DL&W Pete posted:
"I just saw in the last new Lionel catalog that legacy can now be controlled by DCC", that technology is not cheap. I remember when Mike Wolf said they spent close to 3 millions dollars to upgrade 2.0 to 3.0 to work with DCC in HO. We now have DCC control on 2 rail O scale diesel and steam engines with smoke units that was never offered in 2 rail. "THANK YOU MTH"
please explain that comment and provide a link.
I'm with the Kerrigan man, seeing reissue upon reissue and only the latest electronics is getting really old really fast! I made some new purchases but now since the market is stale, I am going back and filling up the holes in my collection until something new and exciting comes along!
Kerrigan posted:If the electronic don't improve in reliability I wonder how many of you are going down the same path as I: have to save the money to repair all the ones I own instead of buying new ones.
Also re-issues of past re-issues of past offerings is getting a little old. How many different versions of NKP 765 does one really need on their layout?
My experience "in the modern era" is minimal. I left the train scene decades ago and lived my life.
But, when I returned to trains, it was "with a vengeance!"
And I found, to my great sadness, that these wonderfully detailed toys of today were monstrously unreliable! They bear no resemblance at all to the "toys" I had in the 1950s!
As kids, we DELIBERATELY, crashed these things! Oh yes! We were B A D!!! Despite our childish, destructive, ways, I don't recall EVER breaking a Lionel product in the 1950s! Nope, not ONCE!!
Somehow though, despite my going to all lengths NOT to crash the costly, beautifully detailed but delicate, toys of today . . . the electronics die . . . or act flaky. Repairs? Horrendously $$$$$. Shipping alone is just murder! You are forced to become your own "service centre."
Still, I'm a sucker. Make a scale Canadian steamer or early diesel . . . and I will buy! Almost, at any price! Another UP Warbonnet though? No thanks but I understand the market.
It seems evident from Scott Mann's post just how far our "manufacturers" have lost control of their own businesses! In reality, they don't "manufacture" at all!
Just add "toy trains" to the long list of US manufacturing that has gone out of the country. Yes, the American toy train "manufacturers are, for the most part, marketing agencies for the foreign companies.
Grim at best.
I would have to say, Lionel will be the last one standing only because they have deep pockets and a traditional name. MTH will never be a household name to the low information crowd out there. As for Atlas O, I wonder how they remain in the O business with ongoing poor marketing and high prices. I monitor the MRR market trends every day.
There are a few indicators that show how part of the new & used O hobby is doing at any given time. With retail prices over double of what they should be (In my opinion) coupled with less interest and demand, I wouldn’t think it yields much profit for the suppliers anymore. Looks like dealers have been stuck with plenty of unsold items and are reluctant to have on hand stock anymore.
I was fortunate enough to buy a bunch of Premier box cars that have been on ebay for months for 19 bucks ea.
We / I (true O scalers) can only support future sales if the OEM’s start offering items that haven’t been made in O yet. We have everything else. Unfortunately there probably isn’t enough of us fallen flag guys remaining. Sorry to say, I also see the old 2 railers and kit bashers fading away as well.
If the numbers aren’t there, chances are it won’t be produced in true O. Just look at all the recent cancellations to get a reality check.
As for traditional, well to me it’s a waste of money. Atlas Industrial Rail was the only decent non scale cars ever made. But to each his own. I can’t even get rid of my toy MIB 6464’s for 15 buck ea. these days.
Everyone has their opinion, but that’s the way I see it.
I think one of the reasons it has become such a hard business to survive in is the secondary market. Before E-bay you had to by used trains from a hobby shop or look in the want ads. Now there are thousands and thousands of train available from the web. It's great for us but must hurt the big guys. Don
Yup, I feel sorry for the newer guys starting out. Better have some big $$$ to obtain a collection of O these days. That is, if you can even find the stuff.
I too think they are pricing themselves into the poor house. The quality doesn't warrant the high prices IMO.
I miss K-Line, and the Williams of years ago.
I feel lucky. Im more into the old time "toy train layout". I love collecting post war and modern lower end stuff. I run em, and run em hard sometimes! And if something breaks im not out $1500 or stuck with a huge repair bill.
