Future of Railking Steam

NCogaugefan,

I agree with you that the MTH Railking line was a great value. For many years, I have stated Railking Imperial engines offer the biggest bang for the buck in  O gauge. I also have many Railking imperial steamers and diesels. It was like getting a semi-scale premier line detailed engine at a Railking price. Unfortunately, I do not have any information whether the current MTH is going to produce Railking engines from time to time, and don't like to dwell in rumors (remember the MTH lionel lawsuit rumors that were usually wrong?). I do believe that MTH producing Railking imperial steamers and diesels (i.e. SD-70ACe and ES44AC) from time to time would benefit their bottom line. If it does not occur in the near future, my recommendation is to check the "For Sale" portion on this forum as used Railking steam engines do come up for sale regularly, and if the seller has DCS, you can ask for the amount of the run time on the engine if he does not put in his ad to begin with.  

Erol  

I don’t think the owner of MTH knows what he wants to do.

It's nice to hear from other semi-scalers it seems like we are a rare breed on this forum. Mr. Muffin is doing a custom run of a Railking diesel so my hunch is that MTH still has most or all of the Railking tooling. Rod I think you nailed it.

I seem to recall reading - several months ago when the 'rumours' regarding the future of MTH were running rampant - that one 'fact' which emerged (from Mike Wolf himself) was that the RailKing line far outsold his Premier line, so this would explain why someone would prefer to purchase the RK dies & molds from Mike when the company was being sold off piece meal. That said, I don't dispute what Rod has said above. I guess only time will tell.

BradFish1, I don’t understand why the manufacturers cater to the scale crowd. I mean, I’m sure they make up a significant portion of the customer base. However, I believe that the manufacturers are leaving many people behind by not offering more semi scale locomotives. I could run scale stuff in my garage, but it would be little more than a circle of O-72 track with only a short straight section. I would much rather run the semi scale stuff and see the trains stretched out a little bit. Not to mention that the price of scale locomotives simply put them out of reach for many hobbyists.

Ultimately  if MTH isn’t going to make Railking steam anymore, another manufacturer really needs to purchase that tooling. I feel like there is a significant portion of the market that would buy the stuff. But what do I know?

@NCogaugefan posted:

BradFish1, I don’t understand why the manufacturers cater to the scale crowd. I mean, I’m sure they make up a significant portion of the customer base.

You just answered your own question...

Rusty

@NCogaugefan posted:

BradFish1, I don’t understand why the manufacturers cater to the scale crowd. I mean, I’m sure they make up a significant portion of the customer base.

I feel like there is a significant portion of the market that would buy the stuff. But what do I know?

I see where you're coming from but I can't agree.

They don't cater to it.  They do sell to it, but they sell far less scale product than traditional, in terms of numbers, because it's expensive.

In terms of sales dollars, because it's so pricey, the scale stuff does a little better, but not good enough to eclipse traditional sales.

Traditional is, and always has been, the bread and butter.

Where do you get the perception that they're focused overwhelmingly on scale to the exclusion of traditional?

Mike

Sorry but I will take issue with the "scale crowd.... make up a significant portion of the customer base". While none of us know the exact ratio of scale vs. "semi scale" hobbyists, I think we can safely deduce from information that has been released by the various manufacturers over the last 20 years or so that the scale hobbyists are a small segment. Then let's turn to manufacturing costs. Having worked in an industry for 46 years that imported and distributed manufactured goods, I can assure you that it does not cost three times as much to make a $2,000+ steam engine opposed to making a $700 one. Assuming the same or similar electronics, maybe 10% more. Yes, but a small segment of the three rail scale crowd make up a very profitable portion of the market, and on this forum seem to be more prevalent (visible & vocal). That leaves us with why don't the manufacturers produce more "semi scale" products. My thinking is that only the corporate accountants can tell us for sure, but I'll guess it comes down to the costs of offering (warehousing, marketing, etc.) a less profitable line on a per unit basis. Hence, "semi scalers" like myself have to be content with what little is offered. About 20 years ago RailKing offered a PRR K4 that was nicely selectively compressed to "semi scale"; a decade or so later a RailKing PRR decapod was offered that was an abomination - perfectly scaled to "S" with O gauge wheel sets, then made to look even more out of proportion with that huge "coast to coast" tender. So do I have any answers - NO, but be careful what you wish for.

