New MTH factory?

@rplst8 posted:

So I just got an sales email from a pretty well known MTH dealer and forum sponsor and I noticed this:

 What? They have a new diecast engine facility - and they just delivered the first steam engine from it - and they are closing up?

Something seems amiss.

Maybe it's just me but, I'm curious as to just how a "dealer" would actually know anything about an MTH "new die cast engine facility".

Probably a contract builder assembling components. 

MTH made Imperial RailKing cab forwards in 2014, so no new tooling is involved.

Rusty

Guys,

This is extremely common in the upscale gun world.  A very large well known manufacturer goes out of business, and sells its entire stock of inventory, spare parts, incoming new stock, technical manuals, and other supporting data to another company, who then spends years "running it off" at very high prices.  Until it is all gone.  

Mannyrock

@Hot Water posted:

Maybe it's just me but, I'm curious as to just how a "dealer" would actually know anything about an MTH "new die cast engine facility".

Not hard to understand, really, given that the big dealers and manufacturers keep in reasonably close touch. The dealer the OP mentioned was Mr. Muffin trains. No secret, as he mentioned just-received engines coming from the new factory in an ad he put out not too before the MTH closing was announced. MW also personally called such dealers to talk to them about his decision to shut down, before it was publically released.  Relatively close communication does go on. The O gauge manufacturer-dealer universe is not that big.

This new factory information was previously discussed several weeks ago in the long thread on the Forum after the MTH closing was announced.

@breezinup posted:

This new factory information was previously discussed several weeks ago in the long thread on the Forum after the MTH closing was announced.

I see. I must have missed that part. Sorry for beating a dead horse. 

@Mannyrock posted:

Guys,

This is extremely common in the upscale gun world.  A very large well known manufacturer goes out of business, and sells its entire stock of inventory, spare parts, incoming new stock, technical manuals, and other supporting data to another company, who then spends years "running it off" at very high prices.  Until it is all gone.

Kinda' like in the "O" train hobby...

@rplst8 posted:

I see. I must have missed that part. Sorry for beating a dead horse. 

That's not a problem at all. Few of us have time to see and/or read everything. That earlier thread was a very long one, too, discussing all aspects of the MTH shutdown. But if you want to read more comments about the "new MTH factory," you can search inside that older thread. Probably not worth the time, though.  Bottom line is that noone knows the actual story, but on its surface it seems odd that a new factory arrangement would have been set up, especially given that, supposedly, MW had been searching for a buyer for at least a year. There may be an explanation for it, but who knows?