Something to think about is that even here in the USA both HO and N far surpass O in popularity. Many say it's because you can pack more punch in a smaller footprint than you can with O. Granted that's definitely true. But more interesting is that years ago when both HO and N were growing in popularity in the USA homes were generally smaller with more family members occupying them than those being built today for fewer family members. So, if homes today are larger than the past and there are fewer people living in them then there's likely more space for a layout so shouldn't O gauge then be seeing a proportional growth in the marketplace since 'space' for a layout isn't nearly as limited as years past? And even with the electronics of today in HO and N trains the cost of both HO and N is still significantly less than O gauge so it makes one wonder just how much the higher O gauge pricing is an incentive for folks to gravitate away from O to HO and N.
It is rare for me to buy anything new. I can't justify it. When you see the new stuff on eBay and in the forum and it doesn't sell for hundreds less than it sold for a month ago, it just shows me there is a disconnect between msrp and what the true market price is. I too think these are at unsustainably high prices. The end result is we price out lots of people who currently collect and box out those who would join us.
with 3d printing, they need to get into online design , by the customer, and then 3d print and make engines or cars, here the USA, for the customer, can be in house, or they can farm it out, to handle demand.
davidbross posted:It is rare for me to buy anything new. I can't justify it. When you see the new stuff on eBay and in the forum and it doesn't sell for hundreds less than it sold for a month ago, it just shows me there is a disconnect between msrp and what the true market price is. I too think these are at unsustainably high prices. The end result is we price out lots of people who currently collect and box out those who would join us.
Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding... Give that man a prize!!! He's NAILED it!!!! 
I've even been blown away by the fact some GREAT stuff hasn't sold here on the forum recently at super bargain-basement prices. Yet folks seem to have no trouble paying their Lionel dealer(s) nose-bleed prices for some of the latest stuff coming off the Chinese boats. Are we that enamored with just owning the latest-and-greatest? Last I saw, there was a practically like-new Lionel Legacy SP Daylight GS-2 from a reputable forum member with the price-tag dropping south of $725 SHIPPED just to garner some interest in it. That's just crazy. 
jim pastorius posted:Just add "toy trains" to the long list of US manufacturing that has gone out of the country. Yes, the American toy train "manufacturers are, for the most part, marketing agencies for the foreign companies.
Exactly... which is why I've refused to call Lionel, MTH, or anybody else "manufacturers" for quite some time now. Let's call a spade a spade... they are IMPORTERS with seemingly very little control over what, how, or when products are manufactured these days. Having said that though, there's no denying that their catalogs represent a GIGANTIC array of products each year.
SIRT posted:...As for traditional, well to me it’s a waste of money. Atlas Industrial Rail was the only decent non scale cars ever made. But to each his own. I can’t even get rid of my toy MIB 6464’s for 15 buck ea. these days.
...
The traditional market is sadly no longer where the importers are focusing their efforts for those of us who've been in this hobby for decades... plain and simple. They ARE, however, still using the traditional product line to attract younger enthusiasts into the hobby. Most of Lionel's 2016 Ready-To-Run catalog featured "traditional" stuff. Will that be a successful strategy? Only time will tell.
scale rail posted:I think one of the reasons it has become such a hard business to survive in is the secondary market. Before E-bay you had to by used trains from a hobby shop or look in the want ads. Now there are thousands and thousands of train available from the web. It's great for us but must hurt the big guys. Don
Another poster hitting the proverbial nail on the head.
With the enormous glut of TERRIFIC-quality toy trains available on the secondary market today -- many are in excellent to like-new condition with less than an hour's run-time on them, some are even Mint -- I'm really surprised that ANY of us is buying that much new product these days. 
JLC Series GG-1's are going for $500 in like-new to Mint condition, yet folks are reportedly tripping over themselves purchasing Lionel's VisionLine GG-1 for $1200 just to see a few flashes of an LED simulating electrical arcing between the pantagraphs and imaginary catenary wires. If any of us even tried to sell one of those gems for $1200 on the OGR buy/sell sub-forum, we'd be laughed off the board. 
Yet folks will be stepping up to pay their Lionel dealer the inflated price later this year when these gems are due to hit our shores.
