An answer on the new J smoke features.

Indeed... I just purchased my second S-3, with MSRP = $995.  I now have #261 and #267.  I know... it's the wrong road-name for this thread.   

OK... so let's try this then... you want whistle steam effects on a N&W steamer?  Take a look at Trainworld's sale going on right now.  You can grab a N&W 2-6-6-2 Mallet for $945 (MSRP $1300; Trainworld's regular website price: $1095 minus this weekend's sale discount of $150)!!!! Is the picture coming in more clearly now??? 

That's how you buy brand new locomotives nowadays and still get maximum bang for your buck, my friends.

Sure... I realize neither of these examples are J's.  But you get the point (hopefully).  This latest gem is so overpriced, my nose is bleeding just thinking about it. 

Don't say we didn't warn you here.  But if you insist on purchasing at the inflated price-point, I hope Lionel at least gives its J-buyers a new towcom/crewtalk dialogue instead of the generic one they've been employing throughout their entire product line these days!!!     That poor guy's voice is getting old and tired.  (Sorry, but that's what happens when something is overdone.)

David

I agree with this very much.  Seems like there is always some "reasonable" justification for why things cannot be done. IMO, this also tends to illustrate the lack of validity in Lionel's justification that there is "too much tooling cost" for any of the new vol. 2 steamers to include the whistle steam feature.  I just cannot believe that costs have changed THAT much since the intorduction of the SF Northern that the J, Mohawk and GS class 4-8-4's could not have whistle steam and still be close to a $1299 - 1399 price point. I say it is simply Lionel trying to take advantage of MTH not making new Steam and in doing so, really dropping the ball.

No whistle steam....no problem.

Depends on the engine (and the buyer) whether whistle steam matters that much.

The S-3, for one, is great even without it. 

 This latest gem is so overpriced, my nose is bleeding just thinking about it. 

Are you talking about the J? The 611 from 2006 Vol. 1 had a msrp of $1250. The new 612 from 2012 Vol. 2 is $1300. Six and a half years later, with the addition of Legacy, and the price only went up $50.

What am I missing?

The marketing spin is such Bee Ess its amazing anyone would believe it. We're talking about drilling a hole in the boiler and putting in a smoke unit. The legacy board has provisions for outputting it already and they have the parts. If they screwed a post into the mold, they wouldnt even have to drill a hole. If they did it right, they would have mad a killing on it... its definitely not a $300 per model cost to fix the tooling.

Bottom line is... it looks like  alot of us arent going to put up with it, which makes sense. As far as price to buy these things.... the Legacy Mallet w/ whistle steam (same MSRP) is on blowout at modeltrainstuff.com for $899.

So.... $850 or so ought to be the magic number.

The cost is in the tooling. These remakes are a home run for Lionel. It's clear to Lionel there is no longer any real competition between them and MTH for steam locomotives. Legacy with all the features, whistle smoke and cylinder exhaust has elevated Lionel to the best choice in steam locomotives. I use to buy 50-50 Lionel and MTH in steam. I buy only Legacy Steam and some 3rd rail now. That being said, here comes the new Lionel catalog. None of the new features . We have the tooling. Just stick in the legacy board and do remakes. Gee, where have we seen that? A repeat of MTH with PS2. Seems like history is repeating itself.

                                JG

The price point IMO is ok, it just didn't have the features I wanted.  When I bought my 606 years ago it was $1.2K.  At the time the most expensive loco I bought so the Legacy 611 is not out of that realm but again it doesn't have the features I was hoping for. 

I understand your sentiments as it relates to you. However, just because YOU already have something doesn't mean others do or aren't also communicating to Lionel they'd like more of a certain product.  

That doesn't mean you're wrong, but Lionel, or any company, needs to predict and produce items that they believe the majority of people would purchase.    I'm sure their market research goes well beyond an obscure website (yes OGR is an obscure website in the big picture).

The 611 is not a bad choice especially since they are offering a 612.  I see a lot of new faces here that the 611 is exciting them to buy.  After all the 611 is probably the most well known N&W J there is so it will prove to be popular.

Not as popular without additional smoke effects though. LOL!

>>>The issue is simple for me.

Lionel Santa Fe Northern, $1299 list = whistle steam. I buy two.<<

You won't be dissapointed..

Love everything about it but can't decide what stack looks best.

I like this one. Gives the engine a stately appearance.

BTW, look for #3751 while its at the discounted price..

