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Post by mrmeep on Oct 2, 2022 5:23:36 GMT
Let's see ....
Lionel closes its service centers.
Lionel no longer supports its dealers.
Lionel has lousy qualtiy control.
Lionel can't meet shipping/production dates.
Lionel hugely raising its prices on everything.
Lionel tanks its customer service.
Lionel no longer provides repair parts.
Lionel no longer supports its electronic parts.
Lionel no longer attending/exhibiting at trade shows and York.
Hmmmm! Has all the earmarks of a company getting ready to GO OUT OF BUSINESS!
("If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ... it MIGHT BE a duck!")
Something to think about. This is not our old Lionel. This is 21st century "business model".
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Post by mrmeep on Oct 2, 2022 5:42:07 GMT
Once again. You WILL NOT see these new-tech trains running 20, 50 or 100 years from now like you see original Lionel, Ives, Flyer and Marx trains that were made in the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, still running like the day they were built. And are easily rebuildable and maintainable.
Want a lesson in "planned obselesence"? Google "The Light Bulb Conspiracy". It's a real thing. Interesting reading and it affects ALL businesses and has for over 100 years.
Couple "planned obselesence" and "corporate greed" and you have the "21st Century Business Model".
I guess Lionel is finally going to go away. Don't be surprised. A shame, too. They were the "gold standard" that other train makers were measured to.
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Post by Traindiesel! on Oct 2, 2022 7:30:07 GMT
Maybe China bought some farmlands near Lionel headquarters. Then they sent Fang Fang to work at Lionel. China bought up all the parts.
Oh, and it’s Putin’s model train shortage that caused all this!
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Post by dlagrua on Oct 2, 2022 15:38:26 GMT
Let's see .... Lionel closes its service centers. Lionel no longer supports its dealers. Lionel has lousy qualtiy control. Lionel can't meet shipping/production dates. Lionel hugely raising its prices on everything. Lionel tanks its customer service. Lionel no longer provides repair parts. Lionel no longer supports its electronic parts. Lionel no longer attending/exhibiting at trade shows and York. Hmmmm! Has all the earmarks of a company getting ready to GO OUT OF BUSINESS! ("If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ... it MIGHT BE a duck!") Something to think about. This is not our old Lionel. This is 21st century "business model". As I said before what we are seeing are the results of a corporation required to report their financials to their Wall Street bosses. Those bosses want profit every quarter and you can either make it by increasing sales or by cutting all of the support services that we are now seeing. This may work short term but how can it be a long term solution? My guess is that a Chinese company will buy and take over Lionel in the near future.
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Post by g3750 on Oct 6, 2022 1:18:44 GMT
Let's see .... Lionel closes its service centers. Lionel no longer supports its dealers. Lionel has lousy qualtiy control. Lionel can't meet shipping/production dates. Lionel hugely raising its prices on everything. Lionel tanks its customer service. Lionel no longer provides repair parts. Lionel no longer supports its electronic parts. Lionel no longer attending/exhibiting at trade shows and York. Hmmmm! Has all the earmarks of a company getting ready to GO OUT OF BUSINESS! ("If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck ... it MIGHT BE a duck!") Something to think about. This is not our old Lionel. This is 21st century "business model".
OK Guys, let's keep some things in mind: - The sky is not falling. Shortages of TMCC components began occurring awhile ago; this is just a continuation of the trend of 30 year-old components going away. I like TMCC but it's not cutting edge technology anymore. It's very likely (as Traindiesel pointed out) that ERR will fill the void, at least in the short-term. Or something else will arrive.
- Lionel didn't pioneer the new "21st century business model". MTH was the first to go to strictly BTO, gut its repair service, shove warranty issues completely onto the LHS, lose the catalogs, ditch the supply warehouse, and (in the process) damage the business models of a number of hobby shops that depended upon them. Some of these went out of business due to the uncertainty created.
- Lionel isn't exactly altruistic in their approach, but they haven't totally abandoned the consumer.
George
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Post by stoshu on Oct 8, 2022 23:37:33 GMT
So why not make a generic Lionel chief 2.0 board that you can retrofit the engine ? there are many creative guy's out there that would do the mods. I wish they would have offered a replacement or upgrade instead of just quitting cold turkey...
