Does Lionel BTO mean its guaranteed to be built however many the orders?

Absolutely!!

BigRail posted:

The only reason I am asking is I have a feeling some BTO items in the latest Lionel catalog are not going to bring in a lot of orders.  I think there are some great things being offered overall and am placing some orders myself but this is the first catalog that I didn't get a real warm and fuzzy feeling.  So without going into complaints about the prices (I do agree that some items seem pretty high for what they are and I don't normally say that) is it possible that some items listed as BTO could get cancelled?

Contact Lionel.  I doubt it.  If they had 10 orders it would be cost prohibitive so I suspect they would just cancel it.  I suspect there is a minimum order.

BTO really means build to reservations, if a catalog item does not get sufficient reservations it will not go into production. Atlas more recently has sometimes cancelled certain road names from their repainted reruns but the model still gets built if there are sufficient orders for the remaining road names.

I would guess the minimum number of orders for them to produce an item would be at least 50 units for engines and 100 units for rolling stock. This is just a WAG on my part, I have no idea of Lionel's manufacture/shipping costs. If they don't have enough orders for them to make a reasonable profit they will cancel the item.

Yep - BTO (which really always exists in all manufacturing, formally or not, and current or not - didn't get enough orders last year for X? Don't build any X this year) means just that - no meaningful order level, no build at all. Certainly dealers will order for their inventory, but that puts the financial outlay on them and not Lionel. There are too many NIB "BTO" locos on eBay for this to not be the case.

I have pre-ordered (Legacy Station) the Lionel Pre-War style scale S-2 electric set. I have hope, but also doubts, about its production. Fingers crossed. I would like them to build "mine" regardless of the order level, but that would just not be rational behavior.

There are no guarantees in life.  The only thing you have going for you with Lionel BTO is the fact that Lionel's dealer network is still a big one.  And many of those dealers -- especially the larger ones -- order BTO "extra's", a practice which has the potential to hit/exceed whatever production minimums Lionel has established for a given type product -- even if "actual consumer pre-orders" don't make the cut.

A growing number of us are waiting out the pre-order period to see what Lionel actually delivers, since their recent BTO products "actually delivered" have varied a bit from what was catalog'd... the NYC ESE Hudsons (driver/wheel configurations), and the less-than-true-Legacy 0-8-0 switcher locomotives being two prime examples.  So Lionel's big dealers are doing us all a favor by ordering BTO extra's. 

David

Have there been any BTO's items cancelled to date?

Charlie

So far, none of the Lionel big steam and diesel have been cancelled since the beginning of BTO in 2014. Whether it's good or not, I'm not expecting any of the 2017 BTO items to get cancelled either.

The last items I saw that did cancelled (in the higher end line at least) were the scale NW-2's and Amtrak Acela in 2012.

I had believed BTO was for getting an engine in a road name that was not very popular giving you a better chance to get it. I do not know what a minimum number would be to have it canceled. My point a few years back Lionel did a South Buffalo Railway switcher in two road numbers. I got the two. It was a small railroad in Buffalo, New York so that it may not have been known around the country. So my thought was that it would get done no matter what the number that was ordered. But then again they may have been enough orders in the other road names to justify the South Buffalo..................Paul

Lionel back when stated that the BTO purpose was to reduce the minimum number required (at a compensating higher price) but not eliminate some minimum requirement.