WBB

That's disappointing to hear. They make a good line of products.

Maybe they can sell the tooling to another mfr to carry on the line.

Bob

The hobby can't afford to lose any more O gauge manufacturers. I recently bought my first-ever Williams model - a very nice Rutland GE 70-tonner. The price was a bargain from forum sponsor TrainWorld in Brooklyn. Bachmann also produces fine On30 engines and rolling-stock.

MELGAR

I have a set of multiple different road name postwar Lionel copies as Williams F units. Just like to look at them on display.  I think they cost me about $100-150 each many years ago.

I suspect many of us could see this on the horizon, but the day of Williams as a low cost alternative, for conventional operators,  may be coming to an end finally, from what Larry told you.  Competing against Lionel,  with its remarkable longevity and brand loyalty is a very challenging lift.  Without K-Line, the less expensive part of the hobby has been really lacking for some time.  MTH has made an apparently successful effort to keep prices down by essentially becoming a skeleton operation with minimal overhead.

I just checked out the 3rd Rail site and they have a locomotive on offer for about $4500.  Makes the new Lionel Big Boy look like a bargain .

So yes, costs are apparently reaching a problematic level for some producers.  In HO and N gauge, rolling stock and locos cost what they used to cost for Lionel products not all that many years back.  Rapido (the high end HO manufacturer of beautifully detailed trains) produces passenger cars for north of $100 each.  Fasten your seat belts.

Not surprising. They fell in value when Bachmann started pricing them like Lionchief. Similar items but without the option of a remote. 20 years ago they were the deal. Solid products with a low list price and even lower street price. Today, not so much.

Pete

On a more optimistic note, one of the forum sponsors has a page of Lionel locos, mostly LionChief I'd guess, for between $200 and $250.  Not chicken feed, but much more affordable than the LionChief + 2.0, Legacy, PS3 locos that are approximately at least twice as expensive.  Actually less expensive than Lionel locos in the 1950s, corrected for inflation and incomes, and more in the range of what old Marx locos sold for. If you shop carefully, you can probably find a LionChief Thomas set for under $200 for your kids, grandkids or yourself. So it's not completely impossible for those with more limited budgets.

I think the coming demise of Williams by Bachmann has been expected and that the writing has been on the wall for some time now.

I've been back in the hobby for 25 years but the new prices are putting me off as to buying new trains. It's not like I don't have enough already. The market dominance of one brand is not a good thing.

MELGAR

Let's hope oil company executives,  hedge fund managers,  pharmaceutical company heads,  and the rest love trains as much as we do

John

Whatever the internal issues are, Williams has kind of been on death's door for a while IMO (and that is all it is). Their original operation, reproducing classic Lionel post war at affordable prices, worked when all there was was conventional operation and post war had become expensive.

When the post war collecting mania died, and you can get post war trains for pretty reasonable prices, part of their reason for existing disappeared. Their attempts at more scale equipment fails because they still are catering to the conventional operator, who more and more is going to be a thing of the past. The lack of any kind of remote operation hurt them, I think fatally. They could have gone the Lionchief route, and used either bluetooth or wifi to connect to their engines with a remote and/or app, and offered at least basic command control if not sound . Given Bachman's other product lines offer DCC, maybe they could have used DCC over wifi or bluetooth to control the engines (would have saved them a ton of development costs doing that). DCC wirelessly has the advantage it won't conflict with DCS, which it does wired.

From the comments made, it seems like Williams by Bachman may be in a quite common situation. Their existing line doesn't generate enough revenue, but they can't justify (in their eyes) spending money on a new line that might attract new buyers with command control, likely feeling they can't get enough new orders to offset the cost of developing it.

Hopefully, someone such as Maynards or RMT can fill the void created by the demise of K-Line and Williams.  There is a need for reasonably priced scale or semi scale trains.  If you think about it, K-Line was succeeding while MTH and Lionel were dominating the market.

Marty

Sounds like a good opportunity for Menards to jump start their foray into locos.......

@RSJB18 posted:

Sounds like a good opportunity for Menards to jump start their foray into locos.......

