I don’t really have a dog in this fight, but I do think that having another manufacturer on the entry level can’t hurt. Competition drives one of two things, differentiation, a unique offering. Or innovation, ways to make things at a lower cost to increase margin.
Asking a sub-200 dollar locomotive to support one of the more sophisticated control systems is probably unrealistic at this point. Maybe once Menards gets some wind in their sails we may see something like that. If I were them, I would team up with BlueRail or one of the DCC decoder folks and just make a simple plug and play connection for one of those control systems. Athearn did this in their early DCC-ready Genesis series locomotives.
It could still support the included remote in the absence of a decoder. This way they can keep the unit cost low for entry level folks, and offer an “upgrade” path for people that get more into it.
On the topic of what “makes Lionel money” (or MTH for that matter) I suspect that the margins are simply thinner on some items and padded a bit on others. I highly doubt they are selling Legacy and Vision Line locomotives at a loss. Economies of scale probably allow a bit more profit to be made compared to just selling high-end items or just selling entry level sets. In fact it’s this product line diversity that often leads to a healthier company.
But let’s not forget, Scott Mann is making only high-end stuff, and while I don’t imagine he’s got a house like Bill Gates, I also doubt he’s not taking a salary of some sort. So there is at least some money to be made.
But congrats to Menards on a new product that some said would never get made!
