Atlas Acquires Weaver Tooling

GSP Newsletter?

 

Great news to be sure!

 

Peter

 

Atlas Golden Spike club?

Weaver Troop Floors number 1!!

That conflicts with what Lionel told me last weekend.  They claim to have bought the Weaver tooling and are hoping to make freight cars in the U.S. at competitive prices with them?

 

Art

 Atlas bought the Weaver tooling that was based in China. Lionel bought the tooling that is based in the USA. 

 

Neal Jeter

Now this makes more sense. So,,,,,which products did Atlas purchase the tooling for?

I'm curious who got the tooling for the 57' mechanical reefers--

This is from a thread started by CharlieNassau on August 28th.

 

Atlas Acquires Weaver Tooling

In a move that bolsters its already large back-catalog of O scale model railroading products, Atlas has announced an agreement with Weaver Models that brings a host of popular locomotive and freight cars into the fold. This announcement comes on the heels of Weaver Models closing its doors at the end of June 2015.

“It was with sadness that we heard Weaver Models was shutting down operations,” said Paul Graf, CEO of Atlas Model Railroad Company, Inc. “However, we are pleased to announce that we will be bringing many of their models back to the market so that they can be enjoyed by a new generation of model railroaders. These products will fit right in with our existing lines and we are committed to bringing them to market with the high quality that you’ve come to expect from Atlas.”

Tooling acquired in the agreement includes the 2-8-0, U25B, RS11 and VO-1000 locomotives, the Troop Sleeper and Kitchen Cars, the Pullman Bradley Coaches, the War Emergency Gondola, the Wagontop Box Car; and the H30 Covered Hopper. In addition, the molds for the 20’ Containers and telephone poles have also been obtained.

Announcement dates for the models have not been decided at this time. Please watch future All-Scales Monthly Catalogs and All-Scales Catalogs or sign up to be an Atlas Insider at www.atlasrr.com for more information.

Is the tooling going to stay in the US, are the items still going to be made in the US and where (did Atlas also buy the Weaver building and work from there)?  Will any of the employees at Weaver roll over to Atlas?

Wouldn't it be nice if Lionel and Atlas would come on here and tell us who bought what. They could also, let us know what there plans are for 2016 concerning the Weaver molds.

So did anyone  Lionel or Atlas acquire the dies for the Alco RS3 locomotives

My guess is Lionel and Atlas won't be giving us up-to-the-minute updates on their plans for the tooling they've acquired from Weaver - why let MTH know what their plans are ahead of time?

Great. So depending on US or China based tooling.....

........which one is going to re-release an updated 3RS version of G1092LP..the Chicago and NorthWestern ES "Yellow Jacket" 4-6-2 Pacific and a matching streamlined passenger set?

I only reported what was in the GSC Newsletter - It never go specific as to where the tooling was locate. The article simply says what I reported. If Lionel purchased tooling - great news again.

 

 

 

That would be the BEST thing that could happen to this topic.  

 

 

Lionel has taken over Weaver and will market under the

Lionel name.

This came from inside Lionel.

 

OK, so just how much of the Weaver product line did Lionel actually "take over"?  Lionel in fact did NOT actually "take over Weaver".

That would happen if the executive teams better understood the value of COMMUNICATION to their end-user clients.  Different executives are as different as night and day.  I've seen CEO's participate DAILY on consumer forums and nurture rock-solid respect and loyalty, and I've seen their successor(s) not even touch a keyboard.  Folks either "get it" or they are completely clueless, and you can usually determine who's who within 2 minutes of talking to them.  

 

David 

I didn't think Lionel acquired the Weaver Company, I thought they just purchased some tooling and dies.

 

    Bill T.

Too busy in meetings and golfing.

       

Since neither Lionel nor Atlas imports brass, neither would be a safe guess.  3rd Rail would be your best bet.

To answer an earlier question:  The brass imported engines that Weaver had offered required no dies or tooling.  These engines were done as hand crafted, short run production, pieces.  So, in truth, there are no dies for, say the Yellow Jacket or even the Pennsy BP-20's. (More correctly known as DR-6-4-20)  Each of the orders for these limited production items was produced and nothing is left to re-produce them, except, perhaps, drawings.

