Is the Command base here?

No.

The most recent Lionel shipping schedule shows availability of December 2022.

"Here" means in that ad, not in the real world.

It’s legitimately nuts to me that Lionel could go for more than a year not having a device available to control the engines that it sells.

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

It’s legitimately nuts to me that Lionel could go for more than a year not having a device available to control the engines that it sells.

I'm sure they didn't plan it that way.

In this day and age of myriad supply chain issues; staffing issues; pandemic issues; 100 boat cargo ship back-ups and baby formula shortages, I have to give them a pass on this one.

Someone who assisted with a portion of this project's development told me back at April's York that he thinks they'll be ahead of schedule. He was thinking more of an August to October release. That said, the supply chain issues have only gotten worse and, I don't know how recent the assistance he provided had been, but he made it seem within the last 2 weeks. Now, in retrospect and away from York- the assistance he provided was something I'd assume would've been done already.....

  I'm correct there's a new app coming to work with the new Base?

@superwarp1 posted:

  I'm correct there's a new app coming to work with the new Base?

That is correct.

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

It’s legitimately nuts to me that Lionel could go for more than a year not having a device available to control the engines that it sells.

I'm pretty sure all Legacy engines have Bluetooth in them.  Not optimum but still some capabilities but I hear what you're sayin'.

@MartyE posted:

I'm pretty sure all Legacy engines have Bluetooth in them.  Not optimum but still some capabilities but I hear what you're sayin'.

Actually, only recent Legacy has BT, I believe from around 2017.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actually, only recent Legacy has BT, I believe from around 2017.

That's what I meant.  Thanks for correcting me.

I am not optimistic that we will see them this year. Talk to anyone dealing with the supply chain and it hasn't gotten all that much better. It isn't the shipping as much any more, it is that China with the current variants went to lockdown mode, and it really, really hurt production that was already behind from what I am hearing. And Lionel (and prob MTH), being small fry, are likely at the back of the line for stuff, the factories that make it have their own supply chain problems;

So this morning I watched a used CAB2 990 set with missing parts sell at auction for nearly $750 (incl buyer’s premium).

Because there still is no device available in stores to control Lionel’s $1000+ Legacy engines, and no sign of something coming before the holidays. Again. Is this two years or three?

I’m shaking my head at what Lionel’s questionable decision making has wrought.

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

So this morning I watched a used CAB2 990 set with missing parts sell at auction for nearly $750 (incl buyer’s premium).

Because there still is no device available in stores to control Lionel’s $1000+ Legacy engines, and no sign of something coming before the holidays. Again. Is this two years or three?

I’m shaking my head at what Lionel’s questionable decision making has wrought.

@ChiBoyinLA,

They can't get parts.  Many, many industries can't get parts presently.  How were they supposed to know when planning their future, a couple years back, that a pandemic was going to occur and that there was going to be a parts shortage as a result?  Trying buying a car right now.  Video game console?

As for questionable could you have predicted better?  Any of us? Not likely.

Mike

At the Lionel seminar at the LCCA convention in Nashville, they said that the CAB2 can no longer be produced as the parts to build the CAB2 are no longer being made.  You can’t build the CAB2 if you don’t have the parts.  

They are able to build a BASE3, so I'm presuming they could do design changes to be able to produce a similar product to the current CAB2.

I'm sure this is really just the fact that they'd rather toss the ball over the wall and be done with any remote hardware.  I get the fact that it's easier to change phone software than build a remote, it's just that the phone is not a suitable replacement for a physical remote.

On the bright side, they're still producing the CAB1L, and I use that a lot when running.

I’m sure that in the Demos with Dave episode 21 broadcast last week, he said that neither the app nor the CAB3 would be available until next year. The reason he gave was not supply chain problems but the need to carry out further development work so that neither product has issues when released.

@Hancock52 posted:

I’m sure that in the Demos with Dave episode 21 broadcast last week, he said that neither the app nor the CAB3 would be available until next year. The reason he gave was not supply chain problems but the need to carry out further development work so that neither product has issues when released.

Spot on, the need to eliminate any potential problems before delivery...

