What Would JLC say about Today's Trains and the Hobby

I think he would be pleased that trains still branded using his name are still being made, and would very well be quite impressed with the innovation of technology especially involving command control and sound, lighting, and smoke effects.

What I think may displease him, however, is that the original company that he founded that made it all happen (Lionel Corporation) divested itself of the train line in 1969 and now no longer exists, and instead was reincarnated by different companies.  Don't think he'd be particularly pleased with the fact they are no longer being largely made domestically either, and he may take issue with existing QC and long-term reliability of today's products.  But in spite of that, I think he would be pleased to know the hobby has not completely died off and a market still exists,  both for modern as well as pre- and postwar products.

He would be impressed with the trains but not the fact they were made in China with no quality control.He was proud of what his company made.

I think he would be impressed with the technology we have available today and the way it's used in the trains. Quality he might be a little disappointed with, although I have only had a couple of issues with quality on recent Lionel products. The QC may be improving? 

As for his thoughts on made in China as far as costs go, I am guessing he might be ok with that, at least to some extent. I am reading a book about the history of JLC and Lionel right now. For about 3 months or so in 1922, JLC and Mario Caruso (the #2 man in Lionel, who ran the entire factory) went to Mario's native area in Italy to set up shop and start making the tooling. The tool & die makers in Italy worked for much less than they did here.

However, there is some contradiction of thought in some of this because when there were downturns in sales and when the depression hit he did not want to cut the wages of any of his workers. The book says they had some meetings about lowering wages and had set a date to do so. When the date came they postponed it, then another date and another postponement. That is about where I am in the book right now, but it doesn't sound like the cut in wages ever happened.

One way they avoided the pay cuts was by JLC and Caruso taking several substantial pay cuts, JLC's salary was lowered by about 75% or more from $60,000/yr to $12,750/yr or something near that. After the pay cutting during the onset of the depression they were both drawing the same salary. This seems to indicate he believed in paying a fair wage to his workers and thought they were worth it. He may have very well been divided in his thoughts about all this foreign manufacturing? Of course this is all guess work as we will never know his actual thoughts about the trains being overseas.

What Would JLC say about Today's Trains and the Hobby?

"Why are you only selling trains to old men?  Don't you understand that if you keep doing that, the business will be gone in 20-25 years?

In my day, we did things like painting trains in bright, non-prototypical colors because we knew the mothers bought most of the Christmas gifts.  Why did you stop marketing to the mothers buying for their kids?"

I suspect he would be trying to keep his company successful in every way possible. He would be accepting of having production in China if that's how he could maximize profits.

He would be doing everything he could to take good care of his shareholders and keep costs as low as possible while still producing an acceptable quality product.

In short, JLC was a businessman, not a train collector, and would do whatever he felt was best for his company.

Very interesting question, Erol. I believe he would be very impressed that the product he created is alive and well today. Sure, it is not the same company he founded, but going back that many years, few are.

Taken as a whole, he would be delighted with all of the new features and probably give folks like Mike Reagan and Howard Hitchcock a pat on the back for making great new strides in our hobby.

One way they avoided the pay cuts was by JLC and Caruso taking several substantial pay cuts, JLC's salary was lowered by about 75% or more from $60,000/yr to $12,750/yr or something near that. After the pay cutting during the onset of the depression they were both drawing the same salary. This seems to indicate he believed in paying a fair wage to his workers and thought they were worth it.

That's refreshing.  Contrast that with the current CEO of a large merchandising company, not particularly profitable, who got a raise to $52M per year, while 1000+ employees were being laid off.

How many railroads, locomotive manufacturers and rail car manufacturers have gone out of business?  Lionel and MTH probably would be defunct if they didn't cater to old men.

What, me worry?

And the CEO is probably the main cause of the merchandising company's being not particularly profitable problem. I seriously doubt the 1,000+ laid off employees had anything to do with the lack of profit, most likely poor decisions from the top, where the raises go. I worked for a very large company for many years...and people think the government wastes money???

From the above, the $12,750 was from memory, I didn't check. Could have been $12,500 or $12,250, but it was $12,000 something? The $60,000 I do remember though. Also if I remember correctly, they were still the two main shareholders at the time and got dividends. That is if there was a profit that year. They did have a couple of losing years during that time. In any event it was still an extremely nice thing for them to do and almost unheard of today.  

The JLC/Lionel story has been very interesting so far, only about half way through it, still more to finish. Can't recall the exact title, but it was originally published in 1981, I believe. JLC was also quite a salesman, he really believed in his product though.

What would he say about the hobby?

"Where the heck did all these purple boxes come from??"

Wow!

-Pete

An oldy but a goody...

Jerry

Joshua would say:

1)Why did we make so many identical, confusing to the consumer, semi-scale steam switchers?

2)Why did some guy from Yonkers, NY make a website for these very same semi-scale steam switchers?

3)What is a website? 

Tom

"Why are all you old guys playing with the Trains?? Where's the business plan to get the kids into Lionel? Lets mass market all  this tech stuff"!

"OMG! What have I done???"

Rusty

JLC was born during the Victorian period, and was a 19th century man.  He could no more make much sense about today's world than anyone born in the 20th century is going to make of the world in 2085.  We all are very narcissistic and wedded to the world of our youth and young adulthood.  Try to imagine the  world of 2085.  Much of the coast of some nations is uninhabitable as sea level rises.  Who knows what that's going to mean?  Cheap solar energy may make economies transformed and living in remote areas feasible, not to mention growing food possible in areas where it isn't at present.  You won't be able to drive your own car because robotic vehicles will make the 30,000+ deaths each year a bad memory and the unreliable wetware (us) behind the wheel will be gone.  Transportation will be transformed.  Very few people will die of infectious diseases (even fewer than today), and the average life expectancy will probably be around 85-90 for children born today.  Toy trains?  Perhaps you'll be able to order up your own from robotic factories? 

