Hello all,
I would like to share an official letter from our President, Howard Hitchcock, regarding Electric Railroad. Here's a link to our website page where the announcement is posted: http://www.lionel.com/articles/ELECTRIC-RAILROAD
As always, I'll share more information when it comes available.
Dave
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As many of you are aware, on Friday April 20th, Dave Olson - Lionel’s Director of Engineering, announced at the Legacy Users Group meeting in York that Lionel would effectively end the sale of the Electric Railroad (ERR) Upgrade kits to consumers in May of this year. He also stated that Lionel would continue to endeavor to support the existing OEM manufactures (Atlas & Sunset Models / 3rd Rail) who utilize the Electric Railroad technology moving forward with boards to support their products in market.
As expected, reaction from the most passionate users was quick and a post was created on the OGR Forum titled “The death of the TMCC upgrade”. In that thread, Jon Zahornacky, the original creator of ERR and Chief Architect of Lionel’s control systems helped further explain a number of factors that went into the decision to suspend the ERR operations. Simply put, the ERR technology is dated. Lionel’s Engineering and Development resources have been deployed against many new initiatives and the componentry needed to produce many of the parts is becoming obsolete and harder for the factory to procure. The closing of the California office and retirement of Ken as well as rapidly diminishing sales are all material factors leading to this business decision.
As anyone who has ever had to make difficult business decisions understands, in most situations, there is no single answer that remedies the business issue while making all constituents happy. Sometimes you have to choose a path that seems appropriate with the information you have. As a result of our decision and subsequent announcement, several things have occurred.
1. ERR has received nearly half a year’s worth of orders since the announcement.
-Ken will work hard to fill what he can with the parts we have available in a timely manner.
-There is not enough inventory to fill all the orders, some will be canceled and until Ken can sort it out, we are temporarily shutting down the PayPal account tied to ERR.
2. Many of you have reached out to express your feelings.
- Every letter received has been read and fortunately, the majority were very professional, and on topic. Those that weren’t were simply ignored.
- Please know, efforts to contact any Lionel employee you can find digitally to voice your frustration only results in you wasting your time.
3. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Lionel has entered into conversations with a third party to discuss the feasibility of taking over the distribution directly to consumers some of the more widely used ERR kits.
- Provides a solution to continue to offer the ERR / TMCC upgrade solutions and addresses many of your concerns.
- Conversations are in the early stages but positive.
As some have implied, in no way was this decision meant to be anything more than a business decision. If a deal comes to fruition between Lionel and another party (which seems likely), it will take several months for them to get stock and be back in business. I also want to point out that many of the letters I read discussed the intention to upgrade in the future. It is important to understand that Lionel will not be investing any additional engineering resources into the ERR line of products. The factory may in the near term be able to interchange suitable component parts in order to continue to produce boards and avoid part obsolesce issues, however there will come a day where this option will no longer be available.
Lionel’s team of talented engineers have been hard at work on an enhanced platform hardware and code that leverages all of the positive things about each of our current platforms and will allow all of our technology (TMCC, Legacy, LionChief and Bluetooth) to remain viable well into the next decade. By creating a platform that is easier to use, more efficient, more easily manufactured, able to communicate through the full range of O Gauge products offered (Ready-to-Run starter sets through Vision level product) Lionel will advance the industry standard platform in O Gauge and ensure a future for this hobby and Lionel.
For over 118 years, Lionel has made products that have captivated consumers both young and old, churning out generations of enthusiasts who have been supportive of Lionel for as long as they can remember. During that time, Lionel has been the leader in technology. From new product features to advanced sound and control systems, Lionel has always lead the market with innovation through change. Change, while not always easy, gives way to progress, in fact it’s how our hobby progressed from conventional control to the early days of TMCC and now to the industry leading Legacy Control System platform.
Lionel’s core mission continues to be the expansion and growth of the model train hobby. Over the last five years, Lionel has worked hard to bring to life new enhancements and innovations. At a time where other manufacturers are retrenching, Lionel has moved the opposite direction, embracing innovation and change. We have introduced significant new tooling, launched many new products including LionChief and LionChief +, Bluetooth App Control, Universal Remote, on board cameras, Brass Hybrids, Vision enhancements including depleting coal load and force coupler feature, the Layout Control System (LCS) and ICab to name a few. All of these innovations have come with a great deal of invested time and resources from the team at Lionel and continue to position Lionel as the market leader.
We will continue to strive to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the same joy of trains that prior generations have been able to enjoy. Trains, model trains and Lionel are part of America’s fabric and we want to ensure that it can be shared for many generations to come.
We appreciate your continued support and patience during this process and encourage you to keep an eye out for further updates regarding ERR products.
Howard Hitchcock
President, Lionel LLC
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