About the only thing I found to be junk on the P2K line of GP7/9/30s was their crapola gears.
And that friends is why I no longer buy LL and have sold 90% of my P2Ks off.
This will likley be bad news for canadian modellers. LL licensed distribution to Canadian paint schemes and Canadian prototype locomotives to Hobbycraft Canada.With the aquisition all these models will be gone.It was good to get canadian specific locomotives with proper detail parts without having to go the brass route. Indeed a sad day. Rob
Kind of makes you wonder if the warehouse fires were entirely accidental. Sometimes insurance proceeds look better than a marginally profitable business.
[}:)]
As for the future, I have to be optimistic. Walthers is clearly committed to the hobby, and will do what it takes to keep the market healthy.
[:)]
Why wouldn’t Walthers simply distrubute these to Canada or does Canada have some law stating that only Canadian companies can sell model trains with Canadian paint schemes? If my assumption is true, couldn’t Walthers set up a similar Canadian division or maybe Canada could get rid of the silly law, again, if my assumption is true.
Hi you all,
The following letter was post last night, on the Atlas N scale forum by andrejonc.
July 16th 2005
To Phil Walthers
Dear Sir,
When your grand father started his business in 1932, I was only six years old. Two years before on a Christmas morning, I saw my first tinplate train that Santa Claus had left for my older brother. It was a Lionel with a Green colored locomotive, and between 1935 to the early 40’s my mother and I had never miss the Santa Claus parade from the Eaton store here in Montreal.
In 1975, a new product sold in the USA by Revell under the name of The Postage Stamp Collection interested me, now you have guest I presume that I am in N scale. I belong to the Atlas forum and last night I came upon a posting in regards with your last acquisition. In your press release, the first paragraph reads as follow, Exciting News from Walthers! For me, it was Bad News for all of us in N scale.
Before writing this message, I went to your web site to browse your N scale products, if Walthers wants to be honest with us, and he has to keep Life Like well-known brands as follow: the PROTO 1000 series, the PROTO 2000 series and the HERITAGE steams collection series.
May I make a suggestion; you should get in touch with Paul Graf from Atlas and make some agreements with him to post a note of encouragement for the thousands N scale modeler across North America.
I remain yours truly,
Andre Joncas
I seriously doubt Kato or Atlas will be caught up in any sort of merger any time in the near future. Both are strong, innovative companies with a good foothold in the market place.
What law?
Its simply that this segment of the market is quite small. The more unusual Canadia schemes (TH&B, ONR) wouldn’t sell enough units to attract one of the US players, so a niche market has developed. One that may not interest Walthers any more.
To quote Han Solo:
“I got a bad feeling about this…”
Life-Like’s Canadian items are produced independently by their Canadian distributor, Hobbycraft Canada. They import the models from China unpainted, and contract out paint work to a US firm. Life-Like USA’s direct involvement is minimal aside from developing most of the models from which the Canadian runs are derived. Hobbycraft have also commissioned special Canada-only models on occasion, most notably the RS10/RS18 (upon which the Life-Like RS11 appears to have been based), the newsprint car, and the MLW-version C424.
Walthers could decide to stop using Hobbycraft as a distributor, since Walthers serves Canadian retailers in competition with Hobbycraft. This could leave high-grade Canadian products in the lurch - Walthers does Canadian roadnames, but not as well as Hobbycraft has of late. The word on Friday was it’s business as usual - as long as that’s the case, we’ll still see the Canadian stuff. On the other hand, there’s nothing to say that Hobbycraft couldn’t continue with special runs of models from another manufacturer, such as Atlas (whose C424 their MLW version was based upon).
We shall see what we shall see, when we see what we shall see! [:)]
I’ve got 3 Ontario Northland Locos and some drop end gondolas on order. I hope I get them. The more I think about it the more I think this sucks.
Some very interesting posts here to be sure. Hopefully we’ll see business as usual as far as Life Like stuff is concerned. Being taken over by Walthers is not necessarily bad per se. I’m not sure why folks say this will be bad “because Walthers only sells to Hobby Shops.” Looking at the various LHS’s and internet discounters it seems that the Walther’s structure line is pretty well available (until a model is retired - Bring back the tugboat!!). Will availability suffer? Who knows? The Proto units in the more popular roadnames seemed to sell out rather quickly, maybe this will improve. As to price, I’m not sure that an additional layer is in place as it seems that the profits that went to Life Like’s owners will now go to Walthers. As to “Walthers is out of stock” I don’t know if that is a result of Walthers not knowing what is going on (they’ve been around for many many years) or a result of manufacturers having “batch runs” which are sold out.
I can imagine both good and bad things happening with this take over. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Hopefully it will be good.
My only concern would be Walther’s past experience with take overs, they seem to disappear after a couple of years. But this is a pretty big line so maybe it’ll be different this time.
Enjoy
Paul
What strikes me is the overall pessimistic view on the buyout.
Change is normal. The last few years have been quite stable but I think changes are not necessarily a bad thing and often turn out for the better.
Does anyone remember the rubbish LL product of the 1970’s and 80’s? Before the Proto line?
