Last time O-gauge had so few manufacturers

With K-Line, Weaver and next year MTH, that is a lot of product gone by the wayside.

Think 1960's.  Weaver, MTH, Atlas O, Williams didn't exist.  American Model Trains and Kusan eventually folded.  Lionel was on life support by the mid 60's. 

Rusty

Marx wasn't much of a player at the end but they did make it until 1974 or 75 I think. K-Line started up in the late 80s. I think folks tend to forget a lot of the smaller players in the hobby. There is always a competitor someplace.

How about Frank's?  John

Don't forget Williams by Bachman!  Also, Menard's is offering quite a bit of rolling stock.  It's anyone guess how many more "Warehouse Finds"  RMT might come up with.

It is my prediction that MTH Trains will continue to be offered, most likely under a different company banner.

Happy railroading,

Don

Few options?  Well allow me to retort. Just check out the o gauge NOS on eBay

While we are losing loco and rolling stock manufacturers, we are seeing new control system companies coming on stream. Probably due to the fact that expensive tooling is not required to create a new PC board.

I agree that there is a lot on sale on eBay, this site and other forums - but moving forward the cost to make detailed scale models to satisfy our hobby's "purists" has moved the margins down and will continue to drive companies out of business. Raising prices to cover costs and maintain decent margins may not be possible. there often is a lot of comments on this site about accuracy, quality etc.  all of this cost money. the technology costs a lot to develop and maintain as well - and there are not many people who can continue to afford buying $1-2k engines.  Of course i recognize i may be  underestamating the amount of people who can afford the high prices to support the hobby - I know i cannot!  

Look at all the upgrade possibilities to breath new life into older but great looking locomotives by upgrading the electronics.

If MTH is sold, l am afraid it will sink into an indistinguishable morass like K-Line and Weaver have,  offering no innovation.  We'll get "blue" castings from tired molds instead of "red" ones, and I will have to go back to HO. Depressing!

@DGJONES posted:

It is my prediction that MTH Trains will continue to be offered, most likely under a different company banner.

Happy railroading,

Don

And that different company will have a large hill to climb to build up a reputation and convince buyers to purchase their product.

Out of the gate there can't be many mistakes in paint,finish, electronics, operations, etc.

For many years Lionel were the only manufacturer of engines. Rolling stock was supplied by independent kit makers, All Nations, and a many others.... Today, not so many kits, but you have Williams, Lionel, Atlas, MTH, GG3rdrl, Allegheny, brass and other brass engine providers... Plenty to select from......

There's also the enormous quantity of used stuff in every corner of the country, I doubt we'll run out of trains or rolling stock anytime soon.   Just think, if all the manufacturers closed up, we'd be back to modeling the old fashioned way.

Where is Maury from K-line imagine what he could do with MTH and no need for a name change either.

If an O gauge marketplace demand is present and profit from such O gauge sales can be obtained, the upcoming  MTH void will quickly be filled by another talented business person. 

Enjoy your toy trains...

@DGJONES posted:

Don't forget Williams by Bachman! 

IMO, that product line is all but dead. They have discontinued most products, rarely have anything new, parts are becoming as scarce as dinosaur fossils and most shops don't carry it anymore. I think that they will be gone in a few years.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. Seriously. If anyone has real evidence to refute what I posted, please post it.

GRJ, Quarter Gauger 48: Indeed.

"Kit"? What's that?  

Heaven forbid; we should have to go back to actually having to build our own stuff...   

Mark in Oregon

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950's there was Lionel, American Flyer and Marx .... at least that is all the manufactures I knew of in O/S gauge at the time. There were no local train shows, E bay, York, or on line train stores.... not to mention on line train forums such as OGR.    There were more brick and mortar train shops/hobby stores,  but they were in or near larger metropolitan areas, but none near where I lived.  

Even without all of  our hobby's recent fallen flags over the last several years, IMHO the O gauge market place is alive and well compared to the 1950/60s.   Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry to see MTH go as I am Weaver and K line, however, we have such a huge abundance and variety of O gauge product out there.  Compared to the 1950/60 we hobbyists now have such a wide variety of O gauge sources such as this forum, other forums, on line tutorials, the current manufactures ( and MTH is not yet disappeared )  who make O gauge engines and rolling stock, plus manufactures who make O gauge buildings and scenery products.  

