I don't know if this has been asked or noted before, but is there any information about continued production and support, by anyone, of non-DCS specific equipment like the Z-500, 1000 and 4000 series transformers ?
"but is there any information about continued production and support, by anyone, of non-DCS specific equipment like the Z-500, 1000 and 4000 series transformers ?"
I don't believe there has been any information as yet.
I think this is wonderful! Hopefully Lionel will recognize that there is again a serious competitor in the marketplace that wants to eat their lunch. Lionel should seriously get control of quality control and start painting most of their offerings the right color.
@MichRR714 posted:I think this is wonderful! Hopefully Lionel will recognize that there is a serious competitor in the marketplace that wants to eat their lunch. Lionel should seriously get control of quality control and start painting most of their offerings the right color.
Wasn't MTH a serious competitor more so than Atlas? I agree Lionel needs to work on their QC issue but I doubt Atlas will be anymore of a competitor than MTH was because MTH was right there when it came to competition. MTH has always been a great competitor and made Lionel a better company in the process. To be honest I think both kept each other somewhat honest.
@MartyE posted:Wasn't MTH a serious competitor more so than Atlas? I agree Lionel needs to work on their QC issue but I doubt Atlas will be anymore of a competitor than MTH was because MTH was right there when it came to competition. MTH has always been a great competitor and made Lionel a better company in the process. To be honest I think both kept each other somewhat honest.
Marty absolutley!
MTH has been going away for the last year though. I don't think that Lionel was all that worried about what was becoming of MTH because it felt more like they were just going away. Thankfully that isn't happening and competition will remain in the market place. I used to buy much more Lionel when they were painting trains like models with the correct and consistent colors. Hopefully Lionel will raise their game again.
This all sounds good but let’s see how long it takes Atlas to bring it to market.
After reading all the discussion, I venture that Atlas is following its business plan for both their successful N & HO markets. Atlas is a Scale oriented company so the Premier Line makes business sense. Atlas had one attempt at steam in O Scale and it was not a success. ie Atlas choice of sticking with diesels. Plus Atlas in both N & HO manufactures diesels and not steam. Atlas one failing recently in the O market was the lack of the ability to get their locomotive to the market. Thus this move puts them back into the locomotive game which was their one weakness in the O Scale market. I think this is a win win for all and their purchase follows their proven business plan with their other model lines.
Mike Parks
Charter Member of "The 48 Club"
On their website they have a You Tube video that says they are announcing a new product next week, March 24th. Now THAT'S fast!
@IRON HORSE posted:On their website they have a You Tube video that says they are announcing a new product next week, March 24th. Now THAT'S fast!
I hope that it is the P42s in the new Amtrak 50th Anniversary scheme but if I am placing bets I think it will be ES44s to go along with the announced BNSF ES44s from back in November.
@RJ I posted:I hope that it is the P42s in the new Amtrak 50th Anniversary scheme but if I am placing bets I think it will be ES44s to go along with the announced BNSF ES44s from back in November.
To be clear, the announcement via You Tube was on Atlas' website.
Re Z-4000 and Z-1000 transformers
No announcement has been made for future power supplies and related items yet. The last run of Z-4000 transformers are still on schedule for a late spring/early summer delivery and quite frankly the amount of pre-orders we have for them are amazing. The Z-1000 transformers has been shipping in a little at a time over the past four months. We are stocked up on them and they sell because Lionel doesn't have their redesigned 80 watt available yet. Both of the MTH transformers has been proven excellent quality power supplies at an affordable price point for many, many years. Lets hope at least the Z-1000 sticks around for a long time.
This is a good fit for Atlas. I'll be curious to see what Atlas does with their new acquisitions. I've always found Atlas product to be superior to MTH in many ways so maybe Atlas will upgrade some of the tooling.
@GG1 4877 posted:This is a good fit for Atlas. I'll be curious to see what Atlas does with their new acquisitions. I've always found Atlas product to be superior to MTH in many ways so maybe Atlas will upgrade some of the tooling.
Jonathan, I agree with your assessment. Their Master 3-rail locomotives (when they were able to get them produced and shipped) were ahead of their time (and certainly ahead of MTH & Lionel) in terms of level of detail.
My biggest complaint is with the sound package...both quality and variety. RailSounds was fine back when Atlas was getting started with "O" locomotives. However, selling $400-500++ diesels still equipped with very generic and very dated RailSounds packages (e.g. 4 "notches" of prime mover sounds instead of 8) just doesn't cut it today, especially when compared to Lionel Legacy and MTH PS3.
This deal with MTH--and (hopefully) the ability to use the wide variety of PS3 diesel sound packages--would immediately eliminate that issue...at least for me anyway.
@CNJ #1601 posted:Jonathan, I agree with your assessment. Their Master 3-rail locomotives (when they were able to get them produced and shipped) were ahead of their time (and certainly ahead of MTH & Lionel) in terms of level of detail.
