Where is the support a Conventional Rugged Rails Line?
It sounds like everyone is either into Post-War Lionel or the Latest high-end Locos from all the websites about O Gauge and O Scale Trains.
Mike’s Train House has to start selling the Rugged Rails line in Conventional form at big chain stores like K-Mart, Sears, Wal-Mart, and other similar chains.
That is supposed to be the Base of the Pyramid or the Top of the Funnel, depending on which sales model you prefer.
If Mike’s Train House has given up on Rugged Rails as a complete line, then the train line should just go to a Williams Trains or Ready Made Toys or even become a separate company.
Somebody has to come up with an idea for how to make the Rugged Rails concept stable.
Low-cost Rugged Rails catalogs would be good. Why overspend on the print material.
From what dealers have told me, Consumer oriented trains, regardless of quality just do not sell unless the have the name Lionel on them. When a consumer, not a train person, is shown a set from Lionel, Williams & MTH, they will almost every time pick the Lionel. This is true even when the dealer points out the advantages of the others. Makes it hard for anyone else to break into what is a very small market. Even Lionel has not done well in the mass market stores.
Andrew, the only one that can “come up with an idea for how to make the Rugged Rails concept stable” is Mike Wolf. I can’t see MTH just giving the tooling away to Williams or RMT. And given my gut feeling that MTH is in far more money trouble than we know, I doubt these other companies could afford to buy that tooling either.
The Rugged Rails line by MTH is an afterthought to the competition brought on my UMD and the Industrial Rail line, simple as that. As was the K-Line Train-19 line. From the inception of MTH, as witnessed by the early MTH advertising, Mike has always had some contempt or disdain for 027 sized products. Early MTH ads made this clear.
And if Lionel has a hard time getting their products into mass chain retailers, I doubt MTH would have it any easier. Especially given that the general public has more recognition of the Lionel name than MTH. Years ago when I was at a Sears store, I asked an assistant manager where the MTH trains were (since Sears was supposedly carrying MTH products). The guy didn’t even know what MTH was. When I explained to him that MTH trains were like Lionel he said, “Oh Lionel, I know what those are. Why didn’t you say Lionel in the first place? No we don’t carry Lionel trains.”
Not much of a promotion for a product line when the stores that carry your products don’t even know what they are.
Truthy be told, it’s hard to support a product line that just barely exists. Very little has been done with the Rugged Rails line. I have a couple RR cars and like them very much. I might have more, if MTH only made some others, but they don’t. And as I’ve said before, I think the last Railking SD90MAC (that went into the Rugged Rails line) was the very best proportioned of all the smaller modern MTH diesels. They were $150 under Railking. Then MTH moved them to Rugged Rails, dropped the electronics and raised the price $30. Then most of them were cancelled and I can see why. I wasn’t about to pay more mon
The rugged rails line was a good attempt to keep up with Industrial Rail line of trains and K-Line Train 19, but I think that MTH is catering more to the higher end electronics. MTH is putting (proto sound system # 2)PS-2 or PS-3 into their new trains and almost forcing people to buy the DCS Control system for the trains.
Let’s face facts, not everybody can spend $350.00 to $600.00 for a train set or locomotive, then spend another $300.00 for an electronic control system.
The problem isn’t just confined to MTH. There is a finite market for starter sets. Lionel and MTH, and soon Atlas, are slugging it out for that narrow slice of the market.
Getting into big box stores isn’t a dream, because most store don’t keep and blow out -= but return unsold sets top the manufacturer for credit. If company “A” sells 20,000 sets to MegaloMart, and megaloMart returns 10,000, it is a larger hit on the bottom line than to company “B” just sells to hobby shops and on-line retailers.
Bob, I think your point is a given and is well illustrated by the recent rash of re-packaged Target sets showing up for sale. Obviously Target didn’t sell all of their orginal allotment. BUT the market for high end trains is FAR MORE finite than that of starter train sets.
With starter sets, it’s not as much a case of the market for them being finite, but the resources to advertise and promote those sets is what is finite. I think there’s far far more of a market for starter sets (and related traditional trains) than anyone knows or realizes.