I guess the most recent offerings are the reason that I feel like the manufacturers are “catering” to scale modelers. Look at what MTH has offered since their restructuring……not a single Railking steamer. Lionel appears to be content offering the occasional lionmaster locomotive every few years. I suppose the lionchief plus 2.0 locomotives can fill in a few of the gaps, but I don’t see that product line being nearly as diverse as the Railking line. If the semi scale and traditional o gaugers do indeed make up the majority of the market, the manufacturers seem to be ignoring us at the moment.

Perhaps things will turn around in the near future. Maybe MTH will offer some Railking steamers in 2022. Perhaps Lionel will expand their lionmaster line with some northerns and berkshires….but I doubt it. Or maybe a third party will step up and buy the Railking tooling. I just feel as though there is going to be a huge gap in the market if the Railking line disappears for good.

Thanks for getting this thread going. I'm brand new to DCS and Rail King steam. In fact, I think Mike Wolf made his announcements right after I bought my first TIU and DCS engine. That timing blunder aside, I think they're great products and I sincerely hope to be running them for another 20 years. I will be very interested to see if Lionel catches up with LC+2 semi-scale steam.

@raising4daughters posted:

Thanks for getting this thread going. I'm brand new to DCS and Rail King steam. In fact, I think Mike Wolf made his announcements right after I bought my first TIU and DCS engine. That timing blunder aside, I think they're great products and I sincerely hope to be running them for another 20 years. I will be very interested to see if Lionel catches up with LC+2 semi-scale steam.

My only reservation about the lionchief plus 2.0 line is the lack of passenger cars and freight cars that are proportional. Is anyone making cars similar to the Railking streamline and Madison cars? Or is Lionel just thinking that people will either run the o27 sized cars or the scale sized cars behind the lionchief plus locos? It’s not just the lack of locomotives that’s causing potential issues.

Maybe the best way to get a definitive answer would be to get some people together to approach one of the dealers about doing a custom run of a particular Imperial steam engine. They are doing some really small diesel runs so maybe they’d do the same for steam.

@Mark Holmgren 110217 posted:

Maybe the best way to get a definitive answer would be to get some people together to approach one of the dealers about doing a custom run of a particular Imperial steam engine. They are doing some really small diesel runs so maybe they’d do the same for steam.

I was wondering the exact same thing. I just don’t know if there is something in the production process of a steamer that would make it cost prohibitive for dealer to get a special run. Also, if the Railking steamers are available for special runs, why hasn’t  one of the larger dealers jumped on it already? It makes me wonder if MTH isn’t letting them do special runs of Railking steamers for some reason. But I would jump all over it if someone did!

I'm a big fan of RK 60' passenger car sets too. I have a bunch and there are a few I'd like to see them re-run.

@NCogaugefan posted:

My only reservation about the lionchief plus 2.0 line is the lack of passenger cars and freight cars that are proportional. Is anyone making cars similar to the Railking streamline and Madison cars? Or is Lionel just thinking that people will either run the o27 sized cars or the scale sized cars behind the lionchief plus locos? It’s not just the lack of locomotives that’s causing potential issues.

I see your point, but it wouldn't dissuade me. I guess some depends on your definition of semi-scale and O27. For passenger cars, there seems to be 3 sizes in semi-scale: the 10" post-war sized called O27, 13", and 15" (60'). I'm pretty sure that Lionel now has offerings in all three of those categories but, if not, there's so much new old stock and used product on the market that I don't fret availability.

Same for non-scale freight. I still see K-Line and Industrial Rail on the used market and old stock on dealer shelves and websites, and they haven't been made in, what, a decade or more?

I do share your concern about the LC+2 Berk. It appears they used the smallish O27 Berk tooling which is a nice replica but it's very small compared to my Rail King Berk (I have each).  Even O27 Madison cars from MTH dwarf the Lionel O27 Berk.