Well, their initial "beta" models didn't get rave reviews for quality or reliability...

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, their initial "beta" models didn't get rave reviews for quality or reliability...

No they didn't John. I have the Beta 1 model too. Not looking to rehash the endless discussion here. Just thinking out loud.

Bob

@bigkid posted:

Whatever the internal issues are, Williams has kind of been on death's door for a while IMO (and that is all it is). Their original operation, reproducing classic Lionel post war at affordable prices, worked when all there was was conventional operation and post war had become expensive.

When the post war collecting mania died, and you can get post war trains for pretty reasonable prices, part of their reason for existing disappeared. Their attempts at more scale equipment fails because they still are catering to the conventional operator, who more and more is going to be a thing of the past. The lack of any kind of remote operation hurt them, I think fatally. They could have gone the Lionchief route, and used either bluetooth or wifi to connect to their engines with a remote and/or app, and offered at least basic command control if not sound . Given Bachman's other product lines offer DCC, maybe they could have used DCC over wifi or bluetooth to control the engines (would have saved them a ton of development costs doing that). DCC wirelessly has the advantage it won't conflict with DCS, which it does wired.

From the comments made, it seems like Williams by Bachman may be in a quite common situation. Their existing line doesn't generate enough revenue, but they can't justify (in their eyes) spending money on a new line that might attract new buyers with command control, likely feeling they can't get enough new orders to offset the cost of developing it.

Best analysis of the wbb problem I've read so far. I hope that bachman hangs on to the wbb tooling because what I foresee happening is that all the fancy electronics in Lionel locomotives will not be repairable and in addition, the electronics will not be available at any price. Add to that, folks that repair these things are not spring chickens. Thus, it is possible that everything old will become new again and conventional running will find favor in another generation.

I've often wondered how many truckloads of WBB engines Trainworld bought.  They've been blowing them out for what seems like a decade or more.  I own several - they're great workhorses, but certainly not showpieces.  The pricing of recent Williams-branded production is a problem - I agree with the previous points regarding them being priced too high for conventional-only operation - I think there would be a viable market in the $150 range for diesels and $200 range for steamers.  I'm also put off by the ridiculously high MSRPs.

Thank goodness for used stuff at train shows.

@Mallard4468 posted:

I think there would be a viable market in the $150 range for diesels and $200 range for steamers.

Thank goodness for used stuff at train shows.

I generally agree but inflation in the last year has been horrendous.

In light of this add 50 bucks to each of your targets. Yes the market would certainly be interested at $150 and $200, but not even Menards, can deliver those prices today, and in that sense it wouldn't be considered "viable".

This makes your last sentence particularly true -- I fully agree with it.

Mike

Train world - I remember they were running a special at York for Williams' scale GG-1s.  I think I bought a few for $120 each.

Great runners!

I bought four of the $120 Williams GG1's, what a deal that was!  I keep hoping they'll repeat it and I can get four more!

Timely post. I went to a TCA show yesterday in search of some parts or, more likely, some low cost engines I could use as spare parts carcasses the Williams engines I own. Dealing with zinc pest on the side frame of an FA2 truck. Could not have been more fortunate.....found a set of Alco with the dummy missing a shell and the matching powered unit for a mere $90. That gives me trucks and other parts for a while. Also found a set of 4 O27 passenger cars for $100.

Sad that we're having to consider salvage and duplicate purchases to protect what we have, just a sign of the times.

I'd really like to see Bachmann invest in the WBB line. Nothing against Lionel, just like to see competition. I was hoping they'd fill the void left by K-Line and now, for the most part, MTH by licensing DCS like Atlas or with their own remote control system. Not holding my breath.

I was also present for the talk with Larry Harrington. What I got from his description of the situation was that WBB was caught in a bind -- captive to a  builder who wants production quantities well in excess of what's reasonably sell-able in the conventional market. That plus the escalating price of China production. I kinda wish I had remembered to ask if they ever considered looking at places like Indonesia.

---PCJ

This is not good news. Not mentioning any names but having one manufacture having almost complete control over the market will just mean more price increases.