As a European modeller who “went US” 20 years ago I think it’s amusing to hear US modelers complain about high prices. 200-300 Euro’s for a locomotive is normal here. I still think US model trains are quite cheap. Sure, the prices rise steadily, but you also get a lot more train for the dollar. There has been a tremendous increase in quality in the last 10 years or so.
I have collected a lot of old Model Railroaders over the years, going way back to the 1950’s. Funny thing is, history keeps repeating itself in terms of crises and industry shakeups. In a 1974 editorial, with the energy crisis in full gear, the possible repercussions for the hobby were discussed. Reading that put things in perspective for me.
In the last 3 decades the industry pumped out an enormous amount of product, a lot of it still floating about on eBay. There are simply too many players on the market and they produce too much. A merger wave was bound to happen. I don’t think we’ll be any worse for it.
After all, WE are the buyers and those companies exist on OUR hard-earned money. So who says THEY decide what the future will look like?
As for the Roco situation: I didn’t like the news but it was not very surprising.
The European economy has been sluggish for the last few years. People have less money to spend on expensive hobbies, or are less willing to do so. Even with an understanding spouse it’s increasingly difficult to justify the purchase of another $ 300 locomotive.
This price spiral has been putting me off for the last few years. And the “limited edition” ripoff really annoys me no end. You pay collector’s prices for a model that is just a slight color/number variation of a mass-produced model. There is nothing exclusive about that. And why only make high-end models and not also a range of lesser detailed but more affordable models? Some manufacturers are finally catching on to this idea now. They had to, with Hornby and Bachmann invading the European market with made-in-China models that look and run just a good at a fraction of the price. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing to outsource production to low wage countries, but I’m also a consumer who likes to get good value for money.
I’ve noticed in the German model press too a tendency to showcase layouts built by (or for) collectors in their 50s with fat salaries, but I don’t think this is the majority of the hobbyists. We have mortgages and families to care for. Instead of adapting to a saturated market that is less willing to shell out a lot of money, Roco continued to pump out new products that nobody wants and the prices kept rising fast.
I have a lot of Roco myself and I always thought they made very good models that cost a lot less than other manufacturers, but not anymore. A nice Swiss electric locomotive I recently saw in a hobby shop would have set me back 230 Euro ($ 277). Steamers and the digital/sound locos cost a lot more. In the end I bought a similar Fleischmann model for 70 Euro ($ 84) on eBay.
Someone in this thread suggested making basic models that the modeler can later update with click-in digital and sound mo
I’ve been happy to sit on the sidelines to this point. There is not much left to say, except to add a personal statement.
I really like my LL 0-6-0, a supebly finished, if lightweight, locomotive. I would be dismayed to learn, in a few weeks, that the line had been revised and some models, particularly steam, were being discontinued. Happily, if I am to defer to those who have purchased them, Spectrum and Athearn products are doing well to improve their lines, and we are pretty much agreed that BLI is doing very well for the most part…minus a hiccup here and there. PCM and Overland are wooing us…big time!
I figure that if even one company stays in the ring and produces whatever we will buy to the extent that there is a living to be had, someone else will want a share of it. It has always been that way. Accordingly, I would expect the hobby to remain healthy in the long term due to competition for the surpisingly high numbers of dollars that so many of us are willing to spend (if the current thread on how many of X and Y you have is any indication).
Have fun and run trains, fellas. When they break, order a new one, or kitbash, just like we have done for the last 80 years. Whatever you get, whether bashed or bought, it is sure to be an imporvement over what you had.
Thought I would jump back in. The Canadian content / question has been well explained by a few other’s. Indeed the canadian market is smaller, but hobbycraft has been able to keep the prices in line. I suppose my big fear is that many of the US based companies won’t offer canadian roads otheer than CN / CP. Many of us do model the smaller less known roads TH&B ,ONR to name just a couple. Hobby craft has offered all the small roads where appropriate. One other tidbit when the proto C-linners came out that was first and foremost a Hoobycraft initiative. It wasn’t even on LL’s radar. When they sold so well up here and people saw the detail then LL bought up the dies and produced the US roadnames.I know that the Hobbycraft deal made them the exclusive seller of the CDN paint jobs and models , but this also has made th
It appears that Walthers has a lot of PR work to do. I think most of the posts here have been negative, both on the fate of Life-Like products and the future of the hobby as a whole. Only time will tell. I have to wonder with others about which little fish will be swallowed next. If this acquisition trend continues, will Walther’s and Horizon begin to demand that LHS only carry their individual product at line and exclude the other? This has the possibility of becoming extremely nasty down the road.
I hope that one advantage of this arrangement is that the listing of Life-Like equipment in the Walther’s catalog increases from just one page. I always thought that was inadequate.
Hey… I’m in my 50’s and I worked VERY HARD for a VERY LONG TIME to get a Chubby Paycheck… don’t you go putting it down!!
[;)][;)]
P.S. The old check will go on a major diet in a few years when I retire, so you don’t need to worry about it much.
Hey… I’m in my 50’s and I worked VERY HARD for a VERY LONG TIME to get a Chubby Paycheck… don’t you go putting it down!!
[;)][;)]
P.S. The old check will go on a major diet in a few years when I retire, so you don’t need to worry about it much.
How much does Mike pay you? [V]