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The way I look at all this stuff now? It's all about folks reaching their saturation point. I've been there before... and having walked this road (multiple times 
), I think I can comment with some degree of healthy cynicism. If it offends some folks, so be it. Lighten up... it's not personal.
The other day my wife and I were organizing a "few boxes" in the house, and I was once again struck by how much SPACE these trains take up -- even when they're boxed and stored away. Almost numbs the mind. And this coming from somebody who has cut back his spending on new items CONSIDERABLY. I don't even want to think about the space a reasonably good-size dealer needs for inventory -- even if they turn around new shipment deliveries the same day a big shipment arrives. For that instant, they still need a ton of space to manage the shipping process.
So despite the fact that an increasing number of us have more trains than our great grand-children could ever enjoy (assuming they even follow our footsteps into this hobby), we still see importers upping the ante each and every year. As I've said in other threads, I'm pretty much done pre-ordering the big-ticket items now. Yes, I'll admit there are a few goodies still due to arrive from either a 2014 or 2015 catalog... even a few smaller items from 2016 catalogs. But when it comes to the big ticket stuff in the most recent 2016 catalogs (and those going forward), I'm perfectly content to wait until stuff arrives in stores, and then maybe... just maybe... I'll go shopping. 
Now in an increasingly BTO environment, this buying behavior has gotta reek havoc with the importer's current plans. Of course, the importers don't care because all the risk is now on the shoulders of their dealer/distributor network. The importers are essentially home-free in terms of inventory management -- unless they sell direct to the consumer like 3rd Rail / Sunset / GGD. Quality issues notwithstanding, the negative impact most of the importers ever see will only hit them during the following order cycle or two, when dealers order much less as they realize their clients aren't ordering/buying stuff the way they did in prior years. For now though, all we're seeing from the importers are amazingly bigger catalogs each year with dizzying and artificially inflated price tags on products. The MSRP's are truly meaningless numbers nowadays. And of course, since most of this stuff is all BTO nowadays, multiple dealers go head-to-head TRYING to obtain as many pre-orders as they can in this wild world.
So..... is it that unreasonable to ask, "When does it all end?". There's just NO WAY even the most enthusiastic model train buffs can absorb all that's being produced anymore. Our market can't be growing to the point where newbies can make up for the fact that hobby veterans like myself have severely cut back new purchases. If one enthusiast was accustomed to buying ten big-ticket locomotives in the past, is our market space REALLY big enough today so that ten new customers each buy one big-ticket locomotive to absorb all the units produced? I don't think so. Yet every so many months, we see dealers pumping out these huge sales... explaining that they need to free up inventory (and the space it's occupying) to make room for even more expensive stuff that's due to arrive!!! 
And then they get to ride the roller coaster all over again. YIKES... sure sounds like one huge, vicious circle to me.... that's increasingly built on a house of cards. Did I hear somebody say "bubble"???
Oh well, it is what it is. And as long as folks buy responsibly and are happy with their hobby, then life is good. It's still a great time to be in this hobby, and I can't even wrap my head around what it's gonna be like 10 years from now. Better to just enjoy life one day at a time. 
David
So, if homes today are larger than the past and there are fewer people living in them then there's likely more space for a layout so shouldn't O gauge then be seeing a proportional growth in the marketplace since 'space' for a layout isn't nearly as limited as years past?
Are they?
Certainly larger homes are being built for folks with deep pockets. But there also seems to be a lot of attention being paid to "tiny house living", where people live in dwellings that are as small as 300 square feet.
I wonder what the toy train people(they ARE toys) people were saying during the Depression and WWII ?? That was really hard times. People today really go for the gimmicks and glitz in most things. While in NC I have been driving my son's 2014 pick up and I would get rid of half the stuff on the dashboard. I think there will eventually be a sorting out of the train hobby market.
bigdodgetrain posted:DL&W Pete posted:
"I just saw in the last new Lionel catalog that legacy can now be controlled by DCC", that technology is not cheap. I remember when Mike Wolf said they spent close to 3 millions dollars to upgrade 2.0 to 3.0 to work with DCC in HO. We now have DCC control on 2 rail O scale diesel and steam engines with smoke units that was never offered in 2 rail. "THANK YOU MTH"
please explain that comment and provide a link.
2016-2017 Track & Power Catalog, page 4.
