From: Alan Lambert Fort Worth, Texas Rich, Like Lionel, Athern and other Ho manufactors use Walthers (catalogue ) to show what they have. Websites like SHS had showed what they had. Now MTH will come out with a new catalogue that will show what they will offer in S. Houquat includes photo's on his website that show what we are getting when we order it. Lionels marketing scheme is toward American Flyer as Gilbert made it. For some reason(unkown) they don't feel like the S scale guys will buy because of the Lionel background( Toy Trains with 3 rail track) to get into the S scale wheel market they need to hear from us. That input will open some eye's as to where the market needs to go. HO has never been made to (scale) Even though they have different wheel flanges now and different track codes that from the early days. Like you said the marketing stratagy is geared from the past. They(Lionel) needs to look at the future and not the past with American Flyer And take note of the Scale side of our trains. Maybe we all need to follow my lead and get on Lionels Facebook page. Enough chatter on that may see some change. I did get a responce. Alan
________________________________ From: richgajnak <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2012 4:51 PM Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Lionel's Marketing Strategy --- In mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com, "ctxmf74" <ctxm@...> wrote: > > > > --- In mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com, "Ed" <Loizeaux@> wrote: > > Note I am not saying this is the best or optimum marketing scheme, >but I > > think it is the one in effect at this time -- for better or for >worse. > > Putting it another way, nobody uses the traditional scheme of >making a > > mass produced product to keep on the shelf in case an order >arrives. > > Hi Ed, We only have ourself to blame for letting the manufacturers get > away with this scheme. If we refused to buy stuff with pre-orders other > companies would step in to fill the void. Old Irv Athearn didn't wait for > orders to build his new line, he apparently had faith in his vision to be a > mass merchandiser of HO stuff so started cranking it out at prices we > couldn't resist. If a new uncle Irv comes along I'll be supporting him with > my money. > I view it as a marketing plan based on the needs of modelers both present > and future versus a scheme based on making the models collectibles by > limiting their release numbers and time spans. Athearn was building the model > railroad hobby while Lionel and the other limited run guys are working on > creating a collectibles market using trains instead of plates or > commemorative coins :>) > When someone makes the effort to supply us new product without requiring pre > orders I will support them, I bought one of each style and road number of the > new Des Plaines boxcars and must say they are fantastic in execution and a > great value for the price.If S had a broad selection of cars with the Des > Plaines quality and pricing HO and O scales would be in for a battle. > ......DaveBranum > Passenger cars were RPO, Coach, Diner and Observation in heavyweights and streamliners. Freight cars were box, reefer, flat, gondola, tank cars and the Santa Fe style caboose. The Athearn line didn't really start to expand until the early 1970's, most likely to to Atlas entering the market, but the hoods on the locomotives were still too wide. Scale width hood diesels didn't appear in the Athearn line until 1982 when an upstart company (GSB) offered an SD40. Athearn came out with his scale width hood SD40-2 and blew GSB off the map. And now Athearn is now part of Horizon Hobby and pretty much bases production on preorders. It' just that there going to be more preorders in HO than there is in S. When Lionel began being perceived as a "collectable" like plates and other commemoratives in the 1980's, the hobby of scale model railroading was all ready pretty well established. Sorry for the history lesson, folks. Rich G(ajnak)
