Great deals from Pat. A forum sponsors and worthy of our business.
I have seen folks take the WBB conventional units and turn them into some slick DCS or TMCC units. And I have seen some (like me) just be happy as can be running conventional.
If I have time over the weekend, I will attempt to seprately start a thread on the WBB / Williams pricing and explain this in plain language terms. Whatever Bachmann or RMT does is their business, and I will not opine on the merits of it because I am not "there" and do not know the management and financial facts that drive them. I do know I have gotten some really good deals lately on both WBB and RMT - and with that I am very pleased. But what these companies do as a business goes beyond the hobby. It involves macro economics, project management, merging of businesses (not easy to do), changes to business models, and moving ahead with new product AFTER the old product is out of the distribution channels (think Apple: they discount exisiting products to a certain price point in a effort to clear out inventory before the newer product goes on sale).
As much as we'd like the train business to be simple - they are just selling trains - it is not. And for a retailer like Pat, man has it changed alot. I give him credit and all the others for finding a way to continue to provide us with the joy that comes from visiting their train shops and hobby stores - and/or as things go in 2013 - seeing the UPS/FedEx truck pull up outside the house!