@bigkid posted:

.......they still are catering to the conventional operator, who more and more is going to be a thing of the past. The lack of any kind of remote operation hurt them, I think fatally. They could have gone the Lionchief route, and used either bluetooth or wifi to connect to their engines with a remote and/or app, and offered at least basic command control if not sound .

@Mallard4468 posted:

  I'm also put off by the ridiculously high MSRPs.

Several good points here, I think. It is indeed becoming a majority command control hobby. Perhaps WBB should consider adding ERR to its offerings. Weren't they were advertising some kind of remote control system a few years ago? Apparently this was discarded.

I agree it is a big mistake to put such ridiculous MSRPs in their catalogs. I'm sure it has caused a lot of potential buyers to flee. If they'd put reasonable "close-to-street" prices on their stuff, it would help them a lot. As it is, potential buyers see no value received in exchange for giving up command control.

Just my opinion.

I thought it would have been a good fit for WBB to pick up the MTH RK line for locomotives and rolling stock.  I agree they needed to add a a command control option.  Either a license for DCS or a switch to blue tooth control would have worked.  Our hobby is missing an option for lower priced, traditional trains that offer more than post war Lionel.  The marriage of WBB and MTH RK seemed like a natural!  Of course my opinion on what would have been good for WBB is only from an admittedly selfish hobbyist perspective, not as an investor.

Competing to sell new product, when I my opinion, this is plenty of used product out there is a "tough go".

For instance when I asked about buying a K-Line Mikado recently (which I did and posted about) many opinioned, that the Lastest Lionel Version probably used those molds.  Well for the price difference, I can upgrade the electronics to anything I might want and add detail parts, and still be at less than half the price.  Plus no zinc pest (they would have shown up by now).  Or if I leave as is, could probably buy (4).  It has TMCC, Railsounds, Chuffing smoke and Electro-coupler.

Another example - Used Williams Brass Big Boy recent sales on that auction site $538 - $800.  Not $2,899.  Can do a lot upgrades for a $2K price difference.

Just Sayin'

@MainLine Steam posted:

Competing to sell new product, when I my opinion, this is plenty of used product out there is a "tough go".

That's one factor that fascinates me about the economics of this industry. Plenty of used product out there, especially rolling stock that become technologically obsolete or go out of style. For the last 20-25 years, your LHS stock hasn't been the only source due to the internet. In addition to being able to check inventory at other LHSs and train shows, an auction site currently has about 200,000 O gauge pieces listed.

Over the weekend, I picked up a set of 4 NIB Williams NKP O27 passenger cars at a train show. Sure, they probably sat in boxes for 20 years, but they're not inferior to something made today (except for the silhouettes). I've not seen anyone else make traditional-sized passenger cars in NKP except for the 60' Rail King streamliners and they're really rare. The scale Premier versions that are too big for my layout seem more common.

Taking me to the other point about this hobby....variety. It's still incredible. In addition to all the main and niche road names, we present the manufacturers with the 1:48 scale vs. O27/traditional/semi-scale split which further reduces demand per item.

I guess the high cost along with dwindling interest these days has hindered the M.R.R. industry. Since I couldn’t find an MTH SAL diesel, I took a chance and bought this W.B.B. for 200 to the door.

I was blown away at the details that were even better than MTH, Lionel and Atlas O engines!                                                     Not sure who made the RS-3 and GP-30's for W.B.B. but they were spot on. Even has sounds!

It’s too bad they couldn’t continue with this type of Quality product. On the other hand, I see how the lack of buyers is affecting the hobby. Glad I got all the stuff when it was abundant. Cant even find Scale-Trax anymore to build a layout. Love that thin center rail blade!

@martind posted:

Hopefully, someone such as Maynards or RMT can fill the void created by the demise of K-Line and Williams.  There is a need for reasonably priced scale or semi scale trains.  If you think about it, K-Line was succeeding while MTH and Lionel were dominating the market.

Marty

Menards is a big box hardware store. They will never be a big player in O guage. It's merely a small side gig that has no effect on their bottom line.

K Line made fantastic products. Many items still hold the bar high even by today's standards. I.e. most of their passenger cars, as well as the Hudson and K4.

