AF Berkshires

Well now we will see guys detailing and TMCC conversions of the Berks we have.

http://www.tuveson.com/Berk/burk.html

         

Carl

To confirm this I called Lionel.  Yes they are dead!!

Since I write for the S Gaugian I am going to do some calling to find out more.  My earlier call was to their help desk and I didn't talk with a decision maker.  I now have a call in to Ryan Kunkle to get more specifics.

Oh, well.  That's a pity.

Reallocating the money I set aside for mine to the GDD passenger cars.

Rusty

eBay was hosting a sudden spurt of Flyer Chief Berkshires for sale, and my guess was that the original owners had decided to upgrade to the Legacy version announced for this year and scheduled for delivery in December according to Lionel's shipping schedule. I suspect that there were a great many orders for the Legacy Berkshire. A finely detailed Legacy Berkshire for $500 MSRP was too good to be true, and apparently Lionel realized this some time ago; but, as with the mechanical reefer from a few years back, Lionel didn't think it important enough to notify customers who had ordered them. When the news for 2019 is a rerun of U33Cs reusing the original paint masks and changing only colors for a whopping $600 each, a $500 Legacy steam locomotive was too good a deal even if the orders were substantial.

Lionel should have had enough respect for the S scale community to either: 1) communicate that prices may have to be increased beyond what was advertised in their catalogue because of external influences or even a mistake in accounting, or 2) make some announcement that the production run may have to be cancelled because of lack of orders (if that were actually true). The worst thing they could have done was to announce before the expected delivery that they had cancelled the project months before, without notice. Lionel seems to make the worst choices.

Looks like I will be sending my FlyerChief Berkshire to Carl for upgrade.

I will be letting Ryan Kunkle know at the upcoming York meet my negative reaction to this decision. I also suspect that the uncertainty caused by the trade war played some part in this development.

Mike

this sucks!

i wonder what the order amounts were

I don't think we'll ever know how many preorders there were.  That's one of those nifty little secrets companies like to keep.

Are tariffs playing into this?  Maybe, but we haven't heard (at least not yet) of cancellations in the 3-rail O Scale line where prices were already much higher.

I'm going to speculate that the Berkshires were simply under-priced and they probably were going sell at a loss.

Looking at the CAD drawings previously posted by Ryan, it was pretty clear that the boiler was no mere modification of the FlyerChief Berk.  As I see it, the boiler and quite possibly the tender were going to need all new tooling, along with possibly some significant changes to the FlyerChief frame, assuming its reuse.  Add in tooling and labor for the added details, also.

This was going to be a Legacy model with detailing level coming close to or exceeding the Y3 and yet it was priced the same as the last run of FlyerChief Northerns, which display far less in detail and complexity.  We all were shocked and overjoyed by the $499.99 MSRP for the Berkshire, along with a couple of "I told you so's" thrown in. 

If Lionel were to announce the price would have to rise by 30%-40% to compensate for whatever, there would likely have been a flood of cancellations, to say nothing of nasty accusations of price gouging.  Realistically, the MSRP for the Berkshire should have been around 800-900 dollars.

As far as comparison's the the cancellation of the 57' mechanical reefers, the reefer cancellation announcement happened the day they were supposed to be delivered.  The Legacy Berks weren't due until December, so the decision to cancel doesn't appear last minute.

So, am I disappointed the Legacy Berk has been canceled?  Yes.  Am I going to worry further about it?  No.

Rusty

It doesn't bother me, I am going to upgrade my two Berks after retirement.  Grind off the handrails, a little custom paint, add some details.  I love them, why won't I?

I have communicated with Ryan via email.  His response is below.

While I am disappointed, I can understand the business decision. Let's hope that they can develop a new steam engine soon and have orders meet tooling and production costs.

_________________________________

Bill,

Got your message but don’t have time to return your call today. The Legacy Berk run was cancelled for the reasons outlined to the dealers. Tooling costs came in much higher than anticipated and when spread across the order numbers the cost of production was prohibitive. We’ve looked into other alternatives over the past several months and ultimately had to come to this decision.

Thank you,

Ryan

_________________

 No. This had nothing to do with tariffs. It is exactly what I said – too much tooling, too little orders.

This decision while disappointing was more likely predicated on too low an announced price (as described above) potentially exacerbated by low pre-orders along with a shrinking S market than anything.   Observe -- new box cars for $80 (are you kidding, but more evidence of supply and demand), an EXC condition large motor 313 is valued at $208 in the 2019 Greenberg guide while in 2013 it was $288 (a 28% decrease).  Imagine 5 years from now.  There are simply fewer S-gaugers now than there used to be and fewer still over the course of the foreseeable future.  Combine that with an increasing number of used trains going into the market and less new trains sales potential.  So I'm not surprised.     

Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for the scale people.  They clammered loudly for scale product and didn't support it enough to bring it to market.  Can't blame the manufacturers for that.

Francine posted:

Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for the scale people.  They clammered loudly for scale product and didn't support it enough to bring it to market.  Can't blame the manufacturers for that.

"Scale people" would want locomotives with code 110 wheels, or at least availability of conversion wheels.  Neither of those were promised or on the horizon for the Berkshire.  So, don't go blaming them.  Scale conversions of the Y3 (no longer available) was pretty much a one time deal by an outside third party.  Guys with code 100 track aren't going to buy a locomotive that won't run on their track.

BTW.  Where were all the Flyer people that wanted a Legacy steam locomotive?

What this doesn't bode well for is the possibility of any new Flyer steam from Lionel.

Rusty

Francine posted:

Unfortunately, this doesn't bode well for the scale people.  They clammered loudly for scale product and didn't support it enough to bring it to market.  Can't blame the manufacturers for that.

I don't believe they offered it in a scale version. Hi-rail only.

My opinion is if Lionel had priced the Legacy Berks between $700 and $900 retail they may have made it to production.

I wrote Ryan one last question asking if the project would be revisited in the future.  His answer was long, but my feeling was he was saying not likely.  I even suggested the price was low.  It seems they have tried reintroducing a cancelled product and the results have not been good.  

When the FlyerChief Berk came out there were lots of complaints here and other places from guys wanting Legacy and lots of detail the FlyerChief didn't have.  These complaints were loud and persistent.  Lionel gave them the unit they wanted and at a great price.  I wonder if the complainers ordered the Legacy.  I have two of the FlyerChief Berks and I ordered a Legacy unit.

Lionel had two runs from the FlyerChief Berks and my guess is that when a new steam engine comes out again it will be a FlyerChief engine with the Berk's level of detail.

I ordered the Nickel Plate from Charles Ro in early March. When I saw the level of detail planned for the Berkshire, I was almost as excited as when I watched these monsters shake my bones as they stormed through an intersection near my home when I was a kid. Then when the 2019 catalogue appeared with the U33C rerun at $600, my suspicions rose. I still believe someone in accounting messed up with cost calculations, but I would still have kept the order even if the final price rose to $750. Now I have to figure what to buy for my kids to give me this Christmas. It won't be Lionel.