In short, it would take years for JLC, if he were reincarnated intact, to make any sense of life in the 21st century.  He was born 30-40 years before the automobile caught on .

I doubt he'd give a hoot about MTH or Mike Wolf, as he had AC Gilbert and Marx to compete with. 

He would say, "why are you all still playing with trains when you have all these cool video games!  Now leave me alone while I go post on facebook, text some friends, and play candy crush on my iphone."

Since he was proud of Lionel,  he will be impressed with the Vision Line products.

Wow, Would JLC Roll over in his Grave if???? Probably, With A Happy Smile.  I personally think he Would Be Very Proud of how his Dream, became a Vision, to add to his Legacy! The name LIONEL is Alive and well. Yes, we Ole Folks are Having Fun with every aspect of the Product Line, Pre-War, Post War, Modern Era, High Tech, Really Hi Tech, or Simply Collecting What We Always Wanted as Kids.....The Real Heroes are, The folks keeping The Hobby Alive....JLC Would be Proud of Them.....We should be to....Lets Run our Trains.

LOL!!

He should be happy with the top end people running the company today.

One thing for sure he would notice, is the way trains are marketed and the changes in that market. 

Lionel's catalogs always put great emphasis on trains being made for boys: The son got the train set and the father helped set-up, build and enjoy the train layout. I know personally, when I was a kid, it was MY Lionel train layout, not my dad's.

Today, it's the complete opposite. The primary customers are now those one-time boys who are now grown-ups. And one thing I notice, even from reading here, is that guys who do have sons, the train layout is almost always dad's layout!

Today the kids get to run their trains on dad's layout... and not the other way around as it once was.

Mr. Cowen retired and sold all his stock in the company. Since the company has since disappeared, I am sure he'd be glad he did.
As for the currently made Lionel trains, I imagine he'd be pleased to see that they were still being made, but that would be about the end of it. According to everything I've read, Mr. Cowen was engaged, and proud of his company, but he did not have trains at home.
I think folks like Lenny Dean and Frank Petite (probably spelled wrong) would be fairly excited to see how the trains have evolved.

While Joshua Cowan was an inventor and a businessman he was also a philanthropist. He ran his business well, and cared about his employees as though they were his family. There was a factory cafeteria (where they served reasonable priced food) , free medical and dental offices.  All employees received company paid medical care, equal vacation and got a Christmas time bonus based on profitability of the corporation. If they chose that path, Josh gave everyone the opportunity to have a vertical path to success . Josh made millions but he still put Americans to work and cared about people. If you did your job well, you were rewarded for it.

I believe that he would be very upset seeing his name used on Chinese products made 100% by foreign labor. Today's Lionel is an importer controlled by Wall street financiers that care about PROFIT only. They could care less about people. There is nothing in common about today's Lionel LLC vs Josh Cowan's family business.

I think

- He would be astonished to see that a huge portion  of people buying and using his trains are old enough to be able to spend some of their social security $$$  on them as opposed to paying for them with their weekly allowance money from mom and dad.

- He would be very happy his vision has continued on with the "new" Lionel, it's management, technical expertise and broad range of products.

- He would not have liked the trains being made in China, but would recognize the necessity for doing so. 

- He would have asked his new product team "hmmmm, tell me more about this Acela train idea"

- He would be asking "what is it with people's fetish about having their teamers generating so much smoke"

- Lastly, he would be calling Lew at Madison Hardware saying "I think your going to need a bigger store"

All in all I think he would be very, very proud that his vision has continued and progressed to the level it is today.

Ed

One thing I've seen from learning more about Lionel history is that the company was always in other areas besides trains. Slot cars, stuffed animals, record players, US Navy items, etc. It gave the company a presence and diversity that helped with growth and profitability. I think he'd be disappointed the current company is basically a one-trick pony (the NASCAR models notwithstanding) that fails to market to kids.

I don't think that it is just failing to market to kids, but that it is failing to market to the general public at large.

JLC was a marketing genius, and I think that his best idea was to promote his product as a holiday tradition.  After all, how many of us grew up with trains around the tree?  I certainly did, and my father did, as well.  This planted the seeds that later became a full blown hobby for many of us.

Everyone says that we need more kids to get in the hobby, but what they fail to realize or acknowledge is that without parental involvement, kids will be severely limited in their ability to get involved and participate.  Without parental involvement, any interest their kids have will eventually wither as they move on to activities that are easier for them (i.e. video games).

If I were in charge of marketing for Lionel, I would go back to JLC's strategy and promote the trains as an American holiday tradition (now they can claim it as a 115 year old tradition).  And the way I would do it would be to take out full-page ads in the top two nationally distributed family-oriented magazines for the issues released in the October and November months.  TV ads would probably be way out of reach, budget-wise, but if they could get commercials run during holiday specials, especially for ones where they have licenses, like Peanuts and Polar Express, then it might pay off.

Andy

quote:

One thing I've seen from learning more about Lionel history is that the company was always in other areas besides trains. Slot cars, stuffed animals, record players, US Navy items, etc. It gave the company a presence and diversity that helped with growth and profitability. I think he'd be disappointed the current company is basically a one-trick pony (the NASCAR models notwithstanding) that fails to market to kids.

First I've heard that Lionel made stuffed animals.

There was a record player with a talking teddy bear, but I am not aware of any other items.

The Lionel HO slot cars were a knock-off of what Atlas was making, but there are differences. For a long time I thought Lionel was having Atlas make their track, but then I had the opportunity to examine a Lionel factory arbor press that was used to assemble the terminal tracks.