ALL LEGACY equipped American Flyer locomotives will work with DCC systems as well. All of these options are designed to allow your control system to grow with your layout and interest.
If it's in S scale now, O is not far off in the future.
Balshis posted:DL&W Pete posted:Everyone wants all of the bells and whistles, now it's time to pay the price for what YOU wanted.
No, Pete, not everyone.
I agree, not everyone wants them. I have NO legacy engines but I do have 3 lionchief plus steam engines. I have 2 MTH diesels for 2 rail with PS 3.0 and my brass weaver pocono in 2 rail has PS 3.0 installed in it. I have three 3 rail weaver engines with tmcc, everything else in 3 rail is WBB engines.
Pete, you're lucky you got that Pocono. I should have ordered one. I saw Ben's at the NJHRs and I really liked it.
Back to the subject. I don't think there is anything to worry about. While the future doesn't look as bright as it did 15 years ago it certainly doesn't look bleak in my opinion. The O gauge market seems to be getting smaller but just because it is getting smaller doesn't mean it is disappearing. Yes, K-Line, Williams, Weaver, RMT, and Right-O-Way are all gone but none are gone (I don't know why ROW is gone) because folks stopped buying their products.
I think the future in O Scale is going to be built-to-order brass, unless 3d printing advances quickly enough to take over. The fact that we are getting the same locomotives over and over again indicates that not enough money is being saved through mass production in die cast to justify spending more on new tooling. Rising labor costs overseas along with a shrinking market over here, plus competition from product released only a few years ago, will soon conspire to make mass-production of high-end trains unprofitable. In fact, with increased use of road-specific details demanded by the O scale consumer, the gap between mass-produced and hand-built is getting narrower and narrower. The price difference is narrowing, too. And I think the 3-rail consumer (at least the ones interested in scale models) have long since shaken off the old pro-zinc prejudice. I think Lionel and MTH could make a go of it in brass.
For traditional O, I think the main problem is that they are competing with the past: the secondary market is flooded with quality, older trains. But since the consumer in this market does not insist on prototype fidelity, this is also the market where new electronics (as opposed to new models) can make a big impact in terms of differentiating new product from what has gone before. I see the big companies working to cram as much functionality as possible into the traditional line in order to keep selling more trains--essentially duplicating their current strategy for the scale market in the traditional market. Since that is a larger market, they should be able to keep it going longer before it becomes as saturated with incrementally-improved look-alikes as the scale market has.
Last I saw, there was a practically like-new Lionel Legacy SP Daylight GS-2 from a reputable forum member with the price-tag dropping south of $725 SHIPPED just to garner some interest in it. That's just crazy.
According to my understanding, a Lionel train purchased on the secondary market is not going to have any sort of warrantee. I wonder whether that is having an impact on the salability of used, recently made trains.
C W Burfle posted:Last I saw, there was a practically like-new Lionel Legacy SP Daylight GS-2 from a reputable forum member with the price-tag dropping south of $725 SHIPPED just to garner some interest in it. That's just crazy.
According to my understanding, a Lionel train purchased on the secondary market is not going to have any sort of warrantee. I wonder whether that is having an impact on the salability of used, recently made trains.
Of course, aside from extremely hot items like the die-cast ES44's and such, nobody is gonna sell a MINT locomotive here at the same price that somebody could pay an authorized dealer for a product still within Lionel's warranty period -- whatever that is these days. Nonetheless, $725 or lower is a huge hit to take for a Legacy locomotive (like a Daylight GS-2 with $1300 MSRP) that is either Mint or simply "test-run" for under an hour's track time... which is for all practical purposes still in Like-New condition. But that seems to be what it takes to sell stuff on the secondary market these days. 
That's really what I was referring to when I said Lionel's (and to some degree even MTH's) new prices are all built on a house of cards today. Even if folks need to sell current models to go out and apply funds toward a new locomotive that has an artificially inflated price-tag, they take a hit not only on the inflated price... but they're also getting less for the model they're selling. So even though the "net outlay of new cash" might be smaller than somebody buying a new model outright, the overall dollars spent to buy the newest locomotive could easily exceed the MSRP of these newer products when you take into account the dollars spent on the old and new models combined.
