Just what we need!!

[Dave Farquhar]

As others have said, video games are marketed well. Toy trains... Not as well, to put it politely.

I don't know how many people know this, but video games actually crashed really hard, like Lionel and American Flyer did in the '60s. Maybe harder, because Gilbert hung on until 1967 and Lionel held on until 1969. Atari and Coleco were on top of the world in 1982, and then, in 1984, they couldn't do anything right and they had to practically give their systems away. Atari's parent company sold them off, and Coleco pulled out of the market to concentrate on its other products, but was mortally wounded and went under quickly. Nintendo learned from their mistakes, took a chance (and if you disassemble that original Nintendo NES and look around, you can see the lengths they went to in order to make their console look and feel different in every possible way) and they struck gold. They've had their ups and downs since, but every company that has entered that arena (Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft) has learned from their mistakes and the mistakes of others. There've been a lot of mistakes, but look how widespread the product is... They sure have learned how to market their stuff. I don't think I can travel five minutes in any direction without running into at least one place where the stuff is sold.

Someone here talked about using a coupon to get a Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer set for $130. And that got me thinking that while that set appears to be a good value at $199 retail, couldn't Lionel do something for even less? Whatever happened to the $39 K-Line battery locomotive? What if Lionel took it in that direction, with remote control, added sound and stuff, bundled that locomotive with a few cars and a loop of track, and just got rid of the transformer completely? Couldn't something like that sell for $150 and yet offer all the capability of even the $400 sets? That's another video game lesson--sometimes you need backward compatibility with your old stuff, but backward compatibility with the old stuff comes at a price, and sometimes that can hold you back as much as it helps you. Can't Lionel sell one product line to people who want to use their Postwar ZW, and another line to people who don't have a clue what a ZW is but they already know how to insert batteries and operate a controller?

On the plus side, when I was at Kmart the other day, I saw the Lionel name on a line of wooden trains painted in prototypical paint schemes. I'm sure they're not made by Lionel and it's just someone else licensing the name, but that gets the Lionel brand in front of kids. Lionel isn't the first to do it--there's a company here in St. Louis that's been doing it for several years--but Lionel has the name recognition. I don't know how much Lionel is making off this venture, but it's low risk with a high upside. Eventually some of the kids who graduated from Thomas sets to wooden Lionels are going to want an electric train that runs on metal rails. (And on the back of the package is a picture of the comparable Lionel O gauge product, sitting on a piece of Fastrack!) No matter what Lionel makes off the wooden train venture, it found a cheap way to scream out to a lot of people that it's still out there.

The funny thing is, if you visit video game discussion boards, every month or two someone there starts moaning about how their hobby has peaked, it needs fresh blood, whatever. I could take a post from there or here and do a find and replace, changing "Lionel" to "Nintendo" and "train" to "console" or vice-versa, and they'd be totally interchangeable.

I don't think either is going away any time soon, but I'm pretty sure I know which one's always going to be bigger.

[3railguy]

More darned videogames comin out!!!! That infernal Nintendo Wii is comin out tomorrow, and that is just what we need, something new to come along and lessen the ranks of those loyal or potentially loyal to this hobby! video games!!!!!

Well then, log off your computer and run some trains.

[Ole Timer]

One comment ... about the $400.00 engine . Some buy many engines with low detail and some of us would rather put more into less amounts for complete realism. I have to say most Lionel steam loco's had poor realistic details . The diesels were 500 % better . It's all in what one wants . My brother-in-law has bucu engines .. lousey detail. I have since sold off all my plastic and HO and am going to O scale metal. And yes I'll detail the heck out of them even though they won't be original as he says but I'll be dead before they get sold and won't care.

[brianel027]

"More, We want more!"

Pingo Dave, you made my point. And it's never enough, is it??? As illustrated by postings on the other forum speculating what HAD BETTER be in the next train catalog, when the products from the current catalog have yet to be shipped.

Not to get everyone's shorts in a dither, but I've had a pretty exceptionally hard life, including losing everything, and more than once. So by means of "the hard way" I've learned "more" does not necessarily equate to happiness.