It's natural law that all things expand and contract.... our hobby included.   When Lionel Corp ended in 1969, I thought then, as a 16 year old kid, that O gauge trains were dead.  To me Marx didn't have the " realism" of Lionel ( Hard to imagine that postwar 1950/60 Lionel was "realistic" but to me it was at the time.)  American Flyer had vanished earlier in the decade.  All the hobby store and train store sales folks told me  O gauge was dead and HO was the way to go.  Based on that info, I had no other alternative but to turn to HO ... which I did for a few years... until career became my main focus. 

I'm very grateful for ALL that we O gaugers presently have in this hobby ... even without K line and Weaver as current manufactures ( I use the term " manufacturer" loosely because actually all train companies are "importers" except for Weaver ).   I'm confident that the o gauge segment of the model railroading hobby will live on,  just as it did after 1969.  As long as there is passion by modelers to model O gauge trains, both toy and scale, there will be O gauge products produced by manufactures.   Most importantly we still have our imaginations and that is the place where the real fun in this hobby resides.    

@trumpettrain posted:

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950's there was Lionel, American Flyer and Marx .... at least that is all the manufactures I knew of in O/S gauge at the time. There were no local train shows, E bay, York, or on line train stores.... not to mention on line train forums such as OGR.    There were more brick and mortar train shops/hobby stores,  but they were in or near larger metropolitan areas but none near where I lived.  

Even without all of  our hobby's recent fallen flags over the last several years, IMHO the O gauge market place is alive and well compared to the 1950/60s.   Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry to see MTH go as I am Weaver and K line, however, we have such a huge abundance and variety of O gauge product out there.  Compared to the 1950/60 we hobbyists now have such a wide variety of O gauge sources such as this forum, other forums, on line tutorials, the current manufactures ( and MTH is not yet disappeared )  who make O gauge engines and rolling stock, plus manufactures who make O gauge buildings and scenery products.  

It's natural law that all things expand and contract.... our hobby included.   When Lionel Corp ended in 1969, I thought then, as a 16 year old kid that O gauge trains were dead.  To me Marx didn't have the " realism" of Lionel ( Hard to imagine that 1950/60 Lionel was realistic back then was "realistic" but to me it was at the time.)  American Flyer was already gone earlier in the decade.  All the hobby store and train store sales folks told me  O gauge was dead and HO was the way to go.  Based on that info, I had no other alternative but turn to HO ... which I did for a few years... until career became my main focus. 

I'm very grateful for ALL that we O gaugers presently have in this hobby even without K line and Weaver as current manufactures ( I use the term " manufacturer" loosely because actually all train companies are "importers" except for Weaver ).   Most importantly we still have our imaginations and that is the place where the real fun in this hobby resides.    

Well stated Pat,  were the same age, and your analogy is right on the money...

The owner of Weaver, told me many of his parts for both engines and rolling stock were actually made in China.... and assembled in Kentucky....

The last time there was pretty much only Lionel and a number of much smaller firms was the early 1990s.  Back then K-Line, Weaver, Right of Way, Williams and many other even smaller firms were pretty much one new model at a time, and only a few per year compared with Lionel.  MTH changed that, and the others, particularly K-Line grew as well in the mid to late 1990s.  So about 25-30 years ago is the answer to the question, and Lionel produced a much smaller variety of products back then as well.

No one can predict the future, but I think the hobby will remain viable and may do fine,  even if MTH disappears. A great change, particularly for those hobbyists and dealers that are "MTH only" in their approach, but for many hobbyists, not the end of the hobby as they know it.  Other vendors will fill whatever unsatisfied demand is left by MTH's departure, if that's the way it goes.

We are so much better off than the three rail crowd was in 1970 the year I joined the TCA.  There was Lionel MPC and no one wanted much of what they had to sell.  So it was aftermarket (USED) or nothin.  Add to this that even though manufacturing of new three rail trains was at it's nadir the interest in three rail O gauge was growing so the demand for the better postwar Lionel was driving the prices up in crazy ways.   We get so much more for the money today and with collections hitting the market at the rate they are I'm sure the deals are going to get better.  That may not bode well for the manufacture of new trains.   Might explain Mike's announced exit from the market.  Of course our kids better like trains as demand will drop at the same rate we drop.  But ain't it gonna be fun till we drop.   Mike thanks for all the HAPPY you delivered.                                j          

EVEN thought it's hard to be optimistic these days; PREDICTION:  In the next years, some company will step up to make fine scale O-gauge trains and compete with Lionel. 

