Lionel's Cabbage Patch crisis and some advice from a 36 year sales and business development man...

I posted about this on the runaway pricing thread the other day that got deleted.

Perhaps Lionel is working towards some flavor of DCC compatibility and control for Legacy-equipped engines (indeed, the presence of DCC in the hybrid brass 4-4-0s is interesting).  If they don't want to make their own remotes anymore, hobbyists could use any DCC-compatible equipment they wanted -- walk-around cabs, computers, you name it.  Lionel could still sell Base3 and even potentially a DCC-to-Legacy converter module as requirements to play in this world.  Keep Legacy proprietary if you wish, but they should give heavily invested hobbyists some way to communicate with the vast world of DCC that the rest of model railroading uses.

Also: not being able to use your own sounds is a glaring weakness of the current Lionel platform.  I don't care about five different bells and whistles -- I want to upload my own that is prototypically correct.  More than anything else, this needs to be fixed.

I generally like what Lionel is doing these days.  And no one buys a $2k engine and then complains about the cost of the controller and other stuff required to make it run.  But when I'm dropping that much cash I should be able to control that engine however I want, and play whatever sounds I want.  This is about choice, not price.

To be fair and turn this thread into a positive, which is sorely needed across this forum in so many ways these days I have to commend Lionel for continuing to offer a broad range of products to support a broad base of the O gauge and 3 rail O scale spectrum.  They may not have much to offer me with my specific interests, but I don't represent the majority of the market and I am okay with that. 

@GG1 4877 posted:

To be fair and turn this thread into a positive, which is sorely needed across this forum in so many ways these days I have to commend Lionel for continuing to offer a broad range of products to support a broad base of the O gauge and 3 rail O scale spectrum.  They may not have much to offer me with my specific interests, but I don't represent the majority of the market and I am okay with that.

Jonathan,

Absolutely spot-on.  There are many very-narrowly focused suggestions (I'll be kind and not call them complaints) in all of these threads, whether still present or deleted, that came up after the new catalog was released.

These recommendations are all good, and each deserves to be aired and considered for the future.  However there are not nearly enough thanks for Lionel's efforts coming along with them.

Mike

Another one of those threads that I passed over for a couple of days. When I see one like this keep popping up to the top of the list, I'll jump in.

going back to sleep now......

@BlueFeather posted:

Perhaps Lionel is working towards some flavor of DCC compatibility and control for Legacy-equipped engines (indeed, the presence of DCC in the hybrid brass 4-4-0s is interesting).  If they don't want to make their own remotes anymore, hobbyists could use any DCC-compatible equipment they wanted -- walk-around cabs, computers, you name it.  Lionel could still sell Base3 and even potentially a DCC-to-Legacy converter module as requirements to play in this world.  Keep Legacy proprietary if you wish, but they should give heavily invested hobbyists some way to communicate with the vast world of DCC that the rest of model railroading uses.

They have Legacy/DCC electronics in their S line so they know how to do it.

Brendan

We seem to bang this around a lot, it is almost as good as some of the other threads, many of which seem to end up getting heaved, with which manufacturer is evil, who stole the cheese and the like....

I don't know where the OP got the idea that Lionel was 'throwing it away' or something. From what I can tell about the new system, it is backwards compatible with anything out there they have, whether it is tmcc, legacy or lionchief/bluetooth. The only thing they seem to be removing is the 990, the 1l is still available (unlike MTH that totally dropped the remote, though the new base supports it via wired connection). When they created legacy, it supported TMCC, when MTH went to PS 3.0, it supports PS 2.0 engines.

The reason that 990 unit was listed at that ridiculous price is someone was playing games, figuring they could troll a sucker into buying it, as if the 990 was going to become this incredible collectors item, which is ridiculous, but that is the way some yo yo's think. About the only thing the 990 gives you is the bigger remote.......

Legacy and DCS are different than DCC in many ways, in large part because of the nature of 3 rail trains. Some will bristle at the notion, but things like the swinging bells and the chuffs and the steam whistle discharge and the other little things the engines in 3 rail gave us are in some ways more akin to the accessories that 3 rail has had, or the operating cars and the like (it isn't that these things aren't prototypical, they are, but they are in a sense more 'play like' than what you see in the world of HO and N; some of that is that 3 rail O has the size to implement those features).

So DCC focuses on sounds and being able to modify them and it has programmable settings (CV) that allow you to program the decoder to do things in a certain way. If you don't like the speed steps, you program the CV, if you want breaking to work differently, you reprogram it. In a sense, legacy/DCS  is kind of like the applications that let you design a website visually, and it generates the code, vs programming in HTML to build the website yourself (rough analogy). DCC's biggest advantage it is open standard, so if you don't like the decoder that came with an engine, if you want a feature another decoder/system offers, you can pretty easily change it (is a standard plug these days), you aren't locked in to one manufacturer.

Only reason I could see lionel offering DCC on the new base would be if they think there is a market in 2 rail O, where some of the persons engines are DCC and some are converted Lionel legacy units from 3 to 2 rail. Thing is, though, in 2 rail if they convert an legacy engine from 3 rail to 2 rail, I suspect they would also convert to DCC *shrug*.  The only other thing I could think it would offer is to control PS 3.0 engines using their dcc compatibility mode.

No worries.

When the seller relists this Legacy system in a few days after the winning bidder refuses to pay. This thread will have no merit.

