Interview w/ Mike W.

[3railguy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mystic Storm

According to Tony Lash, Lionel is losing a bunch of money each month and can't go on much longer. They owe MTH 42 million plus interest. There needs to be a settlement like what just happened with K-line. The best for the hobby would be for Mike Wolf to get ownership of Lionel. I think that will happen before the end of the year.

Do you believe in the Tooth Fairy and Peter Pan too?

[brianel027]

Sorry Mystic Storm. The only time Tony ever posts here is not to help people or offer information to beginning modelers like me and many many others do ... he just likes to gloat about the greatness of MTH or sarcastically knock Lionel.

AS far as what you say, by my view, MTH owning Lionel would be the worst scenario possible. Ready Made Toys, Williams or K-Line would be better partners. Even Burger King would be better.

When the Railking line was first introduced, it was highly advertised as "027/0 trains like the ones you remember." With one small exception... they were all TOO BIG!!!!! This has been the reason many others and I own so little MTH Railking. The early Railking diesel locos (while many were new and modern types with contemporary roads!! Yeah) they were nearly all very poorly done in their size reduction and all TOO BIG except for the shortened F3. I ran many of the early Railing locos at a meet with others and we ALL agreed we liked them a lot but would NEVER buy them until they make them AGAIN and make them SMALLER!!!!! The only two Railking engines that are acceptable for a traditional 027 modeler (that don't look like cinderblocks on wheels with other 027 cars) are the SD-45 and the last SD-90 MAC... those two were very well done in their size reduction.

But the SD-90 MAC as last cataloged in the Railking line was $150 list with the Loco sounds and speed control. I for one will never ever buy an engine with Loco sounds or speed control.... I already have speed control when I place my hand on the transformer, so why do I want to pay more for something my hand already does with utter perfection???

And now the same SD-90 MAC is cataloged under the Rugged Rails banner with horn only, but is now $30 more!!! Let's see, it has fewer electronic options, therefore is cheaper to make, but MTH prices it at $180? Kind of reminds me of what Lionel has sometimes done in the past.

And the Rugged Rails line has been left to die for the past 7 years with absolutely ZERO new items. These are THE EXACT cars I would like to buy, except that MTH wouldn't introduce any new ones until finally this year. And only a few new roads at that. At least Lionel has continued to introduce new starter cars every year and in ever changing roads. Lionel has put out more cars in the past 2 years that Rugged Rails has introduced in the past 8 years. What's stopping MTH from putting out a dozen new Rugged Rails cars every year? We're waiting....... and still waiting.

And the ONLY reason MTH introduced the Rugged Rails line was because of the competition from Industrial Rail. And many of the Rugged Rails line cars look like exact copies of the IR cars (especially the box car and covered hopper).

Funny how many think there is no market for SMALLER 027 type product and yet Industrial Rail cars were one of the most successful and popular introductions in the past 5 years along with the RMT "Beep".... and those are UNDERSIZED NON-SCALE products... which this hobby desperately needs a lot more of!!!!! And thanks to Walter at RMT we will have more, and in roads we all want too!! Thanks to Walter at RMT... he may be the only person really listening and who understands what the hobby really needs.... and HE'S making it. Not MTH.

Kids 50 years ago didn't notice or care about scale proportion, rivet counts or chuff rates. And the kids today don't care either.
Parents 50 years ago were looking for value, compatability and afforability from a train set (which is why many bought MARX). Parents are still looking for the same thing today. I've talked to many hundreds if not thousands of parents and kids at train shows and not once did any kid or parent ever mention they wanted trains with scale proportion detail or digital control. The parents always liked my display for the exact reason that the trains were so simple with no added electronics - they like the nostalgia and lower price of those trains.... the idea of making things yourself .... the idea that the trains would become a family hobby.

Mike wants the hobby to grow? Start making smaller traditionally sized, compatable, affordable trains without all the extra electronics!!! And they need to be for sale where people with children will see them.

MTH has had years to prove to me they value me and want my patronage, but they absolutely REFUSE to make the kind of trains I, and thousands like me want! Instead of making Railking cars SMALLER as they NEED to be, they've now made the bigger. The Railking operating dump car is one very nice car - why didn't they make it SMALLER so more people could buy and run it???? The bigger you make the trains, the more you limit the numbers of people who can buy them. There is NO shortage of scale stuff these days, so why can't Railking be what it was originally advertised to be... "027" trains for the 027 operator.

So speaking for the thousands of people who bought Industrial Rail cars, MTH getting ownership of Lionel would be a disaster and you can't convince me otherwise. If MTH really cared, they would have already long made some affordable smaller 027 types of trains as they once said they would... and $180 for the Rugged Rails SD-90 MAC is too much. Price it at $120 or less (since it has far less in it than the previous RK version) and I might be interested.

