What will happen to MTH’s tinplate line?

IMO your second idea is the only way we'll see tinplate in the future.  If it happens, I'm going to back up the truck!

My question is "Why is there a need for the same old re-issues, time and time again?" 

Craig

I agree with your first two

1.) Lionel may not be interested since Mike built so many trains in the past and they will be competing with all those built during the last 10 years with the Lionel name. Folks from Lionel I have talked to in the past felt that they got burned bad by the Hiawatha/Vanderbilt sets - hard to unload, they overbuilt.  Maybe with their focus on 'build to order' they may stock stuff and at smaller quantities, but will need to know what will sell.  My put: unlikely.

2.) Mike: I talked to him a couple of times about this prior to the announcement of closure but after the 'Lionel Corporation' license ceased. He said first of all that Lionel's price to continue the license agreement was unaffordable. He also said that he would consider limited builds if demand warranted. I suspect he may consider doing that post MTH, as 'he' owns all the tooling that is safely locked away in Chinese hands.  My put: possible

3.) There has been talk of former employees taking on some part of the business. For sure they want to do repairs and DCS upgrades and electronics production, as far as new goods, uncertain but possible.

4.) Bachmann has picked up lines in the past (Williams O gauge for example), a weak possibility. Biggest issue is that this is a small market and shrinking, and a lot of stuff will be showing back up in auctions and ebay (recently at elevated prices).

5.) Independent parties: Kuehn bought Lionel (and sold it to another investment group). Needs to have a reasonable business case. Smarter folks than me will think it through. Mike's price will determine how strong that case will be.

I can see  availability increasing and prices for older inventory leveling off in the next 1-2 years and starting to fall for all but the most unique and scarce items previously made by MTH (some of the Ives/AF sets, unique paint on 400e's, some eternal favorites like Blue Comet). There are less buyers coming into our hobby for this stuff than those leaving.

Jim

Tinplate isn't something that is necessarily going to catch your interest when you first enter this hobby.   It sort of grows on you over time and when that bug finally catches you it won't let go. 

Thus, many of the items formally made aren't available as a there are a lot of collectors of tinplate.   As new folks get hooked, it becomes much more difficult to acquire.    Besides, there are many, like myself, that really can't afford a top of the grade original and would prefer to acquire a "new" version with the option of running conventional or with the latest command system. 

Thus the reason to reissue the "old" stuff again.  Besides these are classics in their own right.  Most collector's would like to own a classic as well as something newer in design.   

I can understand the frustration with the old versions being made again, but I also understand the need for a new design as well.   

The question I have, what would people like to see made in tinplate that hasn't been done before?

@Nation Wide Lines posted:

My question is "Why is there a need for the same old re-issues, time and time again?"

And my answer is: because I'm new to the hobby and wasn't able to buy them before!

@Allegheny posted:

As new folks get hooked, it becomes much more difficult to acquire.    Besides, there are many, like myself, that really can't afford a top of the grade original and would prefer to acquire a "new" version with the option of running conventional or with the latest command system.

That's me.  And it's not a case of whether or not I can afford the originals.  I don't even want the originals.  I'm looking for new tinplate and in PS3.  And I think command control is the future market.  In their last few catalogs, MTH stopped offering traditional/conventional.

Might be interested in more tinplate, but I don't want to pay for PS3.  Either conventional, LionChief + 2.0, TMCC or Legacy would be my preference.  Conventional would be most cost effective I suspect. 

Which raises the question, is this new DCS company going to license DCS/PS3 to other companies after Atlas?  Will they allow 3rd parties to make emulator software/hardware?  A little transparency about these issues would affect some folks' purchase decisions, as in me.

The part of NWL's question I would second is - why the same thing?  Why not something new?  What comes to mind is the New Marx which was offered by the Flynn's awhile back - they had the basic Marx dies but instead of offering the same thing they turned out completely new litho treatments as well as engines.  I didn't purchase everything they offered but I did pick up a number of cars and engines to go with my existing Marx. 

  To that end, I would be first in line if someone were to make lithographed O gauge boxcars with ANY of the reefer patterns that have been offered by Atlas.  My first choices would be

or

but, I'd take any of the Atlas cars in O gauge litho tinplate.

