York Interviews for Lionel and MTH About S Gauge products

Continuing off topic.  I remember an article in S Gaugian about "retrucking" the Scout double door boxcars in the early 1980's (i.e. after the demise of Perma Built and before American Models) and I repainted and decaled  3 of them.  In boxcar red, even otherwise unmodified they blended in pretty well with my repainted and decaled "junker Flyer".  Given what was available in S some 30 years ago, they were fine, but like  anything from 30 years ago there are nicer things on the market now.

Little Tommy

Tom, The big boy is one railroad, the challengers are almost too. The GS-4 was built in wartime for WP, and de-skirted can be used on other railroads too. What you are missing though, is the HUGE public awareness of this engine which makes it much more marketable. Another engine that IS one railroad only is the N&W J class--but because of public awareness, also would be a big seller. There's a huge bunch of folks out there that just want to run trains, they aren't operating a scale railroad operation.

LittleTommy posted:

Continuing off topic.  I remember an article in S Gaugian about "retrucking" the Scout double door boxcars in the early 1980's (i.e. after the demise of Perma Built and before American Models) and I repainted and decaled  3 of them.  In boxcar red, even otherwise unmodified they blended in pretty well with my repainted and decaled "junker Flyer".  Given what was available in S some 30 years ago, they were fine, but like  anything from 30 years ago there are nicer things on the market now.

Little Tommy

I have modified a number of Marx 3/16" scale cars with S gauge trucks. They look good and are certainly different from the general offerings on the secondary market.

Donald Payer posted:

Roundhouse Bill posted:

Don:

I suggest that you call MTH customer service direct as I don't know anything about their DCS system and the interview questions are more general in context.  Also, the questions they will answer are already in their hands.

Thanks

Thank You Bill. I will try to contact them again by phone. I had tried in the past but they said they wouldn't go into it over the phone too much to go over. I will just wait to receive my two ab units and try to operate them with my existing controls. I can't go to York, Penn. any more because of my health is very restricting. Thank you for your thoughts.

Don 

Don, just a reminder if you haven't tried this already,  there is a Control Systems Forum of the O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum, with an MTH DCS and PS2/PS3 section. Perhaps you could check or search the topics in that section, or post your question there. Just hit the Home link near the top of this page to get to the page with the link.

Mike

traindavid posted:

Tom, The big boy is one railroad, the challengers are almost too. The GS-4 was built in wartime for WP, and de-skirted can be used on other railroads too. What you are missing though, is the HUGE public awareness of this engine which makes it much more marketable. Another engine that IS one railroad only is the N&W J class--but because of public awareness, also would be a big seller. There's a huge bunch of folks out there that just want to run trains, they aren't operating a scale railroad operation.

Actually, the WP got GS6's. (GS64's according to the WP.) No Mars light, partially streamlined, WP added the smoke deflectors.

and partially streamlined GS's bear little resemblance to locomotives on any other railroad.

That said, both SP GS4 4449 and N&W J 611 are now iconic surviving steam locomotives, I suspect either one should prove popular with the Flyer and even the Scale crowd if they could be converted like the Y3's. 

(I know River Raisin had to cancel their brass N&W J's, but that might have been because of price and too many variations offered.)

Rusty

traindavid posted:

Tom, The big boy is one railroad, the challengers are almost too. The GS-4 was built in wartime for WP, and de-skirted can be used on other railroads too. What you are missing though, is the HUGE public awareness of this engine which makes it much more marketable. Another engine that IS one railroad only is the N&W J class--but because of public awareness, also would be a big seller. There's a huge bunch of folks out there that just want to run trains, they aren't operating a scale railroad operation.

I do understand what you are saying, but by this logic the Reading T-1 that Francine is after is even better known. The Freedom Train has been over that whole country. So maybe it should be first in line??? OTOH, S gauge has plenty of 4-8-4s already. The one from AM being the best of the lot, but there are a lot on old Flyer 4-8-4s out there not to mention the various offerings from Flyonel.

I have also seen that a lot of modelers would like small steam which there hasn’t been much of; only one 2-8-0 and one 2-8-2 in new production, anything else is older Flyer. This would seem to be a ripe, untapped area.  Not to mention the dire lack of freight locomotives.

I’m not a scale operator by a long shot, though I do like when the caboose road name matches the engine. I’m only trying to guess what might have large market appeal… I paged through the Steam Locomotive Cyclopedia and I still think something from the USRA would work if only because of all the different road names that used the various designs as a starting point – but that’s just me.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

The best bet right now would be re-releasing the Pacific's and Mikado's.

Same superstructures, the mechanisms changed to protect the innocent...

And the smokebox front too:

Rusty

Sorry you guys but I have the answers.  Lionel and MTH have sent me the answers for the interview questions.  Your best bets are not on the scoreboard.  