 

Neither Atlas nor Lionel actually bought Weaver Models, but Atlas purchased the rights, tooling and some inventory of the former Weaver items that were MASS produced in the Orient.  Lionel bought the rights, tooling and some inventory of the items that Weaver had made in the United States.

 

Refer to Weaver earlier catalogs to determine where the various products were made for Weaver.  Most of the older, scale sized Weaver cars that date back to when Bob Weaver still owned the company are included in the USA produced items, along with the bodies for the RS-3 (RSD-4/5), the Alco FA-2's, and the GP-38's.  some of the newer cars that were made here were the Milwaukee Road rib-sided box car, the fish belly flat cars and the woodside gondolas.  It's my understanding that Lionel intends to offer these cars, with their own trucks, some time in the future. 

 

Atlas, on the other hand, seems to be very interested in continuing the availability of the former Weaver imported products.  I, for one, really look forward to their upgrade and reissue of the little 2-8-0 steam engine.  That was a real honey!  I'm not sure if their Pennsylvania 0-8-0, die cast switcher tooling and dies are still available and can be re-issued.

 

Paul Fischer

Thanks Paul for the update and clarification. If you do produce that blw 2-8-0 can you decorate it in the Baldwin Locomotive Works that Weaver had shown on their 2007 catalog cover but cancelled production for some reason. After all, there are not too many O scale/ gauge demonstrator painted steamers out there. And since it is somewhat of a fantasy loco, it wouldn't hurt to paint. It in demonsttator grsphics and colors!

The 2-8-0  Diecast, as a small Baldwin Loco. There were several different road offerings.

The Grand Canyon #29 is an Alco, not Baldwin Loco. Quick note: the steam and sand dome locations.

RS-3 were two different issues. Later models were done as two can China Drives, note by flat bar handrails. Early RS-3 were a horizontal motor drive, noted by the plastic gears that would split on the drive shaft.  These early RS-3 were sought-after being proto typical size and the round bar hand rail post mounted to the walking deck v.s. the handrails pictured.  

Late model RS-3 with EOB speed control.

There was also an RSD 11-12 done with TMCC

Another late model offering was the GP38-2 in several different roads, also done with EOB speed control.  Interesting note was the plastic side frames to the trucks.

The C1, 0-8-0, that Paul mentioned, were die cast. This one has been upgraded with an EOB drive, and electro-couplers. One of my $100 purchases, it had been weathered before I got it.  One of those miserable projects to add an electro-coupler to the rear of this tender.

 

Before closing, you were seeing parts and pieces of Weaver in the MTH line. The Pennsy E8's, and Alco C 630 were two.  One assumes that, purchase of existing molds by MTH, was a bargain, and provided cash to Weaver at the time. 

IMO Mike CT.

 

I don't have an answer for that, but Bachmann bought the tooling for the K-Line RS-3 and is producing it now.

I'm obviously not an expert on this, but it my understanding that Lionel has the US tooling and hopes to be able to make relatively inexpensive freight cars with it.  It sounds like they may be having problems getting to the price points that they are looking for.  They claim that they did not buy the tooling to keep it off the market or away from competitors, but to make products with.

 

Art

I hope that Atlas does something with their acquisition instead of just sitting on it,so to speak.  Example,what happened to their Industrial Rail stuff?  I think that they made a very nice little trolly at one time along with some nicely priced O-27 stuff.

 

Norm

Lionel may finally make a GP38-2 with command!

Ahem, MikeCT, Weaver may have lent the tooling of their VO 1000, RS11, U25b and the ALCo "c628"  to mth but. The original Weaver c630 is forever lost. That mold was butchered to the current C628 looks. I do believe mth did buy the blw rf16 sharks, EMD e8 and the sd40-2. Molds.

I wanta know if anybody will remake the Weaver separate sale trucks that were available?  (and I think I read on here that MTH was involved in that somehow,

and I am guessing those were made over seas?)

The trucks were purchased through MTH, and were from overseas. They were not the same trucks MTH uses. 

