Has LCT Run Its Course?

Jeff,

I was really surprised not to see any American Flyer in this catalog.  I would like to see the Olympian set done in some really different color schemes. The Bonnie Blue Dorfan seems real interesting and different.  I tend to stay away from the repeat color schemes. Crossing my fingers that perhaps we'll see some interesting offerings in the next MTH Tinplate Traditions catalog.

Sunrise

I think without some new types, that may be the case. About every imaginable color of the 400E,384E, 256 etc have been done. I think the LCT agreement needs to delve further into the Flyer archives. A nice PS-3 version of the 1681 type Hudson with the green or blue streamline coaches or the big Pacific (I forget the number).

Unfortunately these would require a lot of new tooling so not likely. I'll continue to dream.

Steve

They could make some A.F. O gauge.  They cataloged a couple of sets before but never made them.  And what about the 9U and 4U that were cataloged?  No new tooling for these just new packaging.  They cataloged these as well but didn't make them.  I was really disappointed as I would have bought both and probably in both colors that were in the catalog.  These would have made some great father and son projects.

John.

I think there are some of us out here that would like to have some of the current tinplate offerings, but with all the O gauge offerings in recent years the budget just doesn't go that far. Maybe someday we will catch up. There are at least 3 or 4 sets I would really like to have someday!

Some American Flyer offerings in O scale would be nice also a definitive answer "IF" there is going to be another "Tinplate Traditions"catalog with the mono rail in traditional colors.

We all continue to say that if they came out with a 400e polar express if would sell like there's no tomorrow and yes I ordered some 2014 standard gauge too

indydanny

The cost for some of  the new Standard Gauge tinplate coming out is starting to get out of hand. Just look at the new Ives and Dorfan items. I'm glad I got mine back when the 4 car passenger set only cost $499.

Rich in NH

The Ives/Dorfan mini catalog was nice, but no O gauge. I did preorder the Dorfan Bonnie Blue set. At the price of it, the monorail is about it for this year, assuming it becomes available in a more realistic color.

Steve

Have to agree 1,000% with this statement.  MTH last offered the Ives Nat'l Ltd train in the 2008 catalog at an MSRP of $1499 (locomotive plus 4-car set together).  In 2014 the same basic train is offered as the steam loco ($999) and 4-car set ($899) -- but this time as separate-sale items.  We can all do the math and we'll see MTH has inflated the price by $400 in less than 6 years... and that's just to produce the exact same set from 2008/2009.  No new tooling... No additional features... Nadda.  Just a $400 bump in MSRP.  

So here's my message to Mike, Andy, Rich and friends at MTH... Yes, I wanted the Ives National Limited -- especially being a newbie in the Standard Gauge world since last October, having been a longtime O-Gauge hi-rail guy.   So this wasn't even on my radar screen when it was last produced in 2008/2009.  I'll plead guilty that I ordered a set this time, even though I wasn't at all happy about the $400 price inflation.  But that was it.  I could have ordered a Dorfan set or two, but I opted not to simply because of these kinds of irresponsible price increases. I also ordered NOTHING from the 2014 LCT catalog!

Standard Gauge tinplate is already a niche-within-a-niche market, so don't blow it by being greedy.  Most of the folks who "can" buy this stuff already have more trains than they'll ever be able to run/display.  So don't alienate your prospects with greedy pricing practices... 'Cause frankly, if you continue with the price increases like you did in the Ives brochure as SOP, most enthusiasts like myself will bag future Standard Gauge purchases as quickly as we entered the scene.  NONE of this stuff is "must have" material.

David

Most of us have every variation of Lionel, AF, Dorfan and Ives reproductions that we either want or can afford.  If MTH wants to sell tinplate they are going to have to deliver new items at a reasonable cost.  The subway set is a great idea, but costly for what is essentially four smallish coaches and a power truck.  Standard Gauge editions of the better 0 gauge art deco style trains like the M10000 or Zephyr are needed.  Even a more modern train like a PRR Congressional with a GG1 and stainless coaches would be welcome.  In some cases "G" scale tooling could be used with a Standard Gauge drive mechanism.  But, NO PLASTIC PLEASE!!

It might have something to do with the fact that I've watched several friends LCT purchases arrive damaged on arrival (either cosmetically or mechanically) brand new out of the box.  Several items have gone back to MTH multiple times and still continue to mechanically malfunction due to poor design, engineering, and quality control of 70+ year old technology (traditional motors).