Further, within the next decade, train bodies will be made with 3D laser printers using metal instead of resin. Electronics will as well be made with 3D laser printers that can print layers in both metal and resin.

TODAY, it's clear that you can still sell someone a bridge in Brooklyn.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Look at all the upgrade possibilities to breath new life into older but great looking locomotives by upgrading the electronics.

What John said. I've got some oldies but Goldie's from the 90's that need a makeover with some upgrades. Currently my L3 3005 is out to get this done. Can't wait until it gets back.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

There's also the enormous quantity of used stuff in every corner of the country, I doubt we'll run out of trains or rolling stock anytime soon.   Just think, if all the manufacturers closed up, we'd be back to modeling the old fashioned way.

You hit the nail on the head John. With the largest group of collectors (baby boomers) aging out it is just a matter of time before we are drowning in high quality engines and rolling stock. The next 5-10 years are going to be a buyer’s market as the hobby adjusts to a smaller number of active model railroaders and collectors. We all know of collectors that buy stuff and never take it out of the box (I am guilty!), some of those people have hundreds of unopened boxes. I wonder who is going to buy all of it.

Even with all the companies in the mid to late 90s, the catalogs were thin. I remember the "fat" catalogs beginning in early 2000s...it always amazed me that the market could absorb so much product, ostensibly due to the buying power of the boomers.

I am still wondering if there was a "wave" of baby-boomers coming of second childhood age that enabled the "fat" catalogs from MTH, Lionel, and K-Line, with smaller catalogs from others, and, that "wave" has been dissipating in the last x number of years, resulting in Mike Wolf announcing the end of MTH. And, the "wave" dissipating doesn't mean people are dying, rather that their on fixed incomes and that their buying power and purchase frequency is greatly diminished. It's only a matter of time for most of us...

Or, perhaps the market continues to maintain a strong demand and it was Lionel's name and their selling points that captured the scale and semi-scale markets and finally won the battle of the titans.

I am quite sure there's marketing gurus with all sorts of nice graphs and charts that show the trends in consumer spending of essential goods and discretionary income "stuff."

It seems to me that MTH catalogs have been "thick" and have offered a wide variety of items right up to the end. Not many newly-tooled locomotives but plenty from which to select, especially for people who haven't been in the hobby as long as someone like myself. The question is whether the business has been profitable for MTH, Lionel, and their dealers in recent years.

MELGAR

@DGJONES posted:

Don't forget Williams by Bachman!  Also, Menard's is offering quite a bit of rolling stock.  It's anyone guess how many more "Warehouse Finds"  RMT might come up with.

It is my prediction that MTH Trains will continue to be offered, most likely under a different company banner.

Happy railroading,

Don

Or William's trains when it was by Jerry Williams. He started in 1971. It was sold in 2007

It's cyclical in a lot of ways. I've been going through some of the earliest back-issues of OGR (OSR, then) from the 1970's in the Digital Library. There was no Internet for forums back then, but there were letters sent in to be published. Often with the same concerns -- Is the hobby dying out as participants age/where will new participants come from?... Scale vs Tinplate... 2-rail DC vs 3-rail AC... Is Hi-Rail scale(ish) or still tinplate?... Why must O always be second-fiddle to HO and N scales?... Are prices for O going out of reach?... The hobby is dying because company X is closing shop... The hobby is growing because company Y is now making O products... The hobby is saved because company Z is now making company X's old product line(s)... What we would call "flame wars" in forums today played out then in slow motion, time-delay, imposed by the postal service and publishing schedules.

And the advertisers included tell the story of ups and downs in the hobby as well. The magazine started when O was probably on an upswing compared to prior years at least in the realm of kits and imported brass, while Lionel was in the difficult transition from bankruptcy into rebirth under MPC/Fundimensions. Williams hadn't quite entered the market. Weaver was still just Quality Craft Models and in startup mode. Atlas was just adding O scale. Walthers was proudly announcing how much they were growing. There were other manufacturers who would later disappear or get absorbed by other names, in whole or in part. Remember All-Nation and others?