Don

don is correct. when joe lost sanda kin in china, he made a contract with mike to have the weaver trucks and wheel sets made in the mth factory. have no clue where the molds are now.

Will Lionel and Atlas have to contract out the truck / coupler assembly for the freight cars since their current truck assemblies will not fit to the Weaver under carriage..

 

   Bill T.

One of those rather large units that was relatively easy to upgrade, I believe most of them did have flywheels.  Again $125 or less, at the time TMCC kits were available from Train America Studios. I didn't do speed control on these, one of my early upgrades.   These Alco's had interesting classification lights above the cab windows, another exercise in model train wiring.  Eventually I got two of them.

 

Wow, lots of questions!!

 

Seems like "most" everyone should take a step back, a deep breathe and when Atlas and Lionel have completed their plans I'm sure they will let folks know.

I talked to Mike Reagan and Joe Hayter at York. Mike told me they are examining all the tooling and inventory. Joe thought this was an un-necessary step, but it's Lionels call.

Don

 

Maybe the people running Lionel and Atlas look at posts here which have:

• repeatedly questioned their marketing startegy
• derided quality control (or lack thereof)
• complained about price points chosen by a manufacturer (even though street prices are almost always discounted)
• railed about delivery schedules that aren't updated by the second/minute/hour
• analyzed engineering decisions about features which might differentiate their products from the competition and criticized their perceived value versus price
• a model's paint is too shiny - not shiny enough
• aluminum painted plastic cars aren't shiny like new from the factory stainless steel (even though in-service photos of stainless cars after years of service look an awful lot like the paint on the models)
• fantasy paint schemes/limited editions appear instead of my favorite railroad that could possibly end up selling 6 models
• lift rings are mounted in the wrong place on my railroad's F units by a few milimeters
• no more aluminum passenger cars
• 21" passenger cars are too long
• 18" passenger cars are too short (no wait - too long)
• passenger cars don't have enough people glued to seats
• plastic passenger cars suck
• rivet holding trucks in place on a flatcar are visible

and decided that they could spend their time more constructively elsewhere. Constructive criticism can be helpful, but a steady stream of commentary noting every perceived fault that occurs or "my suggestions are all golden, these people just need to see it my way or they're foolish" may be perceived/received as off-putting.  

 

Perhaps Lionel's owners (Wellspring Capital Management) don't want the top manager running Lionel spending his time at work chatting with folks here at OGR or CTTs forums.  I strongly doubt Wellspring considers their person running Lionel to be clueless - they'd dump him in a nanosecond if he's not hitting targeted sales goals.  I'm sure financial analysts at Wellspring are very cognizant of the marketplace - they're out to maximize their investor's funds.  They are concerned with squeezing as much profit as is possible from their holdings, whether it's from selling toy trains or Crossman BB guns.  It's not Joshua Cowen running his own company - it's finance people crunching numbers guiding the decisions, not Big Daddy Cowen schmoozing with customers in the Lionel Showroom, or making decisions on his own.  Pop Cowen prowling the New York City Showroom floor working the crowd is a warm and fuzzy image, but it's not how Lionel is managed today.

 

Lionel/Atlas/MTH don't owe us explanations on how or why they do/don't do things, even if it might make sense to posters here to do so.  It's great that Scott Mann takes time to post at this forum - he's comfortable posting here about what's going on at 3rd Rail.  He also doesn't have to answer to a capital fund about why they didn't make X dollars in the preceding quarter, either - he's calling the shots, not investment fund managers.

 

Lionel/Atlas/MTH's presidents choose not to regularly post here - most corporate managers don't spend their time posting at fan forums.  That doesn't make them bad people/poor marketers/clueless or ignorant of successful marketing strategies.  Their priorities are different than Scott Mann's because they're structured differently.  All the manufacturers have made mistakes, had problems with quality control, screwed up meeting delivery dates, not kept parts in stock at all times, chosen dud products to make.  Most things seem to eventually be worked out - oftentimes not as quickly as we'd prefer.  I doubt the manufacturers set out to **** people off - they wouldn't last too long if they did...