And I know without a shadow of a doubt, I have as much fun with my altered, non-collectible low-end affordable trains as anyone else does with their more costly ones. And I know if I had $400 to drop on a single train locomotive (which I don't!), I could probably find better uses for the money that would touch other people's lives, and still have a little left over for some kind of train thing for me.

Thank goodness for Lionel and MTH though, with their empahsis on expensive high end, that not everyone in the hobby feels the way I do.

Sometimes, less is actually more, even if it doesn't look that way.

[FJ and G]

Today I was reading about some of the technology that goes into the Playstation 3. It is phenominal. There's a mini motion detector used in guided missles and a bunch of other stuff.

TOO BAD, we can't apply more of that technology to our toy trains. Well, we do have command control and other stuff we never had as kids, but still...

More. We want more!

[msacco]

I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. Could it help connect kids with starter sets back to the trains or do the opposite?

 

Mike S.

[RR Redneck]

I like Lionel under the tree, on my back(shirts), on my head(caps), in my hands(trains), and on tv, but when I see it on a video game, that is when I start to get  worried and disappointed at the same time.

[msacco]

Well here's a different take on the video game thing. Looks like Jerry figures if he can't beat 'em, then join 'em.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5156388

    Just another example of Lionel everywhere this holiday season.

 

Mike .S.

[RR Redneck]

Well I couldn't agree more with you on the point about the scale models. I honestly thing that Lionel needs to go back to it's roots and start producin mor afordable models for the beginners and the average modeler. As for me, as long as it dont look too terribly toyish (like the new Lionel christmas train), then chances are I am more than willin to buy it.

[brianel027]

Well Red, this has been talked about before and there are reasons too numerous to mention in a moment or two: advertising (video companies advertise, train makers do not), availability (video games are sold everywhere, trains are not). And now that we have Lionel making an aggressive effort to get trains sets in department stores, I read the sickening comments on the other forum from guys who are now afraid that Lionel will put less effort into making the scale trains THEY want! Gimme a break! Makes me wonder who the real children really are???

Another thought... In all my years back in the hobby I have yet to personally know of or read about even one kid who has his very own command control layout. I do know of kids and have read about kids who are very good at using command control. BUT it is always on DAD's layout, not their own. I mean, how many working class families can afford to drop $400 on the control system and another $400 on the locomotive. Not many I know of.

Trains were at one time for kids. Now the market for those trains are the very same adults who once played with trains when they were kids. The minute we mention making effort into making products for the youth/beginner market, these adults starting whinning like the children they once were (and truth be told, still are!).

Maury Klein had it right in the K-Line catalog with the illustration of the two kids asking "Dad, can we run our train on YOUR layout?" Hmmmm, I never had to ask permission to play with MY trains on MY layout when I was a kid.

Sometimes the attitude of the hobby today and the way it is reminds me of that saying "we have met the enemy and the enemy is us." And until the adults of this hobby actually grow up and allow the train companies to make and market TOY trains, video games will continue to be more popular. I don't know many kids who have to ask permission to play with their video games... the games aren't their father's.... they belong to the kids.... unlike the trains.

[RR Redneck]

That may be the case over there, but in Texas, I am hard pressed to find anyone to go campin or huntin with me when I acutually want to take someone with me. They would rather play their video games. Gee, I wonder why lisence sales have been on a steady decline in Texas. (cough) Nintendo (cough).

[FJ and G]

Playstation 3 = kids camping out all night until doors open

York = adults camping out all night until doors open

[fifedog]

Easy Red.

Having been a kid of the 70's, I've seen PONG, ATARI, NINTENDO, Super NINTENDO, NINTENDO 64, PLAYSTATION, PLAYSTATIO 2, GAME CUBE, and had plinked untold quarters into video arcade and pinball machines.

These systems have all come and gone, but there has always been one constant....(NO, not baseball James Earl Jones....)

Trains.

[RR Redneck]

More darned videogames comin out!!!! That infernal Nintendo Wii is comin out tomorrow, and that is just what we need, something new to come along and lessen the ranks of those loyal or potentially loyal to this hobby! video games!!!!!