"Completed software" is an oxymoron, and "don't let perfection be the enemy of the good" came to mind when I listened to Dave's podcast.  I hope Lionel can ship the Base3 + App with the 0-99 TMCC addressing and today's Legacy features without excessive delays awaiting features that apply to only a single engine (so far).

MTH has redesigned products to address certain electronic parts shortages (see Mike’s recent interview with Trainworld). Lionel could do the same (GR John seems to agree), but instead just uses excuse that components are no longer available.

They decided to discontinue production of CAB2 before the next generation product was ready.

My opinion is that Lionel made a questionable decision, and the longer this goes on, the more questionable it looks. Your opinion may differ.

My take ( just based on experience of how decisions are made) lionel ran into issues with getting parts for the cab2, and in the meantime already had plans for the next generation of control base.

Could they have redesigned the cab2 base to use new components? Yes,but if planning for the new cab3 was advanced ( which I suspect it was), it quite honestly would make no sense to do parallel efforts from a corporate standpoint.

Outside the obvious, that both MTH and Lionel see the wifi connection as the future of control ( not saying I agree,fwiw) therevis something else you are missing. Lionel hasn't said what the components are that went obsolete w cab 2 but whatever they were, likely even had they redesigned around them, they would be hung up in the supply chain as well. My gut ( which is pretty big these days!) tells me that. We are talking custom stuff I would bet.

Just look at what MTH is going through with their production issues, their base is MIA as well.

I am not defending or condemning anyone,other than the fools that thought putting their eggs in one manufacturing basket was a smart thing,and there are plenty of them all across the board.

Me,I am gonna wire my layout for conventional block for now with an eye to adding DCS and Cab3 when they show up.I would bet if/when they show up they will be in limited supply, retailers who get them will charge msrp+ and others will do what is going on w cab2, get their hands on them and sell at crazy prices *shrug*.  My slow rate of progress gives me a long term outlook on things.

Since I have a Legacy base and a spare, several CAB2's, a couple of CAB1L's, some MTH TIU's, a few of those remotes, I'm set.  I can wait and see what develops while running trains just fine with the system of my choice!

@ChiBoyinLA posted:

MTH has redesigned products to address certain electronic parts shortages (see Mike’s recent interview with Trainworld). Lionel could do the same (GR John seems to agree), but instead just uses excuse that components are no longer available.

They decided to discontinue production of CAB2 before the next generation product was ready.

My opinion is that Lionel made a questionable decision, and the longer this goes on, the more questionable it looks. Your opinion may differ.

Baloney.

The main problem with the Cab2 is the unique electronic keyboard.  The original manufacturer no longer makes them.  Plus, there is no alternate source, and there never has been.

You can blame this problem on a poor choice in design back in 2000 because this kind of keyboard appears to be used nowhere else, but you can't blame it on a recent decision, or lack thereof.

They did not "decide to discontinue production of CAB2 before the next generation product was ready".  The parts shortage did that for them.  And for many, many, many other electronics manufacturers.

I ask the same question as before:  How were they supposed to know that the pandemic, and this parts shortage were coming?  What kind of crystal ball were they supposed to have access to?

Mike

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Baloney.

The main problem with the Cab2 is the unique electronic keyboard.  The original manufacturer no longer makes them.  Plus, there is no alternate source, and there never has been.

Mike

The "keyboard" is a touch screen. Everything has a touch screen these days. There hasn't been a car radio with buttons in years.

Certainly an update/ adaptation could have been designed. Maybe not at Lionels price point. The same reason they no longer power the trains with Pittman motors.

@RickO posted:

The "keyboard" is a touch screen. Everything has a touch screen these days. There hasn't been a car radio with buttons in years.

Certainly an update/ adaptation could have been designed. Maybe not at Lionels price point. The same reason they no longer power the trains with Pittman motors.

Agree with you. I think people assume that the cab 2 stuff become impossible to source, and then they decided to do Cab3. I think they started designing cab 3 long before the pandemic and figured that cab 3 would come out before cab2 was no longer available (ie stocks of cab 2, I assume they stopped making them before that time), and the pandemic screwed it all up. As I pointed out in another post, had they redesigned cab 2 we would probably have the same problem, lot of people prob assume when they say they couldn't get components it meant something simple , likely it was a custom ASIC or a touch screen or the like, and supply chain would have hit that too.