I will talk with them and York next Thursday to go over the answers.  The interviews will be in the July/August S Gaugian.

Sounds really positive...not. 

Bill, while I know it would be self defeating for you to divulge specific details about the contents of the responses, can you advise if it appears it will stay gloomy in S as it hads seemed to be from L and MTH?

 

 

Ben 

Flyer 52 posted:

Donald Payer posted:

Roundhouse Bill posted:

Don:

I suggest that you call MTH customer service direct as I don't know anything about their DCS system and the interview questions are more general in context.  Also, the questions they will answer are already in their hands.

Thanks

Thank You Bill. I will try to contact them again by phone. I had tried in the past but they said they wouldn't go into it over the phone too much to go over. I will just wait to receive my two ab units and try to operate them with my existing controls. I can't go to York, Penn. any more because of my health is very restricting. Thank you for your thoughts.

Don 

Don, just a reminder if you haven't tried this already,  there is a Control Systems Forum of the O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum, with an MTH DCS and PS2/PS3 section. Perhaps you could check or search the topics in that section, or post your question there. Just hit the Home link near the top of this page to get to the page with the link.

Mike

Thank You Mike for your information it will help me greatly. With this I should be able to run the new F-3's without any problems.

Don

banjoflyer posted:

Donald Payer posted:

Bill,

I have a question I would like you to ask MTH about their DCS S Gauge Engine control. I have a controller and the the TIU needed to run DCS Proto-Sounds 2. Will I have to update, change or buy new controller system to operate My S Gauge Engines with Proto-Sounds 3? I am limited to traveling to York any more so I have to ask you to ask MTH for me.

Thank You

Don 

This should answer your question...

from the MTH website:

Product Line Description: 

DCS is a system for controlling your entire layout — multiple Proto-Sound 2.0 and 3.0-equipped engines, switches, and accessories — from one or more wireless handheld controllers.DCS is compatible with all M.T.H.® Proto-Sound® 2.0- or 3.0- equipped locomotives, regardless of scale. Check it out in this interactive brochure.

Mark

Mark

Thank you for pointing this out I would never have found it by myself. This computer stuff and I don't do very well together but I try. This has been very help full to relieve my mind and I will just have to connect the TUI to my transformer and to the track and run my new engines as they are made to run with the hand held controller from MTH that I have.

Happy Railroading

Don 

Rusty

I can't help but feel that the Mikado and Pacific is the most underused tooling Lionel has in S.  Really makes me wonder if they still have it or if it was a casualty of the China shakeup.    Matt A did tell me last year that they would likely make a reappearance, but I am having trouble being optimistic.  

 

Ben

Well, I was showing the Mike's and Pacific's a possibility.  Not as a golly-gee-wiz hope they'll be in the next catalog or I'll be sooo depressed.  No big deal. 

I imagine it'll take Ryan a year or two to figure out what he would like to do with the Flyer line and then have to convince the top brass.  As to MTH, once the F3's and TOFC's come in, I'm probably done with them.  No breath holding there, either. 

Yeah, I've become very pessimistic over the past two years.  As I see it, both companies are locked in a deadly battle to see who come out with the least amount of product in the most amount of time.

Due to impending retirement, I cut myself off from making any more future preorders at the end of last July.  I don't need things coming in months/years late once I'm on a fixed income.   It would have to be something really special (Even the MKT Heritage unit wasn't that special to me...) for me to do a preorder right now, and I didn't anticipate anything fitting that category would be coming next year.  Anything I may pick up from this point on will be on something that's on the shelves and I have the "surplus income" available.  Just watching where each dollar goes much more carefully.

Rusty

A re-release of the Pacific with Legacy would be nice. I suspect it would take a lot of internal redesign to make that possible, so it would be a large upfront investment by Lionel. Same for the Light Mikado. I would still like a Legacy Hudson. The Berkshire has possibilities as well for additional releases. The Northern is a different case. A first rate model is available from AM, and can easily be retrofitted with TMCC/Railsounds. I ordered Lionel's NYC Northern to see how well it works, but the detail is a long way from the AM.

AmFlyer posted:

A re-release of the Pacific with Legacy would be nice. I suspect it would take a lot of internal redesign to make that possible, so it would be a large upfront investment by Lionel. Same for the Light Mikado. I would still like a Legacy Hudson. The Berkshire has possibilities as well for additional releases. The Northern is a different case. A first rate model is available from AM, and can easily be retrofitted with TMCC/Railsounds. I ordered Lionel's NYC Northern to see how well it works, but the detail is a long way from the AM.

I agree with Rusty that the Mikado and Pacific engines would make an easy re-release. However, reading between the lines from Bill, it ain’t gonna happen. BTW, if the originals Mikado and Pacific didn’t have Legacy, what did they have? I gutted my Mikado and will do the same to the Flyonel Pacific someday.

The American Models Pacific is probably a better engine than the Flyonel and I believe a bit less expensive, but on this forum most seem inclined toward the toy train manufacturer. Somehow AM gets overlooked here.

I also agree with Rusty and the pessimistic outlook – well said: “Yeah, I've become very pessimistic over the past two years.  As I see it, both companies are locked in a deadly battle to see who come out with the least amount of product in the most amount of time.”

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom, the Mikado and the Pacific were made with TMCC and Railsounds 5, but the Mikado was not a great running engine. I belatedly realized I do not own a Lionel AF Pacific. I had my 3 Mikado's modified to 4 chuff's/revolution, cruise control substituted for the flywheel and the Seuthe smoke unit replaced with a fan driven smoke unit. These are now my second favorite engines to operate, behind only the Y3.

I tend to agree with Rusty but I consider my view to be realistic, not pessimistic.

AmFlyer posted:

 but the Mikado was not a great running engine.

Gee Tom,

Mine runs great once I took out all those silly boards.  Might do DCC for it someday.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

Tom Stoltz posted:

AmFlyer posted:

 but the Mikado was not a great running engine.

Gee Tom,

Mine runs great once I took out all those silly boards.  Might do DCC for it someday.

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

I will say, I have three of the Mikado's: B&O, NYC and Southern.  I've had no issues with their running quality under TMCC control via the Lionel Trainmaster Base and MTH TIU.  Under conventional AC however, they stink.

Rusty

Tom Stoltz posted:

 

The American Models Pacific is probably a better engine than the Flyonel and I believe a bit less expensive, but on this forum most seem inclined toward the toy train manufacturer. Somehow AM gets overlooked here.

 

Tom Stoltz

in Maine

AM gets overlooked partially because they don't participate in the golly-gee-wiz high-tech electro-revolution.  An electronic reverse unit and past due conventional AC sound system is all you can get factory installed. 

Sure, you can add the high falutin' electronics yourself, but I suspect most folks prefer the technology already installed.  By then, you bring the cost up closer to Lionel's.

However, one thing fuddy-duddy AM has been is consistent.  You know what you're going to get.  Lionel/Flyer seems to depend on which way the weather vane is pointed.

As far as Pacifics go, right now AM shows only scale DC versions available of the Milwaukee, Southern, Rock Island USRA Pacifics and green streamlined K4.  I get the feeling, once they're gone, they're gone for good.   Too bad they never put a Mikado drive under the USRA boiler.

Rusty

Roundhouse Bill posted:

Sorry you guys but I have the answers.  Lionel and MTH have sent me the answers for the interview questions.  Your best bets are not on the scoreboard.  

I will talk with them and York next Thursday to go over the answers.  The interviews will be in the July/August S Gaugian.

Bill,

Can you take your meeting as an opportunity to share with Lionel and MTH what we are asking for?  Making a case for an SP GS4 seems reasonable being the number of people who want one and how successful it has been in other scales.  The bottom line is that are both Lionel and MTH willing to listen to what their customers want or are they convinced that they know better as to what we should want.  One is a prescription for business success the other is a plan for mediocrity and failure.  Good luck Bill.

--Rocco--

Well, the interviews are over and I am back home.  Time to finish them up.

There is one piece of news I will share this morning.  A number of you guys were betting a remake of the TMCC Pacifics were sure to happen.  Well, I found out the tooling for those engines are gone.  Lionel doesn't have them.  This means to remake them they would have to start over.  There were a number of other things I learned that will be in the magazine about tooling for new engines.

We did discuss something about the possibility of building steam locomotives in plastic.  Ryan Kunkle, my contact now, said that if the buying public would accept plastic it would cut tooling costs by 1/3 to 1/4 over metal.  Lionel is afraid that they wouldn't be purchased.  He also said that it wouldn't mean cutting down on any detailing of the engine.  In fact they would have more cast in detail.

What do you say?  Would you buy a plastic scale steam locomotive?

I have no problem with plastic locomotives, BUT I would prefer free standing handrails on a steam loco boiler.  

Little Tommy

Personally, I have nothing against plastic steam locomotives, most of my (non-brass) steam back in my HO days were plastic, but I'd wager most of the S market would say "no" to a plastic steam locomotive.  Particularly if that 1/3 to 1/4 tooling cost savings didn't filter down to the MSRP.

A metal boiler is better for traction, even my Alton Pacific occasionally slips a little with the 6 passenger cars.  Seeing most of the guts nowadays is taken up for electronics, there's little room to add weight for traction and S doesn't have Magna-Traction to assist. 

Plus, like it or not, a die-cast metal steam locomotive is perceived as being of higher quality nowadays.  Imagine the howling if Lionel were to try floating a mid-to-high-end plastic steam locomotive on the O gauge side...

