If manufacturing and selling the boards is not profitable, why continue selling to 3rd rail and Atlas, unless, as someone indicated, there is some sort of contract in place to supply them. And if that is the case, why not continue to produce and sell them to the public until contracts expire and inventories disappear? To reach economies of scale, dont you have to sell as many as possible to drive down the cost per item to make it worthwhile? As some others previously indicated, they will not be buying any more proto1 locomotives or older tmcc locomotives on the secondary market. Am I correct in assuming Lionel production numbers have decreased as prices have increased as we see with all the BTO products? You can only build so many Big Boys, Challengers and Hudsons before people ask themselves do I really need another? Sure, you toss in some new bells and whistles, literally, but you are Essentially trying to get them to keep purchasing the same item that they already have. Im sure there is more at play here, but I myself don’t understand why people pay such high prices for some of the newer products when there are older products that can be upgraded and be almost as good for substantially less money. Are the majority of hobbyists thinking this too now? Is this being done to the extent that Lionel thinks they need a fix? Hmmm. If this is the case, time will tell if its a backfire. Yes, you might sell a few more of those new trains to the people who decide to buy new vs upgrade old, but you might also turn away a larger number of the dedicated followers who feel abandoned. Will they damage their own sales if consumers will not be convinced their investment can be fixed down the road? Too soon to press any panic buttons though, but will sure be interesting to see how it all plays out.