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Post by harborbelt70 on Oct 9, 2022 15:36:21 GMT
Let's see .... Hmmmm! Has all the earmarks of a company getting ready to GO OUT OF BUSINESS!Something to think about. This is not our old Lionel. This is 21st century "business model".
OK Guys, let's keep some things in mind . . .
Lionel isn't exactly altruistic in their approach, but they haven't totally abandoned the consumer. As I started this thread I am going to take the liberty of making yet another comment - or two in fact in response to the thoughtful comments recently posted, which I have sampled above.
1. I really don’t see Lionel going out of business although it might be sold, which might or might not be a good thing from the standpoint of hobbyists of the generation that most of us are. By the same token I can’t see the tens of millions of $ it took to get Lionel out of bankruptcy being realized on a sale in present conditions, or even the sort of annual return on investment/capital private equity types expect from a business being generated from the market Lionel currently has. So I can see why the bean counting owners want to wring every bit of profit margin out of what they have to work with and think they have to make a fundamental change of direction to get closer to where they want to be.
2. In that effort I have concluded that they HAVE deliberately abandoned customers who have been faithful supporters for the past few decades; Lionel wants a future market that will pay more for products it is easier for it to make, which means using electronic components that are easier to source. OK, fine, understood, but I won’t willingly support this with new purchases. I probably would have limited my buying anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with Lionel’s business model, but the dead silence from Lionel in terms of explanation/justification of withdrawing support for TMCC and early Legacy models just stinks, IMHO.
P.S. The one respect in which I think Lionel has excelled is innovation in operating features, especially sounds. Not everybody goes in for other advanced features as well - smoke and lighting for example - but there must be enough people around ready to pay a premium for such things to justify offering them.
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Post by g3750 on Oct 10, 2022 2:54:58 GMT
OK Guys, let's keep some things in mind . . .
Lionel isn't exactly altruistic in their approach, but they haven't totally abandoned the consumer. As I started this thread I am going to take the liberty of making yet another comment - or two in fact in response to the thoughtful comments recently posted, which I have sampled above.
2. In that effort I have concluded that they HAVE deliberately abandoned customers who have been faithful supporters for the past few decades; Lionel wants a future market that will pay more for products it is easier for it to make, which means using electronic components that are easier to source. OK, fine, understood, but I won’t willingly support this with new purchases. I probably would have limited my buying anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with Lionel’s business model, but the dead silence from Lionel in terms of explanation/justification of withdrawing support for TMCC and early Legacy models just stinks, IMHO.
P.S. The one respect in which I think Lionel has excelled is innovation in operating features, especially sounds. Not everybody goes in for other advanced features as well - smoke and lighting for example - but there must be enough people around ready to pay a premium for such things to justify offering them. Harborbelt70 is correct with observation #2. Back in the early 2000's I attended the OGR Grandstand meeting at York. Neil Young and the newly minted CEO of Lionel, Jerry Calabrese were there. This was shortly after Legacy was announced. From Mr. Calabrese's words to us, I got the distinct impression that he regretted that Lionel had ever licensed TMCC to other makers and put the TMCC codes into the public domain. I was surprised at this because it was that very stroke of genius (and that's what it was by previous Lionel management) that allowed these things to come into existence:
- IC Controls (TPC's, BPC's, ASC's, AMC's, etc.) which were later acquired by Lionel and folded into their own product line (still used today)
- All the locomotives sold by Atlas, K-Line, and Weaver that cemented TMCC as the industry standard
- Spawned the birth of board innovators and upgrade providers TrainAmerica, Digital Dynamics, and Electric Railroad
- Made possible Z-Stuff's innovative TMCC-addressable switch machines
- Gave a way for DCS systems to also run TMCC locomotives
All of these propelled the hobby forward and made a lot of money for Lionel - much more $$$ than if they had to rely solely on the sales of their own products.
George
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Post by chipset35 on Oct 10, 2022 14:23:56 GMT
When my MTH and Lionel Command Control Systems go bad and I cannot get them fixed or replace, it will be time for conventional operation as Brian mentioned. No surprise Lionel puts the customer last, as that seems to be the trend with most companies. I myself only do business with those few companies that put the customer first, which Lionel is not. I vote with my dollars.
