Walthers and Life Like -- a new perspective

[dknelson]

The Milwaukiee Business Journal just printed an article on William K Walthers' acquisition of Life Like that puts it into an entirely new perspective for me.
A number of posts have speculated on what this means for model railroaders to have Walthers now be the source of Proto 2000 and Proto 1000 trains, as well as the cheaper Life Like line of trains
But this article makes it clear that the real impact of the acquisition is that rather suddenly Walthers becomes a major supplier of slot car race sets to Wal Mart as well as other lines of toys and cars, with model trains actually being rather secondary in the bigger picture.
It also says that Life Like wanted to sell its train and car and toy divisions so it could concentrate on its profitable foam cooler business (!! -- who knew?).
The article says that Walthers is going to find it a real challenge to keep Wal Mart supplied with so many toys. Trains are trivial compared to this kind of volume.

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2005/08/29/newscolumn1.html?jst=cn_cn_lk

Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

No offense,

But his is old news.

James

[Anonymous]

There's lot of us that missed out on the first release. We are not as well connected.

Thanks Dave.

[Eriediamond]

QUOTE: Originally posted by locomotive3

There's lot of us that missed out on the first release. We are not as well connected.

Thanks Dave.

[#ditto] Your post helps me understand whats going on with Walthers. We live so far back in the woods here that we depend on the squirels to get some things to us and they haven't been too reliable lately. Guess they're busy getting nuts stored for winter. Ken

[simon1966]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Student of Big Sky Blue

No offense,

But his is old news.

James

No offense James, but if posting to this forum was limited to news that had neved been posted, or questions that had never been asked before, it would have died years ago.

[cacole]

I noticed that in the October 2005 issue of Model Railroader, LifeLike trains are being advertised more heavily after the Walters acquisition than previously. There are 3 full-page advertisements for LifeLike now -- one for Proto 1000, one for Proto 2000, and one for Proto 2000 Heritage products. I don't recall ever seeing that much visibility for LifeLike in the past.

[bogp40]

I just hope that after the dust settles, that Lifelike/ Proto will continue with thier great customer service as I come to appreciate.
Bob K.