Joe

Joe

I am seriously considering this as an alternative.  I have the passenger cars from a few years back that the Atlantic can't pull.  I just need to see what I can swing since I would have had some time to put cash away for the J and this is a current production release.

You don't just "dill a hole in" the boiler and call it a day.  The die has to be modified so the hole is part of the casting. 

Also, there may be some electronics within the locomotive that may have to be relocated or shrunk to allow room for the smoke unit.  This would also require new engineering and tooling modifications for mounting hardware and new bracketing.

Rusty

....and with the "York 2012" discount at trainworld you can pick up a santa fe northern for about $950.... ends monday. Of course I'm sure this won't be the last oppourtunity.

Mine (3759) has become my favorite loco.  I like the shorter stack, though.  

And I never use the whistle steam, although I'm okay with it being there: I just don't like to stink up the house with smoke so I run with all of it off all the time. 

Rick

Thanks but if I buy this engine it will be from my local guy.  He was the one I was going to order the J from so it is only right that I buy the SF from him in place of it.  I'll pay a little more but I get some well needed sanity time there.

That's very true, Marty.  And with MTH still more than half a year away from "getting caught up" in terms of their catalog'd steam offerings, it's very clear that Lionel just got lazy with this latest J.  They're riding on laurels from the last 2-3 years when feature sets were much richer.

Will this J sell?  Absolutely, make no mistake about it.  Some enthusiasts will pre-order it without even thinking twice, regardless of what's been pointed out in this thread.  And others will grab it upon first sight at their LHS.  For the most part, these will be emotional sales.  But a sale is a sale, and that's all Lionel cares about.

And then there's the crowd who realizes that once you get the locomotive home on the layout, you ultimately would like as much realism and play-value as you can get.  Perhaps some of his crowd may already own a prior-release J.  So we're more inclined to let the dust settle and buy this version IF the price is right... Or better yet, just wait until Lionel makes it the way they should have in the first place.

In a way, it reminds me of a mindset we've seen for years now in toy train marketing.  Namely, catalogs once were produced in the ilk that if enthusiasts really wanted lots of things, they could get them.  The market was smaller then, so that made sense.  Now with all the new operators coming onto the scene, Lionel is counting on the fact that they're the only game in town to source steam, and there are enough NEW buyers who would spring for just one special loco... even if it's not all that it could be.

I can only imagine how the internal meetings went.  But in the end, this was very likely a marketing decision -- not an engineering decision.  Marketing may attempt to give it an engineering "spin", but I don't buy it for a second.  They simply got lazy.

David

It's up to Marketing to say "make it so."

It's up to Engineering to design "make it so."

It's up to Manufacturing to finally "make it so."

Communication tends to to flow one way and "make it so" usually flows downstream a lot easier than it flows upstream.

Rusty

I suppose I still qualify as a relatively "new face" around here.  I expect a certain number of features on a premium Legacy engine priced at a premium cost.  I run only Lionel, but I am not so taken with the company that I will buy whatever they bring to market at whatever price they conjure up.  If an engine I want (like the GS-6) does not have the features I expect at the price I am willing to pay I will not buy it.  It is just that simple.  I was not in the hobby when the previous TMCC versions of the J and GS class engines were released.  My expectations have been shaped by the last three years of product since I entered the hobby.  The engines in Volume II fall short of what I have come to expect from Lionel.  I look forward to 2013 Volume I and whatever steam engines MTH will make in the future.

Without the added features, I will not be ordering the GS6. An engine I really wanted. I'll buy another 3rd rail engine. A little more, excellent slow speed control and more detail. Lionel's edge disappears when they remove the extra features.

                                                            JG

Its interesting that a small company can add whistle steam to your locomotive for $100 or so. Can't remember the name but they do PS2 conversions and will add the second smoke unit if desired.

I believe Scott Smith has a K-Line Hudson with their conversion?

A lot of folks -- myself included -- have ranked Lionel quite high in the past 2-3 years WRT steam features and Legacy sounds when everything works smoothly.  I would remind some new folks here on the forum, however, that hasn't always been the case.  It wasn't THAT long ago when Lionel smoke units were notably poor performers -- always in need of third-party upgrades, whereas MTH steam locomotives could literally fog up an entire room and were excellent slow-speed performers.  Funny how the pendulum swings.

I can't wait for MTH to ramp up their steam production again, because we are ALL winners when two competitive entities are producing the best products they can to earn our hard-earned $$$.  And that's the way it should be, IMHO.