@RickO posted:

The "keyboard" is a touch screen. Everything has a touch screen these days. There hasn't been a car radio with buttons in years.

Certainly an update/ adaptation could have been designed. Maybe not at Lionels price point. The same reason they no longer power the trains with Pittman motors.

Good point.  The old keyboard/touchscreen was plastic and pressure sensitive.  All newer stuff uses glass with capacitive touch, which only needs the lightest pressure to detect a 'push'.

Glass is heavier and definitely more expensive.

Agreed,

Mike

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Good point.  The old keyboard/touchscreen was plastic and pressure sensitive.  All newer stuff uses glass with capacitive touch, which only needs the lightest pressure to detect a 'push'.

Glass is heavier and definitely more expensive.

Wrong, the touch screen is glass, I just saw one that was broken!

Personally I think it is quite simple.

Lionel was most likely exploring the idea of the Cab 3 in some form with the use of a customer's smart phone for some time now.  They wanted to move on from the Cab 2 !!

The move is clearly cheaper for them to produce and maintain software upgrades via the internet.  The customer is responsible for his/her cell phone purchase and upgrades.

The Drone industry has been doing this for years now.  You buy the drone and controller and use your smartphone to complete the unit for flight.

I prefer the remote.  However, technology moves on.  I will wait for the brave Beta Testers among us to troubleshoot the Cab 3 before I commit.

Dave

"MTH has redesigned products to address certain electronic parts shortages (see Mike’s recent interview with Trainworld). Lionel could do the same (GR John seems to agree), but instead just uses excuse that components are no longer available."

When it comes to failure to launch, Lionel doesn't have the market cornered.  MTH has redesigned products, but except for the final run of the Z4000, they are still vaporware.  No remotes ever again. The WiFi TIU that doesn't respond to the DCS remote unless you have a cable,  and isn't available in any case.  The retirement that wasn't.  You get a picture of a company struggling to deal with adversity like almost every other company in most industries. No one's fault, just reality.

Lionel, while struggling, does still have a physical remote (the cab-1L) available, and has a high end transformer that is presumably available now and in the future (ZW-L).  Not perfect, but not in second place either.

Anyone who thinks MTH has done a better job of anticipating the pandemic, the supply chain crisis, inflation, the lack of availability of critical components due to obsolescence,  etc. is not paying attention nor presenting a balanced view.

I'm always amazed at the people who know what the inner workings of a company are.  I mean we've had more than one Lionel representative explain to us the reasoning behind moving from the Cab2 to the app but folks somehow know more than the company representatives.  While there may be alternative parts, a company the size of Lionel is competing against the same cell phone folks that Lionel will put their app on.  Thousands vs millions or billions.  Guess who wins?

@MartyE posted:

I'm always amazed at the people who know what the inner workings of a company are.  I mean we've had more than one Lionel representative explain to us the reasoning behind moving from the Cab2 to the app but folks somehow know more than the company representatives.

I don't think most of us assume we know more about the inner workings of Lionel, but perhaps some of us know quite a bit about electronics manufacturing and parts procurement.  I spent many years in an industry where designs had to last a minimum of 20 years will full support, that made it quite a challenge to keep up with the rapidly changing parts landscape, so I get why Lionel may be reluctant to continue supporting the CAB2.

Is it possible to build functionality equal or better than the existing CAB2, even assuming that the existing parts are unobtainable?  You bet, it happens all the time.  To be sure, manufacturing a CAB2 clone may be more money than Lionel is willing to spend, especially with the bean counters in charge of every dollar, that's probably more of a reason for the existing path of development.

You also assume that you're getting the unvarnished truth in all the gory details about the reasoning.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You also assume that you're getting the unvarnished truth in all the gory details about the reasoning.

That maybe true but you also assume that we are getting less than truthful information.  Maybe I like to be the glass half full guy instead of always the pessimist. Either way the apps is coming so I either embrace it or not.