Why no Lionel passenger figures?

Not so sure I disagree with Lionel management's thinking on "no people in the cars". As a modeler, I tend to prefer populating my passenger equipment as I see fit, i.e. various quantities seated in various different types of cars. Plus, but not have those expensive seated people included in the cars, it keeps the prices lower. Those seated people are pretty darned expensive. 

It doesn't bother me.  I like the ability to select my passengers.  I do appreciate that the shell is easily removed, 6 screws and you have access to the interior, this will be easier than getting inside the 18" cars.

I first thought it was insane, but now I think its not so bad. Now I could do anything with passenger cars. Example: If I don't like the seat color, I can change it without moving figures, and add them when I'm done!

probably they don't want the problems of loose people flying around inside the cars if the models are subject to rough handling in shipping. just about every set i bought has loose people in them. 

Lionel must have laid off their Orthopedic Doctors.

Then why do the 18" aluminum cars have seated figures? 

1) Old thinking?

2) They are made differently?

3) They don't put that many people in them anyway?

4) The cars are already expensive?

I would rather have a detailed interior with no figures then having those silhouettes any day.  That’s the main reason I bought MTH passenger cars to start with.

Major downsides: painted passenger figures from the manufacturers are expensive. And in many cases they're too large. That leaves you with buying unpainted figures and investing hours and hours painting them.

 

Incidentally, it's a whole lot easier re-gluing a couple of loose figures than hand-painting and mounting an entire trainload of them. 

Figures are a personal preference. I have a set of MTH 19th. century pass. cars with a few figures in each car. They're dressed in jeans and bright shirts. Not really the look I'm going for, to say the least.

 

I think I'm better off adding my own figures to cars, rather than the importer/manufacturer putting a few cheap era-incorrect figures in them.

My Lionel Blue Comet 18 inch passenger cars from 2013 came with figures. 

 

May be its a way to reduce cost, and let the customer customize them to their tastes and budget?

 

Its nice not having to open up the cars and put passengers in, but many of us open up the cars anyway to convert to LED lighting and populate as they see fit.

 

As long as you know ahead of time, you can make up your mind to buy or not with this convenience or inconvenience.

The workers would need some kind of build sheet, where each figure gets placed.  Then count the rows of seats to get the correct seat for that figure and define that figure.  If the car floors are sitting in a factory location, they are probably dusty and the silicone won't stick well.  The extra time to place the figures, the cost of the figures, the manufacturer makes out.  The buyer doesn't.

As always, it comes down to money. They have to pay a group a chinese girls to paint each one of those figures and glue them into each car, one by one. It takes times, which equates to lots of money. So they probably scrapped the passengers to keep the price of the cars from skyrocketing.

 

When in doubt, any change made to a model is almost always due to finances.

 

-Eric Siegel

Isn't Lionel already saving a lot of money going to plastic for the car bodies instead of aluminum?

That is a major step backwards in my opinion. 

 

Art

Maybe you're not too familiar with global markets, but production costs in China are rising as the country develops and wages increase. Money saved in manufacture is going into labor. Lionel still needs to find profit somewhere along the line, as well.

Lionel may regret doing 21 plastic cars as Atlas has raised the bar pretty high.

Mikey

Yes.  But silhouettes are not the point of comparison here.  Lionel had been providing detailed interiors WITH passengers for over 10 years now.  THAT's the point of comparison.  No passengers = a MAJOR step backwards.  End of discussion.  I'll pass on the Kool-Aid, thank you very much. 

 

Personally, I like Scott Mann's approach.  Cars come equipped with a small number of figures installed... I think half a dozen or so... just so the cars aren't EMPTY.  But if you want more, you can order them when you provide payment information on your invoice.  They charge $25 for 36 seated passengers, which I presume consumers can install on their own upon delivery of the product.

 

See the difference?  3rd Rail / GGD does it right to begin with, then gives their consumers the option to pay for more passengers if they want more -- and all along they're giving the consumer what they want.

 

Lionel, OTOH, weaves a party line like "But we're not installing passengers in an attempt to keep your purchase costs down, so we have you Mr. Consumer and your best interests in mind.  Now can we offer you anything else while you're enjoying the Kool-Aid?"    Meanwhile, you're on your own to source whatever passengers you can find in O-Gauge land.  No it's not a show-stopper to most, but let's call it for what it is:  you're still paying a premium price yet not getting industry-leading features.

 

The other day I mentioned in a thread here that the other importers can learn a lot by watching Scott Mann's approach.  I guess they don't think so. 

 

 

David

The people who have operated Lionel over the past 45 years have never offered or produced very many O Scale figures for inside or outside of locos and cars.

 

Andrew

How much cheaper are these cars going to be since they do not have the passengers.  I'll be honest , I wasn't into passenger cars until I noticed some had detailed interior and passengers in them. I thought it was really neat and bought a few cars.  Hearing this now is a huge disappointment and I will not purchase anymore without the passengers.

all kinds of sitting people here in may sizes;

 

sitting people

Throw some in a bag and let buyer install them.