David

Not bad except for the 7 or 8 chuffs per revolution

I have no numbers that I would trust as reliable to agree or disagree with you.  However, I'm going on my "gut feel" and experience for whatever that's worth, that there was clearly a time when if one were blessed with the financial means, one could purchase whatever they'd like in a given catalog.  True for all companies' catalogs -- not just Lionel's.  Over time, it appears that as prices have increased, the companies are quite OK to have 10 folks buy 1 engine each year... rather than have one person buy 10 engines.  That's the point I was trying to make. 

So if there are lots of "new" operators interested in Legacy locomotives (i.e., especially those who may not have earlier TMCC versions), Lionel is OK with that... rather than packing locomotives with a rich feature set that would largely appeal to those who may have already purchased earlier versions.  But I guess -- based on some comments above -- even the new operators have become accustomed to rich feature sets, so it's difficult to generalize to any large extend.

David

Checked out my lhs today and the owner told me that he has 11 orders so far for the 611 and passenger cars and 7 orders for the 612. He also thinks that this catalog may be very good for him. He also has over 40 orders for the NS heritage units, he expects allot more.  Makes me think I should order the 612, already have the 611 Hmm!! I didn't ask him if there were any complaints about lack of features on the new J's. 

Are we all wrong here? 

No we are not all wrong here.  The folks buying the 611 and 612 now would most likely bought it with the steam features.  The difference is that there are probably a lot less buying it because it doesn't.

>>>we're not talking about a major change. A J is still a J, it doesnt become a hudson because they need to add a hole.

If a new bracket is needed, you bend a new bracket and screw it to the existing mounting holes for the old bracket. You need someone to program a machine to bend it and punch it.<<

Its a bit more involved then that.  The tops of two sand domes are sliced off, one dome filled with control switches and the other contains the filler hole.  Probably involves a bit of engineering and the recasting of boiler parts. And who knows what changes were made to the electronics to handle it..

By the time you figure out how do all that, you'd be better off to throw in the towel and head over to your LHS with a preorder deposit.

Joe

JC642, my issue with Lionel is that they have already made whatever changes are necessary to the dies to accommodate the smoking whistle in several other models and have held the MSRP to nearly what it was on the previous TMCC versions (and in the case of the 4-12-2 lowered the price).  How then does the excuse that tooling costs prohibited the inclusion of this feature on the J, Mohawk, and GS class engines?  It does not hold water.  I was looking forward to purchasing the GS6 for sure and if my budget allowed the GS2 as well.  I am one of those that will now not purchase either. I do not perceive the value of the purchase given my expectations and experiences with previous purchases with which I am very satisfied (Northern, 4-12-2. ATSF 3000, and VL Challenger).  Maybe in a year or two when/if they are blown out for $900 or less....otherwise I will wait for future releases.  They are just toys, and I am lucky enough to have plenty other great ones to play with.

There is a bit of work and cost associated with it.  More than Lionel wanted to invest. 

Rich,

I completely agree with each point you made. 

I have said it before, not sure which thread, but I have to question the competency of Lionel's marketing department.  Or maybe I just don't understand their strategy.

Hi Guys,

 They didn't choose to have the whistle steam effect in the the J engine because IT SIMPLY WOULD NOT WORK!

Reason: The whistle steam is created in the same smoke unit for the smokestack smoke. It is a double chamber with 2 motors. The whistle is in the back of the engine near the cab. That would require a long tube from the front of the engine to the whistle in the rear. The smoke fluid would condense back to a liquid before getting to the opening in the back of the engine. The realibility of the feature would be near 0.

Adding a second smoke unit near the rear would not be an option as thats where the motor is. I think Lionel made the right choice, why create a major headache that will not function as intended.

Chuck

>>>Hi Guys,

 They didn't choose to have the whistle steam effect in the the J engine because IT SIMPLY WOULD NOT WORK!

Reason: The whistle steam is created in the same smoke unit for the smokestack smoke. It is a double chamber with 2 motors. The whistle is in the back of the engine near the cab. That would require a long tube from the front of the engine to the whistle in the rear. The smoke fluid would condense back to a liquid before getting to the opening in the back of the engine. The realibility of the feature would be near 0.<<

Don't know whether to laugh or feel sympathy here.

I hope your info came from Lionel because its total bunk.  Check out a new UP #9000.