EXAMPLE: OGR magazine published that 3,000 of the last KCC SD70 MAC diesel were made by Lionel with another 100 for repair/replacement purposes. According to OGR, this number was a large production run. During the year that the KCC MP-15 was offered, I recall speaking with someone at length at K-Line who told me that before mid-year, over 10,000 of the KCC MP-15 had been sold. It is entirely likely that number doubled or more by year’s end. Last time I was in math class I believe 10,000 was a MUCH bigger number than 3,000.
Although all the train companies are not forward with production run numbers, everything I hear indicates lower end traditionally sized products are made in runs of multiple thousands. High end locos are not. 3,000 is indeed a very large number for a run of high end locomotives. Lionel made 2,000 ACELA sets and they’re still out there, new and sealed, for those who are willing to spend that large figure.
Jefelectric hit the point that Lionel is just the more recognized and sought name. Even though I beleive MTH didn’t offer the kinds of starter products many seek, they certainly did try. Many of their early cataloged featured photos of kids and families with the trains. And at one time they did offer a much bigger selection of sets. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the MTH Chessie F-3 Construction Set was one of their bigger sellers: the set had smaller cars and the small shorted 027-ized F3 that look
The hard to find a market argument is very dissapointing.
Consider all the Sub-Scale or Semi-Scale items that were in the RailKing Line back between 1995-2000 that would now be considered Rugged Rails proportions. MTH has slowed and stopped selling them in the regular RailKing Line. There are lot of items that would now be considered part of the Rugged Rails if they were properly categorized.
Are we now going to have to buy scale all the time.
If everyone is going to buy scale then both the manufacturers, retailers, and operators will need to do extensive research to choose the right locomotives, cars, and cabooses. The extra expense and size of scale over sub-scale proportioned items will mean less of the scale will be sold.
It’s simple to me–if only scale items are made, I’ll be strictly in the used rolling stock/engine bins and ebay. I’m not into scale, even though i’ve got a scale hudson and some cars. I like the little toys and tubular track. If mike and Lionel ignore the market, the market will ignore them.
To each, his own. I know a lot of toy train lovers still around like me.
Actually Andrew many of those RailKing items you refer to are also large. Not necessarily full scale, but absolutely larger than most other tradtionally sized trains. Only the Railking Flat Car and Tank Car really fall into a traditionally sized category of Rugged Rails. I don’t mind a little size variation on a train and I do own a few RailKing cars. But the larger size has kept that number to only a few. The Rugged Rails RailBox Box Car is very nice… certianly nicer graphics and paint than the Lionel or K-Line versions. I would own more Rugged Rails, but MTH has bothered with the line, so they obviously don’t want the money from the traditionally sized operator.
Dan and Lee, you guys make some good points. While the vast quantities of used trains already made helps us guys who are already in the hobby, it doesn’t help the newcomer unless some other train guy is quiding them along.
The current business model at MTH and less so at Lionel seems foolhearty to me: gee, let’s tool up a new scale loco and spend $3M to do it, end up blowing out those locos to sell them and then do the same thing all over again so as to please the minority of the train buying market that seems to be completely unhappy. They like it when the train companies spend millions of dollars on limited run train items and then hate it when the train compaies consider re-running those same items in unprototypical roads. Then they come up with long want lists of other obscure locos that will also cost millions to tool up and have little chance of selling out even in in a limited run of a couple thousand. Is that dumb or what?
And on an off thought, anyone notice how quiet things have been at CoilCouplers? Not a single “dang” in months. And Neil Young has yet again pushed back his previously scheduled Archive Box Set until next year. Hmmm, could there be even more problems with Legacy? Possibly meaning more Lionel investment money is being poured into a system that probably won’t see a return for
Well, it seems that y’all pretty well have your finger on the pulse of the industry. Brian, I have several “Craftsman” box cars from the Rugged Rails line. I like them, but when I asked about the rest of the line at Sears, they had no idea what I spoke of. The same goes for Target and the sets they had from Lionel, they did not know about them and I finally found one on a lower shelf and after they went on post Christmas sale. It would be nice if these sets were available at more retail sites. The world has changed and so has the hobby. While the local hobby shop is becoming a thing of the past in many parts of the country, the mail order/on-line dealer has found a niche. This has brought the availability of trains to many areas not served by a dealer, but has limited the hobby with a lack of exposure. Not sure how to address this, but I think we are all embasadors of the hobby and it is our duty to raise the awareness of it.