BUT, ultimately they did NOT succeed, because they low balled their own MSRP.

Yes, competition is always good. I dont know that Lionel has directly forced anyone out of business. Especially with the steady stream of hiccups over the last several years.

It's our fault WBB hasn't succeeded.  Why didn't we buy?

Who didn't step up and take over MTH? There are plenty of folks on this forum who know how things should be done.

There are constant complaints about prices ,and then people rush to get preorders in before the catalog makes it to the mailbox.

I see people with walls and walls of trains and layouts that take up entire basements. Some layouts never get finished. It's like the guy driving a new 80k escalade complaining about gas prices.

How many runs of the Vl bigboy has Lionel offered now? Someone's buying them. Often times more than one.

Is the demand, or at least the "profit" in the high dollar stuff? I dunno. I imagine Lionel thought it was worth it to spend a few bucks on Mth tooling, which now appears in every catalog.

Maybe overseas manufacturing costs aren't much different between WBB and VL. What's a dozen more wires and a couple of molex plugs?

@RickO posted:

There are constant complaints about prices ,and then people rush to get preorders in before the catalog makes it to the mailbox.

This is the way markets work, with folks being found on one extreme or the other.

Very few seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. The people complaining about the loudest about prices are largely not the same people rushing to get their orders in.

Can a manufacturer or marketer meet the needs of both extremes?  No.

Can they cultivate enough in the middle to survive?  Normally yes.

In any case buying used seems, at present, to be where the best value is to all, whether they be extreme or mainstream.

Mike

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

This is the way markets work, with folks being found on one extreme or the other.

Very few seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. The people complaining about the loudest about prices are largely not the same people rushing to get their orders in.

Can a manufacturer or marketer meet the needs of both extremes?  No.

@Mellow Hudson Mike posted:

Very few seem to be talking out of both sides of their mouths. The people complaining about the loudest about prices are largely not the same people rushing to get their orders in.

Mike

How do we know? There was a forumite where price analysis and comparison was his thing.

He was always critical, yet always opened his wallet....and does so to this day. Albeit on another forum.

(On a side note, I never minded the price critique. However I think it was so frequent it got to the point moderation took issue with it. I suppose , with the manufactures being sponsors. I can understand that.)

@RailRide posted:

I was also present for the talk with Larry Harrington. What I got from his description of the situation was that WBB was caught in a bind -- captive to a  builder who wants production quantities well in excess of what's reasonably sell-able in the conventional market. That plus the escalating price of China production. I kinda wish I had remembered to ask if they ever considered looking at places like Indonesia.

---PCJ

Bachmann is owned by Kader, a major toy manufacturer in China. It owns multiple Chinese factories and is very much a Chinese company. Bachmann is not going to seek production facilities outside China.

For whatever reason, Kader always finds a way to idle tooling, with only a bit of it used for current production, including RMT and Menards.

How much tooling does it possess?

Kader took over all the tooling when it bought the Sanda Kan production facility more than a decade ago. Sanda Kan had taken over most of the K-Line tooling when Maury Klein declared it bankrupt.

Kader also controls everything Jerry Williams used in production for decades.

I wish I understood Kader’s endgame, but I don’t.

I have dealt with Bachmann many times mostly with N Scale.

They are very good about their warranties and repairs, but in every case they REPLACED the item.

With WBB repairs it is going to be a problem going forward.

John

@RickO posted:

Menards is a big box hardware store. They will never be a big player in O gauge. It's merely a small side gig that has no effect on their bottom line.

K Line made fantastic products. Many items still hold the bar high even by today's standards. I.e. most of their passenger cars, as well as the Hudson and K4.

Yes, competition is always good. I don't know that Lionel has directly forced anyone out of business. Especially with the steady stream of hiccups over the last several years.

Rick - I agree particularly with the points you make above.

Being from Wisconsin, I am 99% sure that the ONLY reason Menard's is in O Gauge is because John Menard wants to be.  He lives life "large".

Sure Indy Car racing was a way to expand his advertising, but the reason he got into it was because he and his son wanted to be involved.

