NotInWI,
I do get a sense that 2016 is the second of two catch-up years for Lionel and American Flyer. I don't think they know what to do next. Part of that is they get a lot of input from people but there is no consistent set of requests. One person wants only Legacy engines. Another wants conventional. The Third want Lionel Chief and the 4th want scale. To them the "S" market is fragmented and does not have a cost effective direction that make new tooling economical.
The frustrating thing is Lionel was SO CLOSE. Products like the SD70's and ES44's run Legacy, conventional and DCC. Crossing over to the scale side was only a matter of wheels, a pair of coupler brackets and some screws. Even though I do occasionally play on the Flyer side, If scale wheels weren't available, I doubt I would have bought these locomotives if they couldn't have been converted to scale.
As far as the "Chief" electronics, Lionel's made it pretty clear that it will not be folded into Legacy. They also indicated that conventional transformer products are not the future for Lionel. Starting from scratch with the Flyer Berkshires, the "plus" feature has been incorporated from the start, so at least Flyer folks will have the option of conventional operation from the get-go.
Part of that is on us. An equal part is on Lionel. They fail to understand their part in what they perceive as the recent "S" disappointments.
that's a big part of the problem. Sure, they go to York, but I'm pretty sure Flyer voices are lost in the bluster of the O Gaugers. Without talking directly to the market where they gather, how can Lionel possibly understand it? Assuming the S market is like O has been their biggest mistake.
1) They issued too many new engines at once (U33's, Y3's, SD70 and ES44's) in total (with roadnames) that was almost more than 30+Engines in a 2-3 year period. More than we could absorb. Had they spread this out with one new tooled item every other year, they would have sold more at each issue point.
It was an overload. I think Lionel wanted to strike while the NS Heritage buzz was hot, unfortunately at the cost of completing the UP series. To their credit, they did take some (but not all) lessons learned from the U33C's and applied them to the SD70's, then backslid a little with the ES44's.
2) The Cylindrical Hopper fiasco. I know they don't like to acknowledge their mistake in this area but it certainly caused the lack of pre-orders in mechanical Reefers and impacted additional sales of Hoppers.
Ugh... The solution was so simple: Look to how AM and SHS handled the trucks and couplers. Both companies mange(d) to satisfy both markets with little grousing from the customer base.
For some reason, Lionel feels they have to reinvent the wheel in their image.
3) Product cancellations - I understand this happens in "O" scale as well but in "S" but with so few new items being offered, it is more visible and sends a bad message about Lionel's commitment to the "S" gauge market. Cancelling the RR Crossing and the Mechanical Reefers without replacing them with similar new items sends the wrong message.
Cancelling the reefers a week or so before the anticipated delivery date was the the real slap in the face for S Gaugers.
I think there is hope for 2017. In my opinion Lionel needs to:
1) Reinstate at least one of the high profile cancelled items (RR Crossing, Mechanical Reefers, SD40)
The RR crossing seems to be stuck in chicken and egg mode. The reefers could be resurrected I suppose, but I think with the hard feelings about it, I think it'd be best to offer a different car. The SD40 never got beyond a Photoshopped Athearn HO model years ago.
2) Take the time to survey the customers who are buying their products today.
I think that'll require a culture change at Lionel. Direct communication seems to be less with the current regime.
Include a card in each item sold in 2016 worth $5 off your next online purchase at Lionel.com if you send the card in. On the card should be a list of possible items Lionel would consider making. You check which one you would be willing to buy. The winner gets added to the 2017 catalog.
3) Attend more meets and encourage people to tell you what want they want to buy.
Yep. Don't have to go full bore like at York, a rep or two, maybe some samples, a couple of chairs, talk and listen. It was amazing at the 2001 NASG convention when Lionel displayed test shots for the then soon to be released Mikado's. Talking and listening went both ways, you got the feeling that Flyer was really on the "right track" so to speak. There was talk of scale-proportioned freight cars with easy (the key word) conversion for the scale operator. Of course, that was several management changes ago...
On our side maybe we all need to compromise a little to help the "S" market grow. Try to agree here on 1 or two things we want that would result in the largest number of sales and create more growth so in the future we could get more items made.
Anyway these are my thought.
--Rocco--
Pretty good thought's Rocco
Rusty
LOL...