The whistle smoke outlet is a good distance further away as that on the J or the GS-2.

Joe   

I was thinking the EXACT same thing when I read that post.

David

You're right,(but didn't need to be so sarcastic) I did overlook that. All the other engines execpt the 9000 have the whistle in the front. I wonder if  there a tube running the lenght of the boiler?

"I have to question the competency of Lionel's marketing department.  Or maybe I just don't understand their strategy."

                                   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  Principal Railrookie

The marketing "guru" to whom I was referred was a very nice, very respectful young man of about 30. He listened well, was empathetic, and discussed all the finer details of the process with me for about 30 minutes. I felt he really understood my point of view. I also discussed this at length with Mike Reagan and John Zahornacky. There was also another marketing fellow (perhaps about 35 years old) who listened to me, shrugged his shoulders, and passed me off to the younger guy.

Look, my wife has an MBA from Harvard and I taught advanced economics for almost 30 years. Lionel's decisions make little sense to either of us. Yeah, we understand the cost issues and the production issues and the currency fluctuations and all that. Yada, yada, yada.. Believe me. We're both trained in the discipline.

We ain't dippin' for this catalogue.

Duh

Scrappy

And I think Rich's position is one that very well describes what many enthusiasts here feel.  Lionel dropped the ball on new locomotives introduced in this catalog... plain and simple.  

Even if we use a segment of the market represented by this forum (which is admittedly small compared to all active O-gauge train enthusiasts), I'm almost willing to bet the amount of lost sales expressed here on the forum would easily exceed the retooling costs associated with the steam effects.  

We're all guilty of Monday-morning quarterbacking at times, but this was a bad decision. The next time Lionel introduces a bunch of locomotives to the market, MTH steam production will likely be in a better position as well.  You take advantage of your competition when they're down.  Instead, Lionel's misstep here will be an expensive lesson that helps their competition (as well as themselves).

David

>>Lionel's decisions make little sense to either of us. Yeah, we understand the cost issues and the production issues and the currency fluctuations and all that. Yada, yada, yada.. Believe me. We're both trained in the discipline.<<

Yep they were.

>>>Let's talk about the Santa Fe Mikado 18034 (engine no. 3158), basically a Postwar Berk with a different rear truck, that was cataloged in (and on the front page of) the 1994 catalog. It had a Pullmor motor, early RailSounds, and transformer controlled Liontech E-unit. MSRP was $999.99! In today's dollars, that would be $1,399.99, too.<<

Its called a lack of compitition...   I recall reading at the time Lionel promoted they weren't for everyone.   MW used that engine and a few others as his stepping stone to nearly crush Lionel over the next 10 years..

Lionel survived the beating but RK was sent packing a few years later..

Joe

The negative feedback from a relative few here on this Forum, perhaps. A tiny minority, consisting of those who have significant amounts of discretionary dollars sitting around who don't mind spending hundreds of extra dollars to get a steam whistle.

Let's look at what Lionel did instead. The 611 from 2006 Vol. 1 had a msrp of $1250. The new 612 from 2012 Vol. 2 is $1300. Six and a half years later, with the addition of Legacy, and the price only went up $50. Considering inflation, plus adding Legacy, the new Js are actually quite a bit CHEAPER than the older, less well-equipped engines were!

Marketing decided that it made more economic sense to hold the line on the price. A tiny percentage of consumers say they will gladly spend another $200 to get a smoking whistle. Lionel figures more consumers would say they will gladly spend the money to get a J that they didn't get before, which now has Legacy, for even less cost than the one that they missed six years ago.

Just a marketing decision. I don't see what's complicated about understanding the rational, at least. 

That hasn't changed at all. Jerry Calabrese and everyone else at Lionel have repeatedly said what has always been known, that Lionel isn't for everyone. That hasn't changed since Postwar days, and no doubt since well before that. It's well-known that Lionel has always been too expensive for the average family.

And the fact is, as the sales numbers released during the infamous "Lawsuit" years ago showed, MTH never came close to Lionel's sales numbers. There was nothing "nearly crushed" about it. And Mike didn't use that particular engine as his stepping stone. He used the Korean production he learned from Jerry Williams to build engines closer to scale, beginning with the Korean production engines he did for Richard Kughn and Lionel. That was his stepping stone, and after a dispute with Kughn he decided to produce such engines on his own to capitalize on a perceived market for more scale-like engines. It wasn't any certain Lionel engines that triggered it.