My biggest complaint is the sound package...both quality and variety. RailSounds was fine back when Atlas was getting started with "O" locomotives. However, selling $400-500++ diesels still equipped with very generic and very dated RailSounds packages (e.g. 4 "notches" of prime mover sounds instead of 8) just doesn't cut it today. This deal with MTH--and (hopefully) the ability to use the wide variety of PS3 diesel sound packages--would immediately eliminate that issue...at least for me anyway.
I’m also assuming that the dcs license will be substantially cheaper than lionels tmcc. The Lionel brand carries a lot of weight, while mth is no where near as well known (think outside the hobby, not on this forum) and does not carry the premium name recognition. What this leads to price wise, I don’t know but I’m very cautiously optimistic.
Wow so many Atlas/MTH Dies and Molds treads I was not sure which one to reply to. Like everyone else I can only guess what exactly Atlas will do with these mold but one thing I can say without too much risk is what they will not do.
They will not produce a Premier line using any reference to MTH. They will most likely use these dies and molds in their existing product lines Master Line and Trainman Lines. They will perhaps use the MTH tooling as is putting the more detailed items in the Master Line and less detailed or a little worn tooling in their Trainman line. I think they will add details to expand the detailing on the tooling so that they can charge a premium price for their products.
As far as licensing DCS my guess is they will discontinue using TMCC software once their agreement with Lionel runs out. If they would put both TMCC and DCS in their engines as options think how complicated their offerings would be Not only would they have say SD70ACe engines in say 4 or 5 road names, two or three engine numbers, TMCC or DCS or Conventional, almost forgot 2 or 3 rail holy crap they better build to order as no one could predict how many of each to produce. I would say in less than a year Atlas will stop using TMCC control and sounds.
As far as pricing goes I do not see Atlas going with being the budget line of products. They will continue to be the more detailed higher priced option.
I currently do not own any Atlas engines, going to DCS is not my preferred operating system so future purchasing Atlas engine is iffy in the future. I do own a significant amount of Atlas rolling stock so I can still support Atlas in that effort.
Well the best of luck to Atlas hope they can expand their O scale business.
Oh almost forgot I would hope Lionel can purchase some of their steam tooling, being a PRR fan I would hope to see a Legacy Decapod (Long & Short tenders), T1. Q2 (no Q1s PRR only had one) L1 2-8-2s etc.
JohnB
This is fantastic! The announcement was for "all passenger cars" but then goes on to name specific passenger car molds. No mention of the premier Pullman bi-level gallery cars (Metra).
Those things are like gold right now. Can't buy them for literally any less than a down payment on a new Toyota. Would be nice to see more of them enter circulation just to bring these stupid prices to something more reasonable.
For those that don't watch, they literally sell for around 300 to 400 dollars PER CAR at the moment. 1200+ for a 4 car set, 800+ for a 2 car set. I'm a buyer at a third of that.
An angle that I've yet to see mentioned is that since Atlas gets access to MTH's production facility, now they have at their disposal an already-running factory with experienced staff. On the surface that sounds like products that originated under AtlasO's roof will now have the benefit of being built at MTH's factory.
---PCJ
@JohnB posted:Oh almost forgot I would hope Lionel can purchase some of their steam tooling, being a PRR fan I would hope to see a Legacy Decapod (Long & Short tenders), T1. Q2 (no Q1s PRR only had one) L1 2-8-2s etc.
JohnB
John, I second that statement! I would be interested in an I1 or L1 with Legacy. I really would love to see Lionel acquire the P5 boxcab (non-streamlined) tooling and do a legacy run with that (imagine if they added the sparking pantographs too like the VL GG1).
That being said, I really hope someone buys the tooling for & produces the less popular PRR electrics such as the DD1 and L5 that MTH has done over the years. I would hate to see the tooling for those fall through the cracks.
@JohnB posted:Oh almost forgot I would hope Lionel can purchase some of their steam tooling, being a PRR fan I would hope to see a Legacy Decapod (Long & Short tenders), T1. Q2 (no Q1s PRR only had one) L1 2-8-2s etc.
JohnB
I love Lionel, but I wouldn't want them being the sole producer of scale die cast steam locomotives. No competition or incentives to improve or policing the quality.
I believe I read somewhere in these pages that some of the remaining MTH employees will be producing trains that Atlas has not acquired the tooling for, including steam.
There's still a lot that will be sorted out in due time. Time will tell, I guess.
@Jeff_the_Coaster_Guy posted:This is fantastic! The announcement was for "all passenger cars" but then goes on to name specific passenger car molds. No mention of the premier Pullman bi-level gallery cars (Metra).
Those things are like gold right now. Can't buy them for literally any less than a down payment on a new Toyota. Would be nice to see more of them enter circulation just to bring these stupid prices to something more reasonable.
Amen to that! I’d be a buyer at a price close to where MTH priced them in their catalog, but not at the ridiculous auction prices I’ve seen over the past year. One can hope.