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Post by dlagrua on Oct 10, 2022 15:52:25 GMT
When my MTH and Lionel Command Control Systems go bad and I cannot get them fixed or replace, it will be time for conventional operation as Brian mentioned. No surprise Lionel puts the customer last, as that seems to be the trend with most companies. I myself only do business with those few companies that put the customer first, which Lionel is not. I vote with my dollars. Lionel has apparently slimmed down to the point where there is no more room to continue the cuts or raise prices further. On their present path, its difficult to understand their plan for the future but I believe that I know. Usually corporations make deep cuts to raise short term profits shortly before a sale is made. I've seen this several times before with companies I conducted business with or worked for. That is my guess.
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Post by harborbelt70 on Oct 10, 2022 16:27:42 GMT
When my MTH and Lionel Command Control Systems go bad and I cannot get them fixed or replace, it will be time for conventional operation as Brian mentioned. No surprise Lionel puts the customer last, as that seems to be the trend with most companies.I myself only do business with those few companies that put the customer first, which Lionel is not. I vote with my dollars. I hear that, Vince. I don't know how people expect to do business successfully with a "customer last" outlook, but in Lionel's case, I think that they have decided to put their "old" customer base at the end of the line and sacrifice it to a short term business model, i.e. getting ready to (try to) sell.
So on with the new, which Howard Hitchcock trailed at least three years ago when talking (depressingly, as far as I was concerned) about how they could not maintain Legacy indefinitely. Although that has receded, I guess they think they can squeeze more out of newcomers and the deep pocket enthusiasts who will buy what they offer in the future. If you look at other forums, you will see that there are still loads of people looking forward to the next Lionel catalog and VL offering.
I'll stop now as I am likely to say something I'll regret!
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ben
New Member
Posts: 27
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Post by ben on Oct 11, 2022 21:35:20 GMT
Let's think positive about the future of our command control equipment
Two years ago everyone was talking about the demise of DCS and Proto Sound 3, yet these devices are still in production with no end on sight
TMCC has been around for decades is outdated, yet it is still licensed out and in production under ERR
The market will find a way to keep these command control models running
I have operated dozens of Legacy and DCS controlled locomotives over the last decades and I have seen only one board failure, and that may have had outside causes. I run these models all the time.
I
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Post by harborbelt70 on Oct 11, 2022 21:47:38 GMT
Let's think positive about the future of our command control equipment Two years ago everyone was talking about the demise of DCS and Proto Sound 3, yet these devices are still in production with no end on sight TMCC has been around for decades is outdated, yet it is still licensed out and in production under ERR The market will find a way to keep these command control models running I have operated dozens of Legacy and DCS controlled locomotives over the last decades and I have seen only one board failure, and that may have had outside causes. I run these models all the time. Good points. I hope you are right. If you are, I think it will be someone other than Lionel that makes it so. That’s my gripe, FWIW.
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Post by david1 on Oct 12, 2022 0:12:02 GMT
I bought williams engines in the 90's and early 2000's but at that time I got enamored with command control and for that reason I packed all my new Williams away and forgot about it. In the 2015 range I sold off alot of my command equipment but keeping a few for when I built another layout. Well fast forward to now and the prices that Lionel wants for New engines is absurd. I decided this year to pull out my Williams and was I surprised, they run so smooth and quiet I was glad to run them. I still have a few legacy engines I bought and run them also with my tmcc system. They run and sound great but I also run conventional with my Williams. I have no need to buy anymore overpriced trains from any manufacturer. I'm having fun doing what I do, why change.
Dave
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Post by g3750 on Oct 12, 2022 3:24:47 GMT
I bought williams engines in the 90's and early 2000's but at that time I got enamored with command control and for that reason I packed all my new Williams away and forgot about it. In the 2015 range I sold off alot of my command equipment but keeping a few for when I built another layout. Well fast forward to now and the prices that Lionel wants for New engines is absurd. I decided this year to pull out my Williams and was I surprised, they run so smooth and quiet I was glad to run them. I still have a few legacy engines I bought and run them also with my tmcc system. They run and sound great but I also run conventional with my Williams. I have no need to buy anymore overpriced trains from any manufacturer. I'm having fun doing what I do, why change. Dave Dave,
Back in the mid-2000s I bought a number of Williams locomotives and had TrainAmerica put TMCC, their Engineer-On-Board, and Railsounds into them. They were great conventional runners and with TMCC they are even better.
It's a very cost-effective solution.
George
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