Lionel Takeover of K-Line is Announced

[Warburton]

Lionel has posted the announcement on it's website (lionel.com). Click on "Newstand" to read the details in a letter from Jerry Calebrese.

[brianel027]

This is the second time Lionel has made reference to incorporating K-Line products into the LionMaster line, so sounds to me like some of those who liked the more recent scale oreinted K-Line offerings won't be let down.

On the other hand, K-Line more or less completely forgot about the very customers who got them started in the first place... with the very products that started giving Lionel a run for the money: do a comparison of Lionel versus K-Line catalogs from the early 1990's and see how K-Line forced Lionel into putting more quality into their starter sets.

Whether Lionel also chooses to ignore the customers who got K-Line started is another matter and time will tell.

[Buckeye Riveter]

http://www.lionel.com/CentralStation/newsStand/viewrelease.cfm?newsID=126

[Anonymous]

Yippee!! I think.

[overall]

There was a lot of discussion in the forum about the engines that had been sent to K-Line for repair. Mr Calabese says they have all been fixed and sent back to their owners.
Is this the experience of those of you reading this forum now?

George

[MartyE]

QUOTE: Originally posted by overall

There was a lot of discussion in the forum about the engines that had been sent to K-Line for repair. Mr Calabese says they have all been fixed and sent back to their owners.
Is this the experience of those of you reading this forum now?

George

I believe the more correct statement is most

[tdetmer]

What do we know (if anything yet) about the promised products from last year that never got shipped? I ordered an S gauge Plymouth engine (Milwaukee Road) and would love to get it. Any word on whether or not Lionel is going to deliver on those items?

Tom

[Anonymous]

Once again Jerry said that the K-Line Collectors Club products that will be made are the items that have been paid for already. So, apparently the items not yet charged to credit card will not be produced. That is one way to interpret the sentence.

It will be exciting to see how the competing ACF Center Flow Hoppers and Intermodal Cars are incorporated into the LionMaster Line.

[Anonymous]

I think MTH is the way to go.You get so much more quality for the same money.

[brianel027]

Duamau, without starting the usual purple versus orange flame war - you are right that MTH products are well made, no arguement there.

BUT they are NOT for everyone and NOT for me. Despite the more vocal voices to the contrary, the vast majority of modelers from everything I read and see are table-top non-scale, non-command traditional tubular track operators. In the past I have considered MTH products and they are just simply too big for my tastes, and I don't want to pay more for unwanted electronics that I will only have to rip out of the engine.

Most of the prior early release Railking diesels were also poorly condensed in size and proportion. I took drawings of a scale Dash-8, made another set to duplicate the Railking Dash-8 and then made a 3rd set of what I thought the loco should be. I showed the drawings to as many train guys as I could and my drawings were the winners 100%. The Railking diesels were mostly too tall, with the exceptions of the SD45 and the SD90MAC.

And the one line of MTH products that really interests me has been left to the side of the track so to speak. The Rugged Rails line is there but with little selection, variety or apparent interest.

Despite the on-line opinions to the opposite, there is a market for traditionally sized, non-command, affordable trains. Industrial Rail, Williams and RMT products prove this point very well. Nothing more be said.

If you like MTH, buy MTH. When MTH decides to make affordable NON-scale, NON-electronics loaded 027 trains at a price point where I am NOT paying for the product development and tooling for of the rest of the line, I too may have MTH on my layout. But not one single day sooner.

And that goes for Lionel too. And if Lionel only focuses on the higher end K-Line product, then they have entirely missed the whole point of how K-Line got started. When I got back into the hobby it was either K-Line or Lionel. And the choice was easy and it wasn't Lionel.

[Bob Keller]

Let's not bring the Orange vs Purple debate into a topic that is about Orange and Yellow, please.

[JeffPo]

brianel027, I'm with you. If I had the money, firstly, and the space, secondly, I'd certainly be buying the more fancy trains. But at this point, I'm working on the low end of the totem pole. In the letter, Lionel did say they want to offer more "quality mid-priced choices". I hope they don't forget about quality LOW-priced choices!

[Jumijo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JeffPo

brianel027, I'm with you. If I had the money, firstly, and the space, secondly, I'd certainly be buying the more fancy trains. But at this point, I'm working on the low end of the totem pole. In the letter, Lionel did say they want to offer more "quality mid-priced choices". I hope they don't forget about quality LOW-priced choices!

Amen, brutha! If RMT can do it, so can Lionel.

Jim

[FJ and G]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jaabat

QUOTE: Originally posted by JeffPo

brianel027, I'm with you. If I had the money, firstly, and the space, secondly, I'd certainly be buying the more fancy trains. But at this point, I'm working on the low end of the totem pole. In the letter, Lionel did say they want to offer more "quality mid-priced choices". I hope they don't forget about quality LOW-priced choices!

Amen, brutha! If RMT can do it, so can Lionel.

Jim

Off topic but with Atlas acquiring Industrial Rail, maybe Atlas's high prices might also come down to earth?

[BillP1]

"And if Lionel only focuses on the higher end K-Line product, then they have entirely missed the whole point of how K-Line got started."

As I understand the situation, Lionel only has ongoing access to those K-Line products for which Sanda Kan owns the tooling.

I think we've all seen some speculation that the tooling for the lower end products that got K-Line started are still owned by Mr. Kline, so Lionel might not have access to those K-Line products.

Of course, (I don't think) that would prevent Lionel from using it's own tooling to make similar products which they could market under the K-Line trademark.

------------------------------------- Bill

[FJ and G]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BillP1

"

As I understand the situation, Lionel only has ongoing access to those K-Line products for which Sanda Kan owns the tooling.


------------------------------------- Bill

Ahh, I hear that name uttered again!

[Bob Keller]

Re: Non SK controlled K-Line tooling: One of the earlier court docs discussed non-Sanda Kan controlled K-Line tooling, noting that Lionel could use contract for the production of the K-Line items by the "other" manufacturer, but that L would have to pay SK a royalty for the K-Line product. I'll have to check the terms under the final agreement when I get time.

[Anonymous]

Now that we have mentioned Lionel and K-Line again, here are observations.

One thing that Lionel could do is to use screws to fasten good quality Die-Cast Trucks on the Low End rolling stock for both K-Line and the Lionel Traditional Line.

The low end die-cast trucks that K-Line used in the middle 1990's have caused some easy derailments during operation.

The use of rivets to fasten plastic trucks to plastic cars is a bad idea, because if the trucks break, it is practially impossible to remove them cleanly.

Andrew F.