Kent was up at Sommerfeld’s Trains in Butler and Jack was unloading boxes of a new Lionel catalog and we scored one from Jack.
Any new Legacy Steamers?
laz57
Actually, on first glance, except for the new postwar series, it looked pretty much like the last catalog.
The Legacy steamers are the FEF, the PM Berk, and the SP AC4.
But they DID have new Democrat and Republican boxcars.
And NO, that isn’t a green light for political discussions …
Weren’t those in the last catalog too? Besides, I’ve got my Truman and Ike campaign cars. What more could I need?
Jon [8D]
KoolJack,
You need one for FDR too.
George
If they were, I didn’t see them.
Sorry… it was in the Ready To Run catalog, not the regular version. Page 40. I should have made that clear.
Any new LionMaster lurking in there?
Jon [8D]
Atlas O look out I have money to spend [:-^]
Well, I’m glad its out now. It does have a little new stuff in it. There is a dummy Conrail SD80 for the Conrail set and a few cars as well. There is another UP 3-400 dollar set so ok they must be selling a few of these as they keep producing new ones. The flying yankee and 246E sets are gone after a year and a half as expected. I do hope they are getting enough sales of the tinplate to come up with some new sets and maybe a few cars or seperate sale engines next year.
Now that’s what a Lionel catalog cover should look like!!![:D]
Not much different in this catalog, which is probably a good thing since I have the BNSF SD70ACe on order…[:D]
I thought the non-powered SD80 looked neat, for $200 it would look good behind my powered NS unit of the same type. I also noticed the new UP set. There wern’t any new steam or diesel locomotives in the catalog, actually I was surprised how few diesels there were. The KCS and BNSF SD70ACe’s are still in it, though, so apparently Lionel still intends to make them.
I also noticed that they put the holiday, train sets, and introductory cars & engines back in the catalog. That seems better than putting out two seperate catalogs IMO.
At the Lionel seminar at LCCA yesterday in Buffalo, Jerry Calabrese informed us that the catalog is going to change, in particular become smaller in terms of number of SKUs, while maintaining the breadth of product niches. One reason for this is that the cost to Lionel of putting out the catalog is in the range of $10 each, which, if you figure they must print at least 100,000 or these, comes to more than 1.5% of gross revenues. Clearly this is not sustainable for the long run and some of that million dollars a year could go to other types of marketing and product development. So even if the catalog has 90 pages instead of 180, there should still be a few products each year that each of us like. Obviously if Lionel is successful in attracting a few tens of thousands of individuals into the hobby through their Macy’s, Target etc. promotions, this might change. But if they are to keep their overhead down, and prices down, they need to consolidate the number of different products they inventory. Apparently Lionel will be back at Toys 'R Us this year as well.
Does this mean Lionel is going to cede the hi-rail market of obscure locomotives and less popular road names to MTH and Atlas? To some extent, I’d guess yes. Lionel is apparently not going to be in the business of making 50-100 of an item as Atlas and MTH do routinely. On the other hand, I have no doubt they will have consistent production of highly detailed, Legacy equipped high end scale steamers and diesels, which will carry those price tags of $1,000+ and $400+, but not in the variety of road names that Atlas and MTH do at any given moment. Then again, the Legacy Geeps that are now arriving are gorgeous, state of the art, and pretty reasonably priced at under $400 with Legacy, a better buy than almost anyone else’s similar products. It’s going to be difficult to please everyone, and Lionel is t
“It’s going to be difficult to please everyone, and Lionel is trying to please the largest segments of their market, the set buying public, the high end, high tech toy train scale crowd, and the traditional toy train folks. You cannot be all things to all people in this cottage industry, and Lionel is facing that issue head on.”
Very good summation Neil. I don’t know if you are paraphrasing Jerry with this, but very good. Lionel had advance orders to make 2,000 Acela Train Sets. Lionel sold over 100,000 Polar Express Sets. I’m certain the sales of any given Lionel steam engine starter set dwarf any single high end locomotive. As Neil said, not that Lionel can afford to ignore anyone, but they also need to focus on where the real money is.
As far as the thought by Louisiana Southern Pacific, the Atlas Industrial Rail steam engine leaves a lot to be desired as their first and premiere introduction in this market. It would be just as easy to say, “Look out Altas, Lionel gets the money you were hoping for.” The basic Lionel is by far a better locomotive… a very poor start for a company with a reputation for quality like Atlas.
And as nice as the IR cars have always been, they have always had problems with their couplers on tight curves, for which the cars are advertised to run on. Replacing the otherwise nice IR trucks with Lionel ones of any type has completely eliminated all derailments for me. So again, as nice as the Atlas IR cars are, I’ll unfortunately wait for blowouts on them. Or maybe, Atlas could start putting Lionel trucks on them. Even the Lionel plastic trucks are a vast improvement in running. [:-^]
I know someone who will pre-order the K-Line by Lionel NYC business car!
Miss Edna has store copy. Says hers should be here next week.
All I can say is if Lionel puts out another catalog like this it is going to be a long, long time before I spend any money on trains.
Not a single ‘MUST HAVE’ item in either catalog. This is a HUGE disappointment since I was HOPING they would come out with more B&O/C&O/WM offerings but nope… just more Santa Fe, PRR, UP, NYC. They cancelled the ONE item that I really, really wanted from the last catalog (C&O E7s) and now this time around they completely ignore the B&O/C&O/WM crowd.
I’ll say it again. Lionel NEEDS to use their website to gather customer ‘desires’ rather than putting together these catalogs of items that the keep repeating… totally disgusted with this offering… email sent to Lionel AGAIN.
AMEN!!! It’s fit to be framed and hung on the wall.
Here! Here! But I did not see any in the sneek previews for 2009 [:(] Well its a good thing cause I think I already spent my train money for the next year… that 4-8-4 U.P. northern and the new streamline cars are a beaut!
I get this bad feeling though that being financially strapped the last few years may cause them to tool fewer highend locomotives…