I've also noticed an increasing number of fellow forum members also experiencing problems on brand new items.

I closed my wallet to these beautiful reproductions, purely because I believe there is no good excuse for any of this.  Poor quality control should be a rare exception, not a normal expectation.

This hobby is suppose to be fun...

You must have read my SEVERAL posts late last year/early this year about my 2 brand new LCT purchases!!!

- walt

David,

Well said and to the point . What is left not to understand?

As a long time buyer of "Lionel Classics", "Tinplate Traditions" and more recently, LCT, I can attest to the higher quality of the former two product lines over the present production. The last two LCT standard gauge rolling stock items, a Blue Comet "Barnard" coach and a red 216 hopper had CHIPPED paint! My four-car green "Showroom Set" also had CHIPPED paint!

The 216 hopper had a hot-stamped "LIONEL" on its sides instead of the traditional oval brass ID plates - indicating cost-cutting measures WITHOUT a price reduction!

I only hope they get the Leipzig station RIGHT, or not only will Marklin be upset, but they will have mine sent back as well! 

I wouldn't  have as much of an issue with the rising prices if they would put out a quality product.  I understand rising costs of materials, labor and inflation but don't raise prices while cutting corners with materials and quality control.  One of the most glaring examples of these cost cutting measures is the change from Pittman motors to Chinese motors, to me this is unforgivable.  In light of the plumetting quaility of their tinplate I am trying to limit my purchases to older releases bought on the second hand market.  I feel the advantages are two-fold.  I can expect better quality at a greatly reduced price.

John.

If I may jump in here (I am 95% an O-scale Hi-railer - big 1:48 steamers, scratch-

bashing, repainting and the like - but I just ordered a gray Lionel/MTH 9E for my

to be 2-loco Standard collection, so...): I pre-orderd a couple of years ago the MTH

1700 027 streamliner with PS2 and the like. I was pretty exited as this train is the

ONLY "model" of the GM&N/GM&O lightweight Alco/ACF streamliner ever offered for O

"scale". For a toy, it was pretty good. Correct colors (silver/red) and I was going to

carefully and tastefully letter it for the real railroad.

Cancelled. So we get yet another Tinplate Zephyr/Flying Yankee thingy instead. No, I

don't want one.

-------------------------

Some years ago MTH announced a new 2-6-6-2 Standard Gauge articulated. An articulated! Had my checkbook out - ordered it. I believe that MTH announced a few other smaller items that were actually new pieces showing new thinking.

Cancelled; all/most of the new designs. It seems that Standard Gauge only wants continued regurgitations of what has been done. 

-----------

My arriving Standard 9E is a fluke, but I've admired it for a while. So, until MTH offers that 2-6-6-2 again, and until enough order it and other actually new ideas, Tinplate

will have very little place - 2 pieces - in my collection.

Frustrating, to state the obvious.

There is some new tooling planned for tin plate.

600e?

rat

I hope the MTH Marklin O Gauge Leipzig Station is produced in one of the Eastern European countries, such as the Czech Republic, instead of China!

Korea or Japan would also be preferable! 

MTH must get this masterpiece RIGHT in every aspect! The European and USA collectors will be watching! 

Exactly!  That's what I'm finding even as a Standard Gauge newbie.

For one thing, I have ZERO plans to spend big $$$ on Standard Gauge beyond initial purchase of a few items to provide a little variety.  Perhaps a few passenger sets, a coal train, and then a mixed freight.  That's it.  I already have the accessories I want by quietly purchasing like-new to new pieces over the past year When prices have been right.

Secondly, with one or two exceptions, I can source nearly ALL of the Standard Gauge locos and rolling stock I'm looking to purchase from existing stock at a place like SideTrack Hobbies (fabulous tinplate inventory) and then Plan B is the secondary market -- both at terrific prices, BTW.

So when I hear folks defending higher prices on new tinplate production as being OK if quality improves, I think they're letting MTH off the hook way to easy.  Why should we need to spend more for products today so manufacturers can make them as good as they were produced several years ago?  

David

Are you confirming there will be a Tinplate Traditions Catalog?

Let's hope that's true. Tired of seeing the same models over and over again just in different paint.

While I'm 100% vintage prewar Lionel. I do enjoy the catalog artwork. I'm on the "outside of the fishbowl" looking in. The view from where I am tells me the fish are dying. 

My guess is the Dorfan Croc.