Hopefully this don’t seem off topic but has anybody noticed the long time it takes to get anything from the catalogs of either Lionel or MTH? To me it seems that both Lionel & MTH are having financial troulbes! Why does it take over six months to get something from Lionel that was licensed and sold under K-Line name?
All this slowpoke shipping is driving me and some others to go to auction sites to buy used equipment that has already been made!!! Years ago if you listed something in a catalog you better have it available for sale!!
When all the smoke clears with the Lionel & MTH lawsuit we will see who is still around but my opion is that both Lionel & MTH are suing themselfs into the ground!! Who will be around will probally be Atlas, RMT, and Williams, this is my opion[2c]
I just ordered three Ohio State University cars that MTH put in their most recent catalog. It was due to be released in Aug, and when I ordered it, it has already been pushed to late november, early december. As long as I have it by Christmas, since it’s a gift, I’m fine. There really is a lot in a catalog that must be made, and I can see where every production would just be a ton of sunk cost, just hoping to make enough back in sales to stay afloat for another year…
I pre-ordered the Lionel Vixen and Comet passenger cars which were initially tagged for an August delivery. I stopped by the LHS to pick up my MTH Firehouse on Monday and the Lionel cars were already instock.
So not everything is continually delayed! I wish they wouldn’t have been in till August, but I am not going to complain when items are delivered early!
Still waiting on K-Line Super Streets track made by Lionel, new delivery date is September first, the guy at the LHS forget to say what year!! Have tried to adapt a track section to Atlas or GarGraves track a few minutes ago but GarGraves is the closest fit however it will be an extremely ruff fit/unlevel. Gargraves pins go in on the outer sides about half way, have tried an H.O. track clip for the center but no success!
For me no more pre-orders or ordering from a catalog, if I don’t see it in front of me at the store-no purchase!!! Still using Choo Choo auctions for used train stuff as I don’t have to wait more than the closing & shipping time, usually I can get stuff within three weeks so I am very pleased with that!!
I don’t know how the toy train market works, but do have an opinion. It seems to me the higher end stuff sells better. I think MTH moved away from the “starter set” for a reason. Too many players in that field. With so many train importers, all of them have found their niche’.
Atlas began in 3-rail with only scale sized diesel locomotives. As many of you remember, they were the only one’s who “got it right”, as far as scale items went. The other manufacturer’s caught on to this, and began offering specific roadname engines and rolling stock. Atlas was no longer the only game it town. They bought the Industrial Rail line, and are now into “starter sets”, which are not really starter sets, but built to satisfy the traditional operator, such as myself, and, apperantly, many of you. Lionel may be trying to market to the “kiddies”, as many believed K-line did, but Atlas is marketing towards the “traditional operater”.
MTH has chosen the scale path. Locomotives with the 3-2 option, fixed pilots, etc. Their business plan does not include air whistles, as an example. They have closed in on Atlas’s market, by making scale products that the high end of the hobby wants. I once bought four Rugged Rail cars for $12.00 apeice on-line. That’s a blowout as far as the industry goes. Apperantly Rugged Rails wasn’t selling very well.\
Lionel has been trying to mass market it’s starter sets, which are just that, at big box stores. Using the Target set as an example, and the recent posts on the forums, I conclude, that it didn’t work. Lionel makes some great products. Their scale products are fanastic. Their starter sets are so-so. Lionel tries to be everywhere, but wind up competing with themselves sometimes. As many of you know, I recently purchased a 2037 set for my nephew. It featured as much play value as a modern Lionel starter set. See what I mean?
I tend to agree with O-27Brian, that MTH may be in dire straits, bu
It is more than just producing them that is the problem. The problem is that the Rugged Rails offerings get lost in the big catalog and lost in the shelves of hobby shops. They are not featured prominently on their own merits of size and affordability
The thought that seems to be coming through is: “Everybody will have to get to scale to get the relevant or distinct Locomotives and Cars in modern schemes.”