, and if I can’t get it from one manufacturer I’ll get it from another.
“LionChief+” is another matter, the conventional option’s there. However, at the present time they’re not building anything I’m interested in that’s set up that way, so the money stays in the wallet.
I do have a “LionChief+” locomotive, a GP20 with Susquehanna markings. It’s a great runner, but I’ve only used the “LionChief” remote that came with it once, just to see how it worked. It worked just fine. However, when I was done with it I pulled the batteries, put the remote in a drawer, and switched the locomotive back to conventional control.
By the way, the hobby shop where I purchased the Lionel GP20 also had an MTH Susquehanna SD60, and for less money too, but I passed on it. At 17+ inches long it was just too big for my layout. That’s the only time I’ve passed on an MTH locomotive for a Lionel one.
There are 4 MTH locomotives and 3 MTH RailKing cars in my bedroom right now. 3 of the locos are on display (one of them permanently when not pulling tonnage: the Dreyfuss Century Hudson if you’re curious) the N&W 0-8-0 is currently doing the honors on my little 4 by 6 oval. So I’m not completely anti-MTH.
That being said, NONE of my MTH locos are running the way they were supposed to. Or at least not the way they were “advertised” to. ALL 6 of my locomotives have had their electronic guts removed and all 6 are running on DC hot wired directly to their motors. Practically worthless on the resale market, but at least I found a way to make them move.
To be fair, I purchased the PS-2 20th Century Hudson, a PS-2 Santa Fe 2-6-0 and the whistle only N&W 0-8-0 (which came boxed with 4 hoppers) as stand alone items whereas the other 3: PS-2 SP Daylight, PS-2 Southern Ry 4-6-2 in green and a PS-2 MILW non-streamlined Hiawatha 4-6-2 came with starter passenger sets. (The GS is a bantam by the way.)
But all 5 of the PS-2 locos lost their minds after being run on an MRC Dual Power O27 pack, something MTH and/or MRC should have been able to figure out and warn consumers about long before my electronics boards went to the funny farm. Heck, even experts at Rockwell Systems Automation couldn’t make heads or tails of them after they quit. They were just plain unusable. So, money or no, I stopped even thinking about buying a ProtoSounds loco a long time ago.
I AM sorry to see MTH shutting down. I personally believe that without Mike Wolf the O gauge realm would still be using postwar castings and molds just as they were around 1995 when the RailKing line appeared. (I purchased a “midrange” 2-6-4 with an air whistle tender for $300 in 1995) He forced the industry to innovate.
I find the MTH engines I have gutted run just fine on normal track power. My belief is the electronics dropped so much voltage on the input, they needed more input to get usable power to the motor. Gut them, they’re fine.
I like older cast engines. I am writing an article right now showing how to obtain something different. Or two. Or three.
I have to thank Mike Wolf and MTH for making standard gauge available again. I have several engines and many pieces of rolling stock from all three types of brands, Lionel Classics, Tinplate Traditions and Lionel Corporation. Of all the possible resurrection scenarios, the return of those particular products are the most far fetched. The tremendous decline in prices on eBAY had almost already precluded that possibility. For now and the forseeable future, I will continue to enjoy what I have and acquire anything else that might come along when the chance presents itself. I hope everyone has a good day.
Interesting, I didn’t know Lionel caved on that, I never saw that published anywhere.
I think I know what Joshua Lionel Cowan would have said and done:
“What? You don’t like all the free publicity and advertising I’m giving you by putting your name on MY trains? OK, I’ll tell you what. You want to see your name on my trains from now on? I’M not gonna pay YOU, you’re gonna pay ME!”
Don’t think he wouldn’t have done it either, J.L didn’t fool around!