Looks like Flyer steam is dead.  Opportunity knocks, MTH and AM.

Rusty

Flyer steam is not dead. Engines are in development. This question doesn't indicate anything. It is just posing a question.

Applied details would be as good as any die cast product.

Oh, he said the engine can be weighed. Remember all the modern diesels work fine.

Bill

How friggin unfortunate, but that is something that has been long suspected.  Bill, is the Mikado tooling gone too?

And if the detail is there with the plastic steamers, and they pulled....I'm there.  

Ben

I engines with great detail that run well. By the time Lionel got to the ES44AC, all the bugs were worked out of that plastic-bodied locomotive, and it ran perfectly well on all kinds of track and switches. If Lionel decided to make another Mikado, Pacific, Hudson, or other steam locomotive with the kind of detail on the Y-3, I would be a buyer. I like to look at them and run them, not tap on them with a hammer to see if they ring.

Yes Ben both are gone. Ryan said that in the past often the tooling was the property of the Chinese company that manufactured the engines 

Mark, your logic makes no sense. Be realistic, there was no such thing as "pay as you go".

Lionel paid the company to build the locomotives they wanted. That company may not even exist now. 

I know that there is frustration, but complaints can't change the situation about lost tooling.

Any new diesel locomotives in the planning stage? 

Regards,

Frank

 

Bill, you asked about our view of a plastic steam engine. One of the nicest steam engines A C Gilbert made was tho 0-6-0 B6sB PRR switcher. It was unpainted plastic. I would not hesitate to buy a new painted plastic locomotive provided it had the molded in and separately applied detail similar to the Y-3 and is equipped with Legacy. It is the quality, appearance, detailing and operability that drives me, not the construction material. As I have said before I really hope they do a first rate Hudson soon. Some freight engines would also be nice. If the detailing and Legacy is there, the price is not an issue. In Fact, for the right engine I would pay in advance to assure production. If it is just a plastic version of a Berkshire level engine with FlyerChief the price would have to be low so I could modify and upgrade it or I  would not be interested.

banjoflyer posted:

Roundhouse Bill posted:

 

Lionel paid the company to build the locomotives they wanted. That company may not even exist now. 

 

 

My point is if tooling costs are so high as we always hear why would the maker not make further use of them?

Mark

The tooling could be lost in a warehouse somewhere, shipped to parts unknown or be part of a steel container by now. 

I don't think there's a good inventory system for older tooling over there.   When AM got their tooling back from China (the stuff that was originally cut here) they also got a set of molds for a G Gauge freight truck!

And, as Bill said, the company that made the tooling may not even exist anymore.

As long as the tooling is, shall we say politely, unavailable, it's time to look beyond.

Rusty

One more thought:

The question of the viability of plastic steam really should be asked at the upcoming Spring S Spree, NASG Convention and Fall S Fest to get a better response that the handful of folks that hang out here.

Rusty

Rusty, my contact at Lionel is watching this conversation. I am not going to either.

Writing here is the current solution. Many people follow topics here but don't write. Please people give us your thoughts.

Bill, if L is watching, maybe the plastic steamer topic is worth its own thread....

And while I am at it, SD-40-2 in Legacy Lionel!!!!

Ben

If our friends at Lionel are watching I will reinforce that first rate Legacy engines will sell. If Lionel makes the Hudson I am in for 3 including a substantial advance deposit. The same would be true for new heavy freight steam engines. High quality painted plastic steam is fine with me, even well above $1,000. 

Ben, you will have to wait for information on the SD-40 and other possibilities till the S GAUGIAN comes out for July/August.

I will give it a thread when this plays out.

After talking to Lionel, here are a few things learned with my interpretation. The process for production is as follows:

Market research to determine what should be produced.

Catalog illustration.

Collection of orders from hobby shops. These consist of actual customer orders placed with hobby shops and additional orders placed by hobby shops themselves. The additional hobby shop amounts are determined by what the hobby shop thinks it can safely sell over and above the customer orders.

If the total amount of orders reaches the minimum order quantity needed to produce the item, the item is made. The MOQ contains the desired profit needed to survive and can be spread over a 1 or 2 year period. Just saying you will buy one after it is actually produced and on the shelf, DOES NOT COUNT as an actual order! The orders for the mechanical reefer only reached 10% of what was needed for a production MOQ. The MOQ is rising as the cost of production rises. If a small market cannot support the MOQ for that item, it is not produced or cancelled.

Rich

 

Explain MOQ. What are the words.

Minimum Order Quantity.  MOQ. 

That means the cylindrical hoppers made the MOQ to be made??? This would probably mean there is support for "scale" S rolling stock. 

Maybe the lack of MOQ on the reefers was....wait for it...the fear of defective trucks!  

Rich - nice report.

Ben