[Anonymous]

Well, all I know is that MTH has saved the O gauge hobby from doom. If it wasn't for Mike Wolf, all of us would be running cheap MPC stuff with plastic trucks and no detail.
It's good that Tony Lash gives us the facts and not a lot of BS, like what you hear from Lionel. Industrial Rail bit the dust because they knew they couldn't compete against MTH Railking. Those RMT beeps are a fad, nothing more.

[brianel027]

Nope, sorry. Industrial Rail stopped production for personal reasons. And IR came first before Train-19 from K-Line and Rugged Rails from MTH. Industrial Rail products set the lead and the others followed in this particular case.

But you are right one one respect and I do give MTH credit for driving the hobby forward. And unlike some of the other companies, I do believe Mike Wolf loves the hobby and is himself a train guy and not just a CEO. I heard him speak once and it was obvious he was very excited about his products.

But as I said before, had he made more products like IR, I would probably own them. I do have much of what IR released and made though. And some in duplicate since IR was smart enough to re-release items with new and different road numbers.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by brianel027


But you are right one one respect and I do give MTH credit for driving the hobby forward. And unlike some of the other companies, I do believe Mike Wolf loves the hobby and is himself a train guy and not just a CEO. I heard him speak once and it was obvious he was very excited about his products.

Yes, that's why he should and will own Lionel.[:)]

[3railguy]

Brian, I agree with you. Some people wear purple shorts around here.

[GregM]

It wasn't until after Lionel stopped their US manufacturing that I started buying product from other companies. For years I just bought the trains and cars that I liked without regard to RR name, era or any thing else. If I liked it and could afford to buy it I did. It is only the last few years that I have based my purchasing on road name and other factors. I have bought a few Atlas cars, primarily the billboard reefers, along with a few regular freight cars and some of the spectacular H-21 hoppers. I bought three K-Line scale steam engines and a few freight cars. I think my next K-line purchase will be a set of PRR passenger cars. During this same time I have bought several Lionel items including steam and diesel engines , freight and passenger cars, and accessories. I may be in a minority, but Lionel's decision to stop domestic production actually opened the door to other companies for me. If the K-line engines didn't have TMCC I would not have bought them. I have a few Weaver freight cars and will buy more from them if they make products that fit my new focus and I like them.

As for Mike Wolf gaining ownership of Lionel, that may be what some people want but I am not one of them.

[Anonymous]

BRIANEL
the reason that many Rugged Rails cars look like Industrial Rail is that MTH bought the Industrial Rail tooling.

[RI Jim]

As much I like MTH's product (and I've bought plenty), I believe that the O gauge hobby will suffer if Mike Wolf ended up owning Lionel. It is only because of Mike Wolf's competitiveness that Lionel committed the resources necessary to produce new tooling so that we can buy the wonderful detailed, Hi Rail trains that we enjoy today. If it weren't for MTH, Lionel would still be rerunning the same old tired PW retreads, and I would have gotten out of O gauge long ago.

Competition is good. Enjoy your trains!

[3railguy]

I agree with RI Jim on competition. Weaver, Willimas, QSI, and Lionel started the hi rail trend in the late 80's and early 90's. In those days, postwar style trains were what people wanted and hi rail was not in great demand. As the ranks of baby boomers who grew up with HO, wanting scale, joined the O gauge arena the demand for hi rail increased. MTH was formed and took it one step further. Soon Atlas set a new mark for finer scale fidelity. Lionel soon followed along with K-Line and now MTH is catching up and refining detail. This is competition raising the bar. Had it not been for Atlas detail and Lionel TMCC, MTH engines would probably still use PS-1 boards and have the detail cast in.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by johnblair
the reason that many Rugged Rails cars look like Industrial Rail is that MTH bought the Industrial Rail tooling.

I believe you're wrong about that. Horizon--a growing force in the hobby world--bought Industrial Rails.

[csxt30]

If Horizon Hobby is entering the 3 rail picture, that should be great ! I watched that CO. grow in the Model RC planes & other offerings & they have played a big part in making the R/C hobby grow to what it is today & as big as it is. I've seen them send a customer back a whole new plane kit if there was 1 little thing wrong with it. They have great service & their products are top notch. I hope they are entering the train hobby ! Thanks, John

[3railguy]

Allan is correct. horizon bought Industrial Rail. It's possible MTH bought some of tooling but I wouldn't know. John makes a good point. Athearn under the Horizon ownership is bringing out dynamite N scale rolling stock.

[brianel027]

Thanks guys... I'd say John Blair was wrong too. I have followed Industrial Rail product from square one. I can't quite determine the exact date (from going though my MTH catalogs) but I'd guess Rugged Rails was introduced in late 2000 or early 2001.