At a certain point, it doesn't even make sense to sell the older model. Might mean more to you to just keep it on the roster rather than take such a big hit just to roll the cash received into a brand new purchase (which we all know has an artificially inflated price tag already). Hence the "house of cards" pricing model. 
David
I switched from HO to O a couple of years ago. As a newcomer to O my perspective is different from many O gauge veterans who view the market as "stale", overpriced, or offering nothing other than re-issues. To me, the market is anything but stale! A quick scan of the Trainworld website is evidence of the quantity and variety of O scale equipment available. There are also a wide variety of price points available. While I'm glad the high end stuff us available for those who can afford it, its not for me. But there is plenty available within my price point. And what is a reissue to a veteran is a new offering to me. i hope for lots of reissues so i can round out my collection. As for the resale market, doesn't the same depreciation aspect apply to almost everything we buy? Plenty of us buy used car for that reason, but car makers carry on. i made the switch to O because of the availability of stuff that interested me. I guess my glass is half full, but I am very satisfied with the O market and look forward to many years in this great hobby
As for the resale market, doesn't the same depreciation aspect apply to almost everything we buy?
Yes and No, because for a large part of the Modern era, one could purchase a Lionel train, use it gently, and resell it for close to what it cost. If it was kept mint for whatever reason, sometimes a small profit could be made.
I think that those high resale values encouraged people to spend more than they really should on their trains. As I write this, I realize that the same could be said for prewar and postwar trains too.
"JLC Series GG-1's are going for $500 in like-new to Mint condition, yet folks are reportedly tripping over themselves purchasing Lionel's VisionLine GG-1 for $1200 just to see a few flashes of an LED simulating electrical arcing between the pantagraphs and imaginary catenary wires."
David,
Certainly with all due respect, you are only pointing out one new feature of these new GG1s. Yes, they have a flashing LED simulating arcing, but that flashing is bright, looks real, and is accompanied by some great sounds, and the engine has dual speakers so that you get all those great sounds in a "stereo" effect, or they will be confined to one speaker like the sound of a coupler opening. This is on top of all the great features it already has (scale size, steam emitting from top, pantographs, several paint schemes, etc). When the Vision Big Boy came out, many kept saying "I'm not paying all that money just for a disappearing coal load"; and I always thought they were mistaken because there were alot of other things that engine had that they never mentioned, such as the stereo speakers, that IMO made it a really great engine and thus worth paying more than the JLC big boy before it. Now, even with several new features not seen before, is the new GG1 worth $1200? Each person will have to decide for themselves. I think many hobbyists, myself included, really enjoy some of these new effects and that's why they will pay the higher price for new rather than saving hundreds and getting a JLC model. I've said before, with some of these effects, like the stereo sounds, you really need to hear them up close and in an environment without alot of noise to appreciate them (as you can tell, I like these sound effects).
David, please don't think I'm criticizing you or saying you're wrong. You are very knowledgeable and I enjoy your posts very much. I just wanted to point out that the new GG1s, indeed most vision locos, do generally have a host of new things to offer when they're introduced. That doesn't mean I think prices should go up and up unchecked, for me personally the price of the vision big boy was about as high as I will ever go to pay for a new train.
Thanks David!
Rob
Hudson J1e posted:Pete, you're lucky you got that Pocono. I should have ordered one. I saw Ben's at the NJHRs and I really liked it.
Back to the subject. I don't think there is anything to worry about. While the future doesn't look as bright as it did 15 years ago it certainly doesn't look bleak in my opinion. The O gauge market seems to be getting smaller but just because it is getting smaller doesn't mean it is disappearing. Yes, K-Line, Williams, Weaver, RMT, and Right-O-Way are all gone but none are gone (I don't know why ROW is gone) because folks stopped buying their products.
Hudson J1e, for your viewing pleasure...
Hey Rob, no problem... and thanks for keeping me honest!!! Yes... all your points are well taken. And who knows... Lionel may even sneak in an extra feature when the VisionLine GG-1's are actually delivered. I think the riveted models will be very well-received too.
David
Thanks Pete. Great video. I enjoyed it.
If there is a market and demand someone will fill it.
Plastic model hobby has been written off as dead many times yet we have more and better choices today than ever.
Pretty much the same here IMHO.
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