I think tinplate will be one of the last things we see get sold by mth, both for the relatively smaller market, and Mike's personal affinity for it.

As to making the same old over again, I am glad I got what I did and would still like a few more specific pieces, but not bad enough to buy the whole set to get what I want. 

I enjoy my tinplate shiny and scratch free, and with PS3 electronics.  I have a few originals, but its the mth stuff that usually gets track time. 

As to what to do new there are tons of possibilities.  The lowest hanging fruit for O gauge would simply be a different wheel arrangement.  The best would be a compound style steamer such as a 2-6-6-2.  Ditching the Vanderbilt tenders would be nice.  I think using a Reading CO G3 pacific or a camelback engine for tinplate inspiration would be a hit.

As for rolling stock, mixing in slightly more modern rolling stock would be nice.   I am thinking a full body tank car, short length, with shiny paint and maybe a beer logo.  Rolling rock on bright green comes to mind.  A stamped metal boxcar, not as long as 6464 but more than what you have now.  And I think billboard reefer style tinplate cars would do well too, particularly with attractive lithography.  Always keep a gondola available, it helps make kids part of the action.

Just keep the tinplate latch or box couplers, although I think the cars with the conversion couplers that mth cataloged once but didn't make would have sold well except for the baby food advertising.  It just didn't strike me as an attractive car. 

@Landsteiner posted:

Conventional would be most cost effective I suspect.

Perhaps cost effective but I don't think it sells.  Last tinplate catalog with conventional was 2013.

@Robert S. Butler posted:

The part of NWL's question I would second is - why the same thing?  Why not something new?

While my first choice is prototypical replicas, I would love lithographed stuff.

@MikeH posted:

Perhaps cost effective but I don't think it sells.  Last tinplate catalog with conventional was 2013.

While my first choice is prototypical replicas, I would love lithographed stuff.

Unfortunately, I suspect reproducing the lithographed items would be cost-prohibitive, simply due to the lithography process. 

@Nation Wide Lines posted:

Unfortunately, I suspect reproducing the lithographed items would be cost-prohibitive, simply due to the lithography process.

Yeah, I don't know what that takes but there must be some hurdles.  MTH pumped out a lot tinplate over the years but they never took that on. 

It sure would be nice to see more O and Std. Gauge tinplate offerings in the future, but I'm not--for no particular reason--terribly optimistic that will happen. I am just glad I bought a whole lot of the MTH O gauge Tinplate Traditions and LCT items back when they were being made. I plan to do a small all-tinplate, year-round Christmas layout featuring some of those great trains and accessories, and hope to begin work on that as early as next week.

The trains that attract the most attention whenever folks visit my basement home office, lounge area, and O gauge layout, are the display cases with the tinplate locomotives. Visitors seem to like the bright colors and toy-like appearance, and they invariably want to see them running. That is why I decided to add a small (4x10 or so) Christmas/tinplate layout in what is left of somewhat open area in my train room.

@Allan Miller posted:

The trains that attract the most attention whenever folks visit my basement home office, lounge area, and O gauge layout, are the display cases with the tinplate locomotives.

That is my experience as well.  And guess which one gets the most attention?  The Blue Comet.  This from women and children who have no clue what they're looking at.  So that probably answers the question of why MTH kept pumping out the same-old, same-old.

@Allan Miller posted:

It sure would be nice to see more O and Std. Gauge tinplate offerings in the future, but I'm not--for no particular reason--terribly optimistic that will happen. I am just glad I bought a whole lot of the MTH O gauge Tinplate Traditions and LCT items back when they were being made. I plan to do a small all-tinplate, year-round Christmas layout featuring some of those great trains and accessories, and hope to begin work on that as early as next week.

The trains that attract the most attention whenever folks visit my basement home office, lounge area, and O gauge layout, are the display cases with the tinplate locomotives. Visitors seem to like the bright colors and toy-like appearance, and they invariably want to see them running. That is why I decided to add a small (4x10 or so) Christmas/tinplate layout in what is left of somewhat open area in my train room.

Just joking with my buddies yesterday that Williams should pick up the tinplate line. They would end up getting their old tooling back.

Steve

If MTH wants to gauge the STD gauge tinplate market, the PS3 stuff always goes for over the old MSRP on ebay.  The last 400e sold 10 days ago for $1100 and the guy said it doesn't run!  People be crazy.