@Jim R. posted:

Bachmann is owned by Kader, a major toy manufacturer in China. It owns multiple Chinese factories and is very much a Chinese company. Bachmann is not going to seek production facilities outside China.

For whatever reason, Kader always finds a way to idle tooling, with only a bit of it used for current production, including RMT and Menards.

How much tooling does it possess?

Kader took over all the tooling when it bought the Sanda Kan production facility more than a decade ago. Sanda Kan had taken over most of the K-Line tooling when Maury Klein declared it bankrupt.

Kader also controls everything Jerry Williams used in production for decades.

I wish I understood Kader’s endgame, but I don’t.

Being a Chinese company, at some point they will Probably start Selling their Products in Orange Boxes under the Brand name "LionL".  (no that's not a typo)

One of my favorite models is Peter Witt Brooklyn Streetcar #8454 by Williams/Bachmann. It is small, inexpensive and nicely detailed. You don’t have to be a trolley car fan to admire this scale model. Forum sponsor TrainWorld advertised them for years at, as I recall, a price of about $100. New ones are more difficult to find now and priced much higher. Trolleys can be run on a compact layout. This segment of the hobby, although small, will be impacted if Bachmann quits the O gauge market.

MELGAR

@MELGAR posted:

One of my favorite models is Peter Witt Brooklyn Streetcar #8454 by Williams/Bachmann. It is small, inexpensive and nicely detailed. You don’t have to be a trolley car fan to admire this scale model. Forum sponsor TrainWorld advertised them for years at, as I recall, a price of about $100. New ones are more difficult to find now and priced much higher. Trolleys can be run on a compact layout. This segment of the hobby, although small, will be impacted if Bachmann quits the O gauge market.

MELGAR

Wasn't aware of these.  WOW!   Just added to my "hit list".

@MELGAR posted:

One of my favorite models is Peter Witt Brooklyn Streetcar #8454 by Williams/Bachmann. It is small, inexpensive and nicely detailed. You don’t have to be a trolley car fan to admire this scale model. Forum sponsor TrainWorld advertised them for years at, as I recall, a price of about $100. New ones are more difficult to find now and priced much higher. Trolleys can be run on a compact layout. This segment of the hobby, although small, will be impacted if Bachmann quits the O gauge market.

MELGAR

Customizable as well.

John

I always kind of wondered why Bachman bought Williams, by the time they did it those looking for post war reproductions were already declining, especially given as I wrote in another post that genuine post ware became more affordable.  I was happy when Bachman seemed to be introducing new products, like the scale 44 tonners, thought maybe they were going to offer scale or semi scale new products. At one point there was talk I dimly recall of Bachman putting  a basic command control system in the O gauge engines, like Lionchief became, I think they had demoed something like that for large scale trains they were pushing into at the time.

What it looks like now is they are basically milking what they can out of existing products, not putting much if anything into it, and letting it die. Not sure who would buy the Williams line, none of the existing companies would have any reason to, especially given they are conventional only. Maybe something like the tooling for the 44 tonner would appeal, where someone could put command control into it and sell it, but not even sure that would work.

@MELGAR posted:

One of my favorite models is Peter Witt Brooklyn Streetcar #8454 by Williams/Bachmann. It is small, inexpensive and nicely detailed. You don’t have to be a trolley car fan to admire this scale model. Forum sponsor TrainWorld advertised them for years at, as I recall, a price of about $100. New ones are more difficult to find now and priced much higher. Trolleys can be run on a compact layout. This segment of the hobby, although small, will be impacted if Bachmann quits the O gauge market.

MELGAR

Note that it is a model of a Baltimore Witt (6001 > 6150). Bachmann spent a full day at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum measuring and photographing their 6119. They only made two small errors on the model; one of omission and one of commission:

Omission = no headsigns

Commission = all the window glass is flat on the prototype, one window on each side at the rear is slightly curved.

All-in-all, it is a wonderful model; I have six. Three have been converted to scale wheels and three (so far) have not. The only other item needed for conversion is a decent pole (Wagner or Q-Car). Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of the prototype that I can post but a search of the BSM's website will yield some results:

https://baltimorestreetcarmuseum.org/