Interestingly enough, if there's ever been one constant in the O gauge world, it's Lionel. Virtually everything else has come and gone, both in the scale and tinplate world. Yet some incarnation of the Lionel name has been at the center of it all. The company changes, but the name remains, and the products are sometimes proudly kitbashed into new things or cannibalized for their whistles by scale enthusiasts even as they complain about Lionel "toys" not being good enough.

When I came into the hobby in the late 70s, kits were starting to fade in favor of ready-to-run, and that cycle really seems to have reached its peak with so many RTR manufacturers and MTH's parity with Lionel. MTH's exit may leave a hole in the RTR market -- but is it time, maybe, for a resurgence of kitbuilding and craft work? Today we have technology like 3D printing and laser cutting -- technologies that can enable the smaller "cottage industry" producers once again. We take color inkjet and laser printers for granted; those technologies can print on media beyond just paper. (Although for decals, we STILL need a cost-effective technology to print white!)

So maybe we've hit another major change/turning point in the hobby. Instead of worrying, maybe it's time to look at what's out there and what new or revived directions the hobby can take. Time to be excited, not fearful.

Sorry, I don't buy into the doom and gloom view of the world.  MTH's departure, while lamentable, doesn't represent the end of the world.  K-Line, now gone 15 years, is still found in the 2ndary market.  MTH will be the same.  Ditto for Weaver.  Even Williams brass locomotives, now 30 years old, remain excellent candidates for command control upgrades and are still available.   

We still have a situation where too much product is chasing too few dollars.  And the situation is accelerating.    

George

Having been around the hobby since the early 70's, it has tended to go through ebb and flow. In the 1950's (before my time), you basically had Lionel, with some fringe small manufacturers. Over the years you did have other small manufacturers like KMT and the like, but really for many years it was what Lionel produced, as small as that could be during the MPC era. Compared to that, even with the death of MTH (or whatever happens to it), and the loss of Weaver, we still have a lot. Compared to the last couple of decades, maybe not, but historically it is still a market, you have Lionel and Atlas producing new engines and rolling stock, you have Menards with rolling stock and structures, you have third rail with their scale products, we still of course have Ross and Gargraves (Gargraves of course has been around through the whole period). With DCS being spun off, that potentially might allow for better licensing of their technology, better upgrade kits for older engines, perhaps licensing it to third parties which could (in theory) allow someone else to get in, depending on demand, or Atlas/Third rail could license DCS and be able to produce engines with advanced features since Lionel only licenses TMCC level. 

It definitely is going to be different with MTH out of the market, and it is likely the market may well be smaller in terms of companies if not offerings. In theory, with MTH out of the picture, Lionel may not have the impetus to develop new products as much,rather make sales of existing lines, but no one knows. In the end I think there will be a market and it will not be as bad as the depths of the 1970's and into the 80's, not by a long shot, hopefully MTH stuff will be available from someone else, or maybe Lionel will produce versions of the MTH items. 

@MELGAR posted:

It seems to me that MTH catalogs have been "thick" and have offered a wide variety of items right up to the end. Not many newly-tooled locomotives but plenty from which to select, especially for people who haven't been in the hobby as long as someone like myself. The question is whether the business has been profitable for MTH, Lionel, and their dealers in recent years.

MELGAR

Friday I was at my LTS and we were talking about a great number of things. Big engines are just extra income, the real money as we all should know is in starter sets and the like. It was said that all the starter sets that are ordered at my LTS will be sold out and he'd need to order more. This has always been the case. Stock up in spring/summer for the winter blowout.

As far as how the market will change, that will depend on the consumers as usual. What is to be made or not depends on what we want, what they deliver, and our disappointment. MTH always seemed to give what's not been seen, then Lionel catching up. I guess anyone's guess on what will come is like guessing how many fish our in the ocean.

@G3750 posted:

Sorry, I don't buy into the doom and gloom view of the world.  MTH's departure, while lamentable, doesn't represent the end of the world.  K-Line, now gone 15 years, is still found in the 2ndary market.  MTH will be the same.  Ditto for Weaver.  Even Williams brass locomotives, now 30 years old, remain excellent candidates for command control upgrades and are still available.   