Based on our many conversations with MTH, it all depends if there's enough demand to retool and stamp hundreds or thousands of parts that are required.  I believe the biggest challenge is finding vendors even overseas that will produce the parts, paint/finishing assembly process in a quantity that the market will absorb.

We always remain optimistic of a future Tinplate Traditions line.

I may be in the minority, but I'd prefer to buy conventional. 

I was wondering that myself. I was looking to get into Tinplate Standard gauge and Mike pulls the plug! A couple of my friends that know I love the stuff joked that I should buy the tinplate line but I don't think they know how hard it is to buy into something like that, especially these days. Plus that would be a pretty expensive way just to be able to get into tinplate!

Jerry

I too am in the conventional camp! Give me a type 3+ BAL motor or better still, two in a 408E, and I am a happy camper! :-)

PS: But no *#!$* traction tires! :-(

@Mallard4468 posted:

I may be in the minority, but I'd prefer to buy conventional.

Me, too. I have no interest in the contemporary stuff. Traditional tinplate all the way!

Bob

My only interest in modern production is in the spare parts--like frames and other castings.  I hope for continued production at some level to maintain these valuable resources.

@MikeH posted:

Perhaps cost effective but I don't think it sells.  Last tinplate catalog with conventional was 2013.

Minor correction to the above.  The last tinplate catalog with conventional was 2014.

https://mthtrains.com/catalog/...el-tinplate-volume-1

Any item on that list with a catalog no. suffix of "-0" is conventional.  I know because I bought one of the Leland-Detroit monorails. 

Steven J. Serenska

IMO, one reason why contemporary outsold conventional is that both versions were priced the same.  I always felt just a bit ripped off when my old school version wasn't less expensive than the one with all the bells and whistles.

@Mallard4468 posted:

IMO, one reason why contemporary outsold conventional is that both versions were priced the same.  I always felt just a bit ripped off when my old school version wasn't less expensive than the one with all the bells and whistles.

Well its nice to know that I was not the only one to feel this way.

Mike at one time was offering conventional AC motors and DC can motors with the electronics but at the same cost for either version. From what I understand it cost more to produce the AC motor version and there wasn’t enough interest to keep producing them.  I’m in the modern can motors and PS-2/3 camp myself I have no interest in the old school E-units or open frame motors.  

@Serenska posted:

Minor correction to the above.  The last tinplate catalog with conventional was 2014.

Minor correction to a minor correction: The last tinplate catalog offering "traditional, open-frame" motors was 2015.

https://mthtrains.com/sites/de...8-15_web%20lores.pdf

Conventional motive power did not appear in 2016 or 2018.

Steven J. Serenska

The MTH Lionel Corporation tinplate inspired me to engage in this fun all over all again. I never really left, but seeing and hearing shiny standard tinplate roaring around a MTH display was inspiring for me. The TCA Standard Gauge module chapter display sealed the deal. I’m told that a problem with the offshore manufacturer has occurred, and some overseas employees sold certain molds and tooling for scrap. How sad is that? This may make all of this very difficult. I sure hope that the reports that I have heard are not accurate. But even if they are, there are licensing rights that are transferable and I would believe reproducible. For now I hope for the best. Lionel might be prospering during COVID times. Perhaps they are flush enough to pull off a buy of the designs that were originally Lionel and etc.

@Mallard4468 posted:

I may be in the minority, but I'd prefer to buy conventional.

I think you are in the minority for a couple different reasons.   

There is enough original stuff out there for the diehard crowd.

Folks just getting into tinplate want the shiny new equipment look but also the ability to seamlessly run tinplate on a command layout.

While old school e-unit noise and ozone may still appeal to the older crowd,  I am in my mid 40's and been playing trains since my first communion and those feedback items mean nothing to me.   Honestly noisy e units drive me nuts.  While all equipment will have problems eventually I have electronic trains that are 20 years old and working fine and they have never needed motor brushes.

And more than anything the sales numbers just didn't make a case for continued conventional offerings.

No disrespect for your opinion at all,  but even if nostalgic tinplate is offered again from a major manufacturer without command capabilities, it will almost certainly be equipped with a dc can motor and electronic reverse unit, simply because those things are readily available at low cost when bought in bulk.  Open frame motors are not so easy to come by.