I know we were all hopeful, but the Lionel 990s are consistently selling for 3X$ PLUS over the last few weeks.  In addition, I hope I just missed where Lionel explained better what the plan was in order to calm the reaction to the "obsolete" announcement.  As I tried to allude to, it's not so much that the confidence is shaken in the availability to the "wind up keys" that make our trains run today (these after market price points cannot hold), but being able to convince the customer that their investment is secure and will work far into the future.  And as old as most of us are, that may not be that long of a future. 

@Crazy J RR posted:

I know we were all hopeful, but the Lionel 990s are consistently selling for 3X$ PLUS over the last few weeks.  In addition, I hope I just missed where Lionel explained better what the plan was in order to calm the reaction to the "obsolete" announcement.  As I tried to allude to, it's not so much that the confidence is shaken in the availability to the "wind up keys" that make our trains run today (these after market price points cannot hold), but being able to convince the customer that their investment is secure and will work far into the future.  And as old as most of us are, that may not be that long of a future.

I have no idea why this should be the case. Why would someone pay 3x List price for a 990 set? Why would anyone need it that badly? The capability to run your Legacy locomotives is not going away.

@Crazy J RR posted:

I know we were all hopeful, but the Lionel 990s are consistently selling for 3X$ PLUS over the last few weeks.  In addition, I hope I just missed where Lionel explained better what the plan was in order to calm the reaction to the "obsolete" announcement.  As I tried to allude to, it's not so much that the confidence is shaken in the availability to the "wind up keys" that make our trains run today (these after market price points cannot hold), but being able to convince the customer that their investment is secure and will work far into the future.  And as old as most of us are, that may not be that long of a future.

@Crazy J RR,

The impact to all of us is much bigger than Lionel.  There are several world crises currently in play that are bearing on Lionel's problem with the 990's.  We don't need to go into the details of how these crises formed, or how they're being managed on the global stage, but the fact is that many other manufacturers and marketers, in numerous other industries, are suffering the same challenges.

Are any of them handling their resultant problems any better?  Very, very, very few are.

Why?  No one in their right mind would have expected the scope, magnitude and/or timing of these crises.  Being of sound mind, generally, Lionel didn't either.

How does Lionel fix it?  They can't easily fix things by themselves, without many, many others responsible for fixing the crises doing their jobs first.  That's why presently Base-3 and the Cab-3 App are the only options, and why the limited numbers of new 990's are so hard to find, and why they are so expensive.  Consequently Lionel has very little available to it presently to "convince the customer that their investment is secure and will work far into the future".

The impact of these crises is bigger than our hobby because so many other things are affected.  Like new cars, video game consoles, and all sorts of other electronic things, and nice-to-have discretionary items.  But even more importantly, in trouble are also food, clothing and the basic things we need just to get by.

Because of this, as much scrutiny as we're giving Lionel, there are many other people, organizations, and firms who deserve much, much more.

Mike

@johnstrains posted:

You lost me at the thread title.

ME TOO !!!!

I am pretty sure the OP is talking about supply and demand which is not created by price gougers who are merely a result of it unless I am not understanding it.

John

Hello all,

First post, been lingering for a while around the forum but recently decided to sign up.  I haven’t really had a reason to post before now, but this one seems to be a good start.

FWIW, this was my auction.  I started it as a traditional auction at a very, very reasonable starting bid of $349 for a new in box unit, less than the MSRP.  I never, ever, ever imagined that it would sale for the price it did.  And honestly, based on the bids, I as well didn’t expect it to be “real” and there must have been some sort of “bot” or something that got carried away.  I told the wife that night it had to be some sort of mistake and I’ll end up having to re-list it.

But the next day, the buyer paid.  The item was shipped, and all was well.  Money in the account.  A bit wild even in my opinion.

As stated in other threads, items are what people are willing to pay.  Two people seemed to go back and forth and this was the result.  Never had any intention to “gouge”.  The market went nuts after the cab3 announcement and after several statements from Lionel that they weren’t going to make the Cab2 again (on a catalog review podcast and then not listed in new catalog.)

As well FWIW, another I sold a couple weeks later went for half this.  So, the market is up, but this seems to have been a “fluke”.

—————————-

Gizmo Model Railway

https://youtube.com/channel/UCvXKXUr5yAVHa_b-iGm9THg

@GizmoModelRailway posted:

Hello all,

First post, been lingering for a while around the forum but recently decided to sign up.  I haven’t really had a reason to post before now, but this one seems to be a good start.

FWIW, this was my auction.  I started it as a traditional auction at a very, very reasonable starting bid of $349 for a new in box unit, less than the MSRP.  I never, ever, ever imagined that it would sale for the price it did.  And honestly, based on the bids, I as well didn’t expect it to be “real” and there must have been some sort of “bot” or something that got carried away.  I told the wife that night it had to be some sort of mistake and I’ll end up having to re-list it.

But the next day, the buyer paid.  The item was shipped, and all was well.  Money in the account.  A bit wild even in my opinion.

As stated in other threads, items are what people are willing to pay.  Two people seemed to go back and forth and this was the result.  Never had any intention to “gouge”.  The market went nuts after the cab3 announcement and after several statements from Lionel that they weren’t going to make the Cab2 again (on a catalog review podcast and then not listed in new catalog.)

As well FWIW, another I sold a couple weeks later went for half this.  So, the market is up, but this seems to have been a “fluke”.

—————————-

Gizmo Model Railway

https://youtube.com/channel/UCvXKXUr5yAVHa_b-iGm9THg

Welcome aboard.  Thanks for the insight to the auction.

Awesome!!! I drama on here is a real turn off. Are these the Days of OUR Lives???