Count me is as part of the semi-scale crowd.  I too miss the RK steam lineup.   I admit I did some binge buying after the MTH announcement to round out my RK steam collection (most of it packed away for future Christmas gifts!), but that approach doesn’t help those trying to get in the game now.   Not much is left and what is selling for ridiculous prices.  I have no idea what the future of the line is, but would love to see some RK steam offerings return.  We’ll see what Lionel does with the Lionmaster line to fill some of the void.  The recent release of a baby Pennsy K4 is encouraging, but not for me since I already have a RK K4.  

Scale is beautiful but I don't have the space.  I think semi-scale looks great if that's what you can fit.

For me, the MTH items I look for are:

Premier 36' Reefers

Premier 19th Century Locomotives

Premier 64' woodsided passenger cars

Railking 19th Century Rolling Stock

Railking 19th Century Locomotives

Railking Overton passenger cars

Apparently, MTH is still producing the 36' reefers and Lionel has the tooling for the 64' passenger cars.  The other items are hopefully not dust in the wind.

I have a fair amount of Rail King Steam and several Imperial Versions and like them very much great runners and at the time they were what I could afford.. That being said there were several steam locomotives I wanted in scale and now the Rail King look a bit out of place. I am considering selling off my Rail King and replacing them with Scale Premier as it becomes available. Most of my steam is PRR with a couple N&W mixed in and an odd ball P&LE. MTH Rail King line is a very nice attractive and affording line to model in. I have never had any issues with them and have had them for many years.

Does anyone have a good relationship with one of the larger MTH dealers? Perhaps they could reach out and inquire about special runs of Railking locomotives? I think it’s worth a shot at this point.

I think the Rail King line was affordable for dealers, small shops and consumers that went through a distributor based on large production runs. The distributor was set up for many , many shipments. Since MTH now doesn’t have distribution or warehousing it’s probably impossible to handle the load. It is truly sad for all the terrific tooling’s going to waste. Much easier for him to handle small Premier runs and turn a larger ROI.

To my mind one must have a run of at least 30' before scale steam even begins to look right. My layout is 12x14' and most hobbyist that I know have similar or smaller layouts.  Railking fits well on these layouts.  Lionels Lionchief Berkshire is closer to S scale and is even smaller than Postwar.  Railking just looks right and fits well with postwar.  I think that elimination of this line would be a mistake.  Some scale diesels look fine such as the F-3.  I have a legacy f-3 but for $400 + difference I can do with less detail. After all we are running on 3 rails spaced a scale 5' apart not 2 rail spaced 4'8 1/2'.

I am scale guy and the fact you think they cater to us is ridiculous. I that were the case we would have scale detailed RS and aclos with fixed pilots. MTH catalogs were 50-50 and Lionel is maybe a 1/4 to 1/3 of the catalog.

@Shawn_Chronister posted:

I am scale guy and the fact you think they cater to us is ridiculous. I that were the case we would have scale detailed RS and aclos with fixed pilots. MTH catalogs were 50-50 and Lionel is maybe a 1/4 to 1/3 of the catalog.

They sure are making a lot more scale steam than semi scale steam these days. And the semi scale steam locomotives that Lionel produces are disjointed. There is no rhyme or reason behind what they’re doing. Their semi scale Berkshire with it’s almost S gauge proportions is going to look silly next to their new baby K4. And neither of those locomotives look right next to a lionmaster locomotive. If MTH is indeed killing off the Railking line, Lionel has got a lot of work to do.

@NCogaugefan posted:

They sure are making a lot more scale steam than semi scale steam these days. And the semi scale steam locomotives that Lionel produces are disjointed. There is no rhyme or reason behind what they’re doing. Their semi scale Berkshire with it’s almost S gauge proportions is going to look silly next to their new baby K4. And neither of those locomotives look right next to a lionmaster locomotive. If MTH is indeed killing off the Railking line, Lionel has got a lot of work to do.

The reason is because they are doing mostly custom runs requested by dealers you want semi scale steam find some dealers to request them. The current MTH does not have any storage either so they can't make them and store them.