@jhz563 posted:

I think you are in the minority for a couple different reasons.   

There is enough original stuff out there for the diehard crowd.

Folks just getting into tinplate want the shiny new equipment look but also the ability to seamlessly run tinplate on a command layout.

While old school e-unit noise and ozone may still appeal to the older crowd,  I am in my mid 40's and been playing trains since my first communion and those feedback items mean nothing to me.   Honestly noisy e units drive me nuts.  While all equipment will have problems eventually I have electronic trains that are 20 years old and working fine and they have never needed motor brushes.

And more than anything the sales numbers just didn't make a case for continued conventional offerings.

No disrespect for your opinion at all,  but even if nostalgic tinplate is offered again from a major manufacturer without command capabilities, it will almost certainly be equipped with a dc can motor and electronic reverse unit, simply because those things are readily available at low cost when bought in bulk.  Open frame motors are not so easy to come by.

I appreciate your thoughts. 

My favoring of conventional isn't a nostalgia thing - it's practical.  I prefer new and shiny and like the sound and smoke, but I've seen too many dead command engines, especially tinplate.  The conventional ones "should" be easier to fix down the road, because old prewar stuff can be used as donors.

My club set up a small standard gauge layout at a train show a few years ago.  We had several engines, both command and conventional.  By the end of the show, all of the modern engines were dead for various reasons - some electronic and some mechanical (one of mine cost $200+ to repair, almost what is was worth); the only one still running was my ancient 10E. 

I have no problem if new ones have common can motors - maybe they could come with the option to have DCS as a plug-and-play option for additional money.

Although I already had Lionel trains, I didn't get any for my first communion.  I want a redo. 

@jhz563 posted:

And more than anything the sales numbers just didn't make a case for continued conventional offerings.

I am curious:  you draw a conclusion that advertises it is based on hard numbers.  If so, please provide all the relevant sales numbers to support that conclusion.

@palallin posted:

I am curious:  you draw a conclusion that advertises it is based on hard numbers.  If so, please provide all the relevant sales numbers to support that conclusion.

Anecdotal for me, but grounded in reality.   I heard it reported that Mike Wolf himself stated that they just didn't sell enough to justify keep making them in conventional, and the lack of the option in the later catalogs backs that up.  But no, I am not privy sales numbers.

Lionel should get the tooling for their Tinplate O and Standard Gauge trains back from MTH. Maybe they could add LC+2.O or Legacy control to the Tinplate trains. MTH had DCS and PS3 in their versions. Also, Lionel should make conventional versions as well.

3rd Rail/Sunset Trains should buy the tinplate line.

Then make everything in Brass not Tin Steel.

I would love to have a Ives All Brass passenger set a a fair price.

They should also buy all the Steam Engine molds since they also have a factory in China or could use the MTH factory like Atlas.

i hope someone gets it. I've wanted to get into modern standard gauge since 2009 but never had the money

my dream is to run massive standard gauge freight trains with DPU's all through my house

for example 2 408e's pulling a manifest with 3 9E mid train DPU units and a super 381 shoving in the rear running at 50smph through my house

maybe my dreams are way too big

Cody: No harm in dreaming big! :-)

@totrainyard posted:

3rd Rail/Sunset Trains should buy the tinplate line.

Then make everything in Brass not Tin Steel.

I would love to have a Ives All Brass passenger set a a fair price.

They should also buy all the Steam Engine molds since they also have a factory in China or could use the MTH factory like Atlas.

I actually traded with e-mail with Mr. Mann last month about whether or not he had considered doing a tinplate locomotive.  He replied "Not our cup of tea. Everytime I try to do something that isn't scale, it falls on deaf ears."

He went on to say that he does hope someone picks up tinplate where Mike left off. 

So while great minds think alike, 3rd rail /Sunset doesn't look like the next home of tinplate trains.

I suspect that all of our speculation is just a fantasy - those of us who like tinplate are a very small slice of the train market. 

My impression is that tinplate wasn't selling well (based on what I observed at York for about the past 5 years), but when the plug got pulled a lot of people decided that they should buy everything while they could.  If someone starts making tinplate again, I'll bet that it would sell quickly at first but then taper off rapidly. 

I would thoroughly enjoy being proved wrong.