Industrial Rail was still going at that time, and introducing new products that I also bought at that time. I did a comparison of some Industrial Rail product versus Rugged Rails: YES it is VERY similar. Almost right on in size of the tank car and gondolas. But there are also subtle big differences. I can't see how MTH would buy the tooling from another company and then spend more money to make changes in the product that don't really change the product. Unfortunately (and the MTH guys won't like this) it appears the the Rugged Rails designs were borrowed from IR.

If someone has more solid information on this, I'd love to know. Also given the broad success of the Industrial Rail products, it puzzles my mind (if MTH did have the dies) why they haven't released more products. I know dealers who had a hard time keeping the IR products on the shelves because they sold so well. Why wouldn't MTH want to get in on a sure thing if they really did own the tooling. None of this makes any sense to me.

I stick with what I have heard before from good sources, and that is that Train-19 and Rugged Rails were introduced solely because of the big success of Industrial Rail products.

Now if someone wants to accurately correct me, here is what I have heard in several places: that the owners of the IR product line (originally United Model Distributors, also a wholesale operation) wanted to retire. It was because UMD were also distributors having the IR cars made for them, that they could offer such attractive wholesale levels (beating Lionel, K-Line and MTH) so discounts could be offered and even small dealers could make money on IR products. Needless to say, small dealers I have spoken to in the past loved the IR products and pushed it heavily because they could make more money selling one single IR car than 2 or 3 Lionel, K-Line or MTH cars.

Hobbico picked up the IR line with some rumors that they might expand. It seems there was a last large run of the IR cars under UMD or Hobbico. Either way, Hobbico's main job was to continue selling the remaining inventory. I worte the company several times as to the status of the IR line and never heard back. Last year there was some talk that Conoco (or something like that) was picking up the Industrial Rail line, but I heard nothing but talk of it.

If Horizon has the IR line, that's good and I hope they recognize that inpite of what appears to be a glutted 3-rail train market, there is ABSOLUTELY room for the IR line of cars, especially if they continue the UMD method of releasing cars in other modern roadnames like NS, BNSF, CSX, CNA, CPA and continue to change road numbers of cars being released.

Hard to believe, but NO ONE but Industrial Rail has made a TRADITIONALLY sized 027 box car in either NS or BNSF... I own a bunch of both. Gee, if Lionel, K-Line or MTH had seen fit years ago to offer roadnames other than NYC and PRR - I might have bought their versions instead. Modern roadnames DO SELL! But the price needs to be right too, and the IR products were a very good value.

The IR box cars even had plastic frames. But they were solid, well designed and well made... Lionel could stand to take a lesson from IR.

While the other companies step all over eachother with more scale, more expensive more hi-tech offerings and with legal wrangling - I and others I know view the Industrial Rail product line as a blessing to us 027 modelers who have pretty much been ignored. I also predict the RMT Beep and other RMT product is more than just a fad. Again, this is an end of the market that has been overlooked for too long. The Beep is a GREAT value, a GOOD runner, easily improved to digital control for those who choose, and available in roadnames other than the same old same old postwar worn out boring NYC and PRR.

[Bob Keller]

The last several Chicago Hobby Shows I've been to the only Industrial Rail products I've seen at the Horizon booth were the trolley cars.

I was at York last fall, but the guys from the magazine who went said they didn't even see those. I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't expect to see much of anything from them in the near future in O/O27 – the market is still pretty clogged, and as mentioned, many brands already have low cost entries in the marketplace.

That's one reason I salute Atlas O for trying the Trainman line.

[Anonymous]

As I recall, Horizon doesn't list any of the IR stuff on their website. They do have a "trains" section with model and toy trains in viarious scales, but at not-very-attractive prices, to be sure. I checked their Z scale offerings, just because I'm always shopping for more Z scale items, but everything there was listed as "out of stock." I wouldn't have been interested in buying at those prices in any event, but why even list the scale if you don't have anything to sell?

IR was not among the lines listed in any scale.

My guess is, as Bob noted, that they recognize the tremendous glut of product on O/O27 that's already out there, and are not willing to invest in new production that would likely only contribute to that glut. Probably a very wise move on their part. In sum: I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for newly released IR products from Horizon. I like O27-size stuff, but I'll just stick with the traditional-size offerings from Lionel and K-Line, and keep a tight hold on the 10 or so IR log cars that I currently have.

[3railguy]

QUOTE: That's one reason I salute Atlas O for trying the Trainman line.

I am excited about the Trainboy Line in O gauge. Scale models with Railking like detailing at attractive prices. The non command/sounds engines will be simple and reliable like Williams and affordable. The RSD-5 is sure to be a hit and an ESPEE black widow will really be something. Maybe Atlas will do an SW-1 in the Trainboy line.