We still have a situation where too much product is chasing too few dollars.  And the situation is accelerating.    

George

I think you are spot on.

Dave

@G3750 posted:

Sorry, I don't buy into the doom and gloom view of the world.  MTH's departure, while lamentable, doesn't represent the end of the world.  K-Line, now gone 15 years, is still found in the 2ndary market.  MTH will be the same.  Ditto for Weaver.  Even Williams brass locomotives, now 30 years old, remain excellent candidates for command control upgrades and are still available.   

We still have a situation where too much product is chasing too few dollars.  And the situation is accelerating.    

George

George, I think you're wrong.   Didn't you hear, on June 1 of 2021, when MTH closes, all O-Gauge/Scale trains will cease working, and all trains will disappear from stores, websites, and other sales avenues  

[/sarcasm]

I'm with you about the doom and gloom.     I'm thinking of starting a betting pool to properly guess how many consecutive days for the next year, the MTH issues will be speculated on.   I'll set the over/under later

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

Friday I was at my LTS and we were talking about a great number of things. Big engines are just extra income, the real money as we all should know is in starter sets and the like. It was said that all the starter sets that are ordered at my LTS will be sold out and he'd need to order more. This has always been the case.

My good LHS is the same way.  Both the Lionel and MTH sets, especially those classified as starter sets, sell out every single winter selling season.

He can sell every single one he gets his hands on.    For him, it's the O gauge starter sets and all the HO trains and products that keep the lights burning.

Except for the unusually rare items, I can't think of anything that is not available on Craigslist, eBay, or other venues that you can't buy.

@POTRZBE posted:

Except for the unusually rare items, I can't think of anything that is not available on Craigslist, eBay, or other venues that you can't buy.

Agreed, except for the darned Chicago-Metra E-Units (the blue ones with the white and red stripes).  You can't get those. Anywhere. I'm not even convinced that MTH made one, they're just holograms.

🙄 Perhaps, Mike just wants to retire'.... Any idea how difficult and what is required to sell a company like MTH .  He may not be interested in the complexityy involved.  I don't think he'll walk away with nothing.... It is his time now after 40 years, he deserves it... Model trains will be around for some time to come.  Reminds me of my 35 MM camera collection.  Just collecting dust'.  We still have cameras, but their threatened by the cell phone cameras industry... The same will happen with model trains'... Advancements'... It's the natural progression of industry and  life'...

Bad as it has become, and it will only get worse, there are still many more 3RO offerings, and better ones (as models) than have ever been around in our format. I'm 72, and have always been a RR guy, though my model RRing stopped before 18 and did not resume until my 30's - 40's (mid-1980's), and did not take off until after that. So - it used to be a lot worse. 

That changed mightily, and spoiled all of us. I do hope that "MTH" survives in the hands of the employees, but every day that goes by without an announcement of some such agreement (as outlined by Mike W.), I lose a little hope.

Oddly, just 2 -3 days ago, as I went through another of my "keep/toss?" issues of CTT (most of my OGR's are already gone), I ran across and read an article in their Nov. 1999 issue that will illustrate how spoiled we became: "GP38 diesel showdown" on the cover. Inside they comparo-tested all the EMD 3RO GP38 locos then currently available: K-line, Lionel (a near-scale product, then), MTH, Atlas, Williams (not WbB). Five! (I thought that it was interesting that the testers found the Williams to be better-proportioned than the rest as it sat down lower and more prototypically on the chassis; I agree.)

We lived through a 25-year period of an embarrassment of riches. That is over. That is not the same thing as dead. But, can a healthy 3RO live though the loss of MTH? K-Line and Weaver were already a 1 - 2 punch. Brand interest, variety and even loyalty can be a stimulation to the hobby.

I agree with everyone about atarter sets being the money maker, look how many lionel features in every catalog. This year's version has one doe every budget and taste.  I always like picking up one every season, this year it has to be Star Trek.

Lionel will find more trains to licence since its a pot of gold.   MTH  didn't always get all the licensing deals they needed to be as big, Kline did a pretty good job back in the day.due