Sunrise

When I first saw the monorail was making a comeback I was pretty stoked about it. Why make a "Leland" monorail in Lionel Lines colors is beyond me. I have a 400E and caboose with 2 coal hoppers in the Orange and blue and that's enough for me. If those are the only color choices for now I'll wait and order if they do them in the traditional colors. I'm not going to scratch up that kind cash just to do a repaint on them.    I agree with everyone else the same old same old in different colors is getting very old.

The only repaint I still think would do well would be the Polar Express colors in O and standard gauge. Keep the price point down and offer them in a RTR set. Not only would it be more money but do we really need "another" color for the 400E!

Hmmmm,.....

Reading this it seems like tinplate-reborn...Lionel Classics, Tinplate Traditions, Lionel Corporation Tinplate  and its Lionel, Dorfan, Ives, American Flyer, et al re-creations...has about run its course and matured in acceptance for the American toy train market.

So it would seem that fantasy paint schemes, fancy sound and control systems, alternative motor and gear train technology and the other efforts to appeal to a narrow segment of the overall toy train market, in the context of a business model perhaps it's run its course....matured...run out of steam (pun intended?)...become (yawn!) bo-ring.

That's too bad. 

But, if I were Mike, knowing what markets are still thirsty for his attention...and very lucrative for a business seeking growth!..., I'd take my tooling dollars, my marketing chutzpah effort, and see what I could do in the birthplace of tinplate....Europe!  One can only wonder what might transpire if Mike were to negotiate with Marklin's owners (and other producers of early tinplate...trains and non-trains, alike!!) the same sort of LCT arrangement that would encourage re-creation of the hundreds and hundreds to thousands of items that would be enthusiastically received.  And, does anyone seriously doubt Mike's ability to negotiate a business deal???  (Or have we forgotten about his role in defending the entire model railroad market against the licensing legal-beagles of a not-so-small railroad several years ago?????) 

The American vs. European tinplate trains market is a puzzlement to me.  Along my 70 years of life's journey...history, hobbies, business, travel, etc., etc....one of the things I learned is that "old" in America...buildings, towns, landmarks, and the like...are not really very old in comparison to "ye olde" in Europe.   (I remember staying at a quaint country inn in England one time.  It had been built in a year of only 3 digits!)

But one of the big differences in our plethora of old landmarks and those of the continent is that we still have ours.  Most of Europe's were devastated or destroyed during a couple of wars.  (History isn't really taught any longer in the public schools, so if you are, say, less than 35 years old, you may have no idea what I'm talking about.  I've seen some interviews where our 'citizens' actually believe that Abraham Lincoln was our first president!   But I digress....)

Those same wars also destroyed a lot of Europe's toy trains, too.  If not by bombing, shelling, or fire, then by collection for being recreated into war materiel.  Ergo, it might be safe to posit that there are fewer European-made tinplate trains/toys from pre-1940 than those made in America??

So, then, fast forward to today....and Mike Wolf....and LCT and its established group of global manufacturing sites....and Mike's successful entry into the 'thirsty/hungry' standard O gauge European market...blah, blah, blah.  If this American pre-1940ish tinplate market is maturing, rebelling, walking away, maybe it's time?......time to fold up this tent and go elsewhere?

Well, my wife was born in 1954.  She certainly had no nostalgic epiphany over the Lionel Classic, Tinplate Tradition, and LCT efforts to make those early iconic toys available.  But that surely didn't stop her from going nuts over and eventually buying both an LCT standard gauge Blue Comet set a few years ago and, more recently, the LCT O gauge Girl's Set (which, in her opinion, shoulda been marketed as anEaster set with its pastel colors!...and gives us ANOTHER reason to set up a seasonal layout in the family room!!!) after seeing them running at MTH's booth in York.  Until those purchases, the only tinplate we had was Dad's standard gauge 366W set.  Since it seems from this forum thread that we may be in the sunset years of Mike's American tinplate effort, I guess we'll be glad to have had a nice, satisfying taste of it while we could.

Hmmmmm.....

KD

KD:

Enjoyed your commentary! 

As you may have seen on another thread on this forum, MTH has already negotiated with Marklin to produce the famed and grand tinplate Leipzig Station circa 1919-20.

Let the games begin! 

Art,

We both know that the Marklin Leipzig Station in 1-Gauge is a thing of beauty. Even scaled down to 1:48 there are very few among us with a layout large enough to properly show this piece.

I always thought the MTH G scale GG1 was awesome, operating pans, etc., and was seriously looking into bashing one to Standard Gauge until I found my Hendrichs GG1.  For MTH to do a Standard Gauge GG1 would be analogous to the Standard Gauge Hiawatha; an electric and a steam that Lionel would have produced if it had continued Standard Gauge after the war.  It's overdue.

I have been drifting away from MTH and finding what I am looking for in the 1970's - 1980's Modern Era Standard Gauge.  T Reproductions did the Dorfan Croc; Liberty Lines did the 600E (a Standard Gauge Hudson!); JAD and Lionel Hiawathas; JAD and Hendrich GG1's, McCoy and Pride Lines trolleys; the McCoy take on the #5 and #6 steam engines and day coaches, a rail bus and an Interurban; CMT Camelbacks; McKeen motorcars;  etc...    

There is a very diverse and exciting menu of Standard Gauge equipment available out there, at prices that compare favorably to MTH's inflated nonsense.  C'mon in, the water's fine!

It's a pity that they did not do the gauge 1 Leipzig, as it would be a better fit with standard and gauge 1 trains. And even in gauge 1 it is not greatly over scale for gauge 0.

If they are successful with the Leipzig possibly they could be persuaded to make one of the earlier large stations (1904 -1915 period rather than the 20s) but i suspect it would be more costly to make as there is a lot of hand painting on the earlier stations.

just my 2¢

Roland

In addition to the European market (mainly Marklin) or the British (principally Hornby), MTH could pick up where JAD, McCoy, Liberty Lines, Hendrich, et al left off.

Sometimes the lessons of history are instructive.  When Lionel got back into the tinplate business a quarter of a century ago, some of the people who actually played with those trains were still around and in their working years.  It took years for these to sell out and Lionel gave up on tinplate.  I've been in the hobby for about that time and recently bought my first tinplate.  I think this is a tiny niche hobby within an already smallish hobby.  LCT will be lucky to build and sell 50-100 of some of these obscure models being suggested.  European homes, as has been pointed out, are much smaller now than in the past, and are not suitable for indoor use of standard gauge trains in most cases.  Tinplate of any sort will remain a boutique part of this hobby, fading in numbers most likely as the years roll by, IMO.

Art...

Thanks.

You're right, I read the thread about the coming Leipzig station some time ago and completely forgot about it as I made my response above.  I chalk those sorts of things up to OFS (Old Phart Syndrome).....a prevalent, frustrating to some/amusing to others malady, for which laughter is the best medicine! 

The Leipzig station....a portent, perhaps?

KD

The "production sample" of the Lipzig station recently arrived back from Marklin and is now back at MTH. You will see a small catalog featuring it as well as the monorails shortly.

My answer? In a word, yes.

I was really excited 3-4 years ago when I first found out about the LCT arrangement. In fact, it inspired me to build a medium size tinplate layout and I bought quite a bit of product very quickly. However, the last two catalogs have been a letdown for reasons stated well above.

Not giving up on it completely, but right now I have no plans for additonal purchases. 

Bob,

I am glad your conventionally powered LCT engines are working perfectly, but the information I have says that Far East manufacturers simply can't replicate the old technology consistently because the techniques used are truly a lost art.

I am well aware that Mike Wolf likes the old motors and the air whistles, but from what I can tell from looking on the outside,  he is more and more in the minority in his own company and for good reason.  The new stuff costs about the same or less to produce and there are fewer problems with the new designs overall, because the today' manufacturers know how to make Tinplate using current technology.

I agree with you though about the metal air whistle in the Prospector. It sounds wonderful!

Ed Boyle

Well, to reiterate, if manufacturing tradtional setups is so difficult to do consistently, why is my new LCT traditional tinplate running so nicely? And, there are the occasional complaints about problems in the field with Contemporary versions posted here, too.

Mr. Wolf's coworkers have been trying to get him to drop traditional versions for years, very possibly in order to decrease their SKUs and make their lives more simple. The "Far East manufacturers simply can't replicate the old technology consistently" riff may be just the latest volley in this little ongoing argument. Happily, Mr. Wolf continues to offer the choice, and in doing so takes nothing away from those who desire the contemporary configuration. A good thing, yes?

Ed, my friend, we shall just have to agree to dissagree on this one.

Have fun with what you run.

Bob

Bob,

You are right, we shall just have to agree to disagree. 

Besides, both of us are having fun running our kind of trains, even though they are different from each other. 

Discussing this issue with you has been civilized fun and you are a pleasure to debate.  Heck, the other folks reading this may also have benefited  from our discourse.

Ed Boyle