Just wondering about Menard's

John Menard, the big dog, is somewhat of a train nut.  Simple, what he wants, he usually gets.

@CALNNC,

Follow this link for a hint:

     Many of the ideas for Menards train products come directly from John Menard (1/26/19) | Jim R.

Mike

I'm wondering why they haven't done switches yet.  I'd think that a switch would be quicker and easier to produce than an engine.  

The early Menards train products were made by Lionel mostly for the Menards racing car. Lionel also had special Menards sets with Menards cars during the Christmas season.

Then Menards started selling the special cars that were not Lionel and came in a plastic clam shell containers a few every Holiday season mostly flatcars with loads.

They must have gotten hooked up with some manufacture that provided ideas of what they can do. Its been great for the hobby and added to my collection big time.

I would like to see Menards concentrate on building more factory type buildings.

Buildings that you would see on main street in a town or city. Drug Store, Hardware, Furniture store, Radio Station, Bakery, Doctors office, sporting goods store, Shoe store, School, Candy and ice cream store, Grocery store and etc.

Buildings you would see in a railroad yard.

Tank farms for storing gasoline, oil and chemicals.

Buildings that could be used in the area of a coal mine.

"O" Gauge switches and rubber roadbed for their tubular track.

I too like Menards building somewhat better than their rolling stock.  Have a few.

tommy

@CALNNC posted:

In regards to Menard's and all its O gauge offerings, does anybody know how they got in the train biz?  Was there a China company that just decided to crank out O gauge stuff and Menard's became their US outlet?

You really need to do some research before saying what you “think” took place.

John Menard was a renown train enthusiast long before most people on the OGR Forum became aware of him. And his reputation as an aggressive business leader, forming a company that now spans 14 states, goes back decades.

Menards was offering train products in their stores many years after other retailers dropped them from their seasonal shelves. Why? Because John wanted to?

Then John Menard started making what amounted to O gauge resin buildings of his stores as part of a Christmas village brand he started. That segued into MDF buildings, then freight cars using Kader tooling, then track and automobiles.

Yes, he formed a design team for the train line. He had to. If you think someone in China was thinking up all these Wisconsin-inspired building products, such as Red Owl supermarkets, you are certainly out of your league.

I suggest you do Google searches and OGR Forum searches before forming your opinions.

@jim sutter posted:

I would like to see Menards concentrate on building more factory type buildings.

Buildings that you would see on main street in a town or city. Drug Store, Hardware, Furniture store, Radio Station, Bakery, Doctors office, sporting goods store, Shoe store, School, Candy and ice cream store, Grocery store and etc.

Buildings you would see in a railroad yard.

Tank farms for storing gasoline, oil and chemicals.

Buildings that could be used in the area of a coal mine.

"O" Gauge switches and rubber roadbed for their tubular track.

Thumbs up on a coal mine tipple............................

Yes a coal tipple would be a great track side industry to add to their structure series especially with all of the fine coal and ore cars that Menard’s turns out.

At the top of my ‘wish list’ would be to produce an O scale car float and the accompanying gantry loading ramp set. A car float large enough for say 6 or better yet, 8 freight cars. That item would sell out just as fast as their ‘beautious’ F-3’s did.

I think a coal tipple would be way more mechanical complexity that Menard's wants to tackle.

It could be a dummy just like the lift bridge.

True, but a Tipple could be made as either a non operating structure or with a simple manual, non electrical operating mechanism. Have you see their non operating lift bridge? It looks great and fills a very useful purpose on a model layout. Giving the impression of a working lift bridge without the big $ price tag.

@Jim R. posted:

You really need to do some research before saying what you “think” took place.

I suggest you do Google searches and OGR Forum searches before forming your opinions.

You know, it continues to amaze me how often forumites, newbies and us old pharts, pose questions that have either been answered eleventy-seven times before, or a single telephone call to the manufacturer could get horse's mouth answer, or a quick Google (et alia) search with a couple or few terms could get a bazillion opinions/answers/history/facts/etc./blah,blah.

But those postings keep popping up.

And, then the most amazing thing happens: The polite forum-loving hoi polloi that we are gives yet another (albeit updated) round of answers/opinions/guesses/suggestions/...whatever...

...which is far more enjoyable reading!  Well, at least that's this old phart's opinion.

And yes, I'll admit to rolling my eyes when some questions are posed ...multiple times.  But my ol' childhood buddy from the 40's had a sage response too often overlooked...

It's like another question posed within the past week seeking identification of a particular model...

The posting title starts out "I hate to ask, but..."

It's sort of sad to have someone hate to ask anything on the Forum, isn't it?  I mean, why have the Forum at all if folks "hate to ask'???

Just another opinion, of course...FWIW.

@Jim R. posted:

I suggest you do Google searches and OGR Forum searches before forming your opinions.

Sheesh.  I didn't know we had a test to pass before being allowed to start a thread, or add to an existing one.  Did I miss this somewhere in the forum rules?

@Jim R. posted:

If you think someone in China was thinking up all these Wisconsin-inspired building products, such as Red Owl supermarkets, you are certainly out of your league.

I didn't think that the OP's comments were so particularly harsh that they deserved a tongue-lashing.  Misinformed?  Perhaps.  But so are those from so many of us, especially those of us who acknowledge that we don't know something, are interested in learning about it, and politely? ask a question looking for the answer.

Thanks for chewing him out.  Please proceed to doing so for all others, especially newbies.  Let's make sure that we scare them away so they don't annoy us with their "opinions".

@dkdkrd has given us some wise words in the previous post.  Maybe we should listen to them?

Mike

@Jim R. posted:

You really need to do some research before saying what you “think” took place.

I think the OP was simply asking if certain scenarios  were a possibility.

Brad

Well, l appreciate the above mention of their building design team, which has generated structures l was having trouble believing were imagineered in rice paddies, some of which l think are highly creative.   From what l have read, if Menard's wanted to test the market with a product addition, they would.  Maybe slow and steady is the rule.