Originally Posted by david1:
Lionel already knows the price of producing the gg1 so figuring out the msrp should not be that hard.
Unless Lionel has finished all R&D, feature designs, had tooling made, and all suppliers selected, they don't know how much it is to produce it. Being they said they are still working on things shows that this is not the case, so they don't have a finial cost yet. It's makes sense 100% from a consumer product design and manufacturing standpoint. Sure, they may have a ballpark figure, but only idiots disclose that number because 9 times out of 10 it'll end up being too low and thus bite them in the end. Do I agree with them presenting the product and not telling a price, no, but like someone stated it seems Lionel wanted to get the word out and show it off for York. I'm not a Lionel fanboy, although I do like their products. I just happen to be a mechanical engineer in the consumer product design and manufacturing field, and it's totally irking me that people are bashing Lionel with no actual knowledge of how the system works. Yes, you have a target price at the beginning of the project, but you cannot know the finial cost of production until you have signed off on the "gold master" production sample. Then you need to calculate all the costs involved to get to that point, then they need a projection of unit sales with which they can amortize that cost over, and lastly add a profit margin. Only then do you get a MSRP.
Originally Posted by Art:
Originally Posted by C W Burfle:
I am quite fond of GG-1's, but I prefer traditional sized ones like the postwar Lionel 2360. I have several, including postwar, Modern era, MTH and Williams.
Its my impression that these scale sized GG-1's are not going to run around a 031 curve.
I don't think I'd buy one, still I wonder whether there would be a market for a traditional sized GG-1 with all the bells and whistles (and sparking pantographs).
I'm the same way CW, I am surprised Lionel has not made a traditional size Legacy GG-1 for smaller layouts, even a Lionmaster GG-1 would be nice.
Art
Lionel says that VL features can trickle down into the other product lines. I'd totally love to see the sparking come to a LionMaster GG-1. I have really disliked that Lionel replaced the LM level of locomotives with LC+. If they took the LC+ locomotive and put the Legacy electronics in them and sold them for $100-$150 more MSRP (So less than $100 more street.) I would buy a lot more locomotives. I've wanted some of the LC+ locomotives, but I won't touch them if I can't control them with my Cab handheld. I hope the LM Challenger is successful enough that Lionel tries other locomotives in the LM line.