Many of us are well aware of Broadway Limited's and MIke's Train House's lawsuits over the years. What I don't understand is why Factory Direct Trains (which is BLI owner's brother's co.) sells MTH product also. If these guys seem to hate each other so much in court why do they do business together to this day? Anyone know what the story is there?
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
I would seem that Joe/FDT orginally sold mostly BLI deals to blowout models on BLI shelves. After the discounted products from the PCM era flooded the market, many other LHS including my own would not stock any of the BLI/PCM items. I purchased several great bargains from FDT in that era and the products were shipped directly from BLI. I don't believe that is not the case any longer and FDT sells any product line including MTH to the public at a very small discounted rate.
The big so called lay suit was really against the Korean brass builder that PCM/BLI was using and the tooling was really owned by the Korean manufacturer. Later on, MTH went after BLI for the chuffing smoke unit but that did not really pan out so well.
If you notice the products that each company produces, MTH and BLI both are still in a major competition for PRR models. It seems like every time a new PRR product is announced by BLI, MTH does that one also. It seems to me it all started with the first run of the PRR K4 and has escalated from that point.
The settlement release below explains how PCM/BLI was involved by the Korean manufacturer.
CZ
SETTLEMENT COMPLETED
ORMOND BEACH, Fla. AUGUST 15, 2008 -- Broadway Limited is pleased to learn of the settlement of a long-running lawsuit between its primary manufacturer, Model Korea Trading Company and Mike’s Train House (MTH). While Broadway Limited was not directly involved in the suit, the company cooperated with the settlement to ensure the financial health of its supplier. As part of the settlement, Broadway Limited delivered 5 sets of tools for some of its older products to its manufacturer in exchange for 5 new tools to be delivered at a future date. The rest of these is the HO Pennsy I1sa, which will be delivered next month.
“We are never pleased to lose old tooling, but we felt we had sold as many of these products as the market wanted, and we are excited at the opportunity to have 5 sets of new tools at no additional cost.“ said Bob Grubba, Broadway Limited’s president and owner. “From our manufacturer’s perspective, I am sure they are thrilled to settle the long running legal dispute and will now concentrate on supplying Broadway Limited with new products and tooling.“ The tools involved are the HO Union Pacific Big Boy, HO Pennsylvania GG-1 electric, HO Alco PA and FA diesel and HO EMD F3/F7 diesel. Broadway Limited will no longer produce products made with these old tools, but would not rule out creating updated versions of these products in the future. No other products are affected.
Thank you very much, CZ. Very informative. Appreciate the specifics concerning the suit.
Jim