 

Surely Lionel can procure quality "figures" in large quantities a whole lot cheaper than I can. As far as installation, I prefer to spend my time running trains rather than gluing "people" into their seats!

 

Looks to me that Lionel had to shave a few dollars in manufacturing costs and the little folks were left at the station.

I hope you're not profiling your passengers when you do your selections.  

It's a shame that no one picked up making the painted window strips. Like the ones utilized in the older, original Williams Crown Series from Korea. IMHO They were a appealing compromise.

I don't mind the few or no people in the cars. Unless there is a almost full car I will be opening up and adding people anyway. Plus I do add a little paint to make them look a little different.

 

I do wish there were better options, for figures in the seated position.

 

As for cost, I know people are expensive. I average a little more then one pack of the GGD people per car. So that adds up to an additional 30.00 +/- per car. I'm willing to pay that, but not much more.

 

Charlie

Anything is better than those  silhouette strips. I bought a K-Line interurban South Shore set and totally forgot about that.

 

And now MTH cars come with LEDs? Good enough for me. Wonder if MTH is selling a retrofit kit, instead of me figuring it out. I have strips, I have an AC-to-DC converter with caps I bought off of Amazon, but sneaking it all into a car is a challenge.

But lionel is very strict when it comes to taking crazy and engines apart. If they don't have people in them then modelers may open the car up which voids warranty.  After seeing the big boy and other products that will be realesed. It is very surprising they want to cut the cost on detailed passenger cars    Will we see an actual price cut or it this just talk ?

Gentlemen,

   Some good points being made for both side in this particular conversation, for those guys who thought they were making some head way with Lionel providing nice figures for the passenger cars, it looks pretty bleak.  For me however, the companies even when they do place personnel in the passenger cars, never really put as many as I like to see, so I would need to add more anyway.  If I need to add more, then I can add my own from the very beginning, and keep the cost of the passenger car down a little.  

PCRR/Dave

 

“If they don't have people in them then modelers may open the car up which voids warranty. “

 

The above statement is factually incorrect and should not be included as part of your buying decision.

 

Mike Reagan has specifically stated that “six screws on the new cars” are all that is needed to remove the body to populate the car and/or gain access to the lighting system.

 

Even if the poster of the above comment was talking about the passenger cars from the last 75 years or so, his statement is still incorrect.

 

Hope this clears up any misunderstandings.

 

Charlie

yet another O Gauge Tempest in a Teapot 

I prefer NOT having people in the cars; it's easier to "decorate" the interiors without them.  And I can add friends, family members, folks from work, neighbors, etc. 

Even though:

• The number of people are sparse
• Some of them become unseated and roll about the aisle
• The same people, dressed in the same outfits, and are in the same seat as the car in front and behind...

My vote is that a detailed interior car should have passengers included

 

Rich

Passengers in OEM O gauge trains are the most anti-social people in the world.  They always travel alone.  I don't recall ever having a single car in which two passengers were seated beside one another, at least not until I opened up the car and glued one next to them.

 

Everyone wants something different, lots of passengers, a sparse amount or none at all. With no passengers in the cars we have a blank slate.  It will be the quality and appearance of the car that dictates whether or not I buy it, not the number of people inside it.

As with so many topics here nowadays, our differences seem to overshadow the hobby that we all have in common.  While different viewpoints can be a good thing, I'm forever puzzled how some folks swallow the Lionel Kool-Aid hook, line and sinker. 

 

Premium prices for less features... however minor some may be.  What a lovely trend.  If we're paying premium prices, I'm expecting top of the line features.  If the prices reflect lesser quality/features or lower price/performance, that's different.

 

Just compare this thread to the 3rd Rail / GGD El Capitan threads where we see nothing but enthusiasm, excitement and folks responding positively to premium products sans the smoke-screen party lines that purport to be in our best interests.

 

Let's see... we've gone from aluminum to plastic.  Now passengers are being eliminated.  What's next?  Couplers?  Yeah... that's right... it's easy for folks to add their own couplers.  By 2018 we'll be buying passenger car "kits", where buyers will need to install their own lighting, couplers, and wheel-sets.  Heck, by then we'll have long forgotten that passengers were once part of "detailed interiors".    But through it all, Lionel will tell us they're doing this to keep the cost of product down.   And of course, there will still be some folks clamoring for even more of the Kool-Aid. 

 

David

Lionel 18" Aluminum Passenger Car 4 pack = MSRP of $639.99 with passengers

 

Lionel 21" Plastic Passenger Car 4 Pack = MSRP of  $599.99 with no passengers but with LED lighting, close coupling via kinematic coupler, flush fitting windows and scale length.

 

A 21" plastic SS diner is 10 bucks more than its 18" aluminum counterpart from 2005.

 

I do not think this is a an example of "premium prices for less features".  Just because people are not appalled by the product offerings or the price point of Lionel products does not mean that they must therefore be drunk on Lionel Kool-Aid.  

 

Not everyone is a conspiracy theorist that sees nothing but the worst in everything.

 

As with so many topics here nowadays, our differences seem to overshadow the hobby that we all have in common.

Posts/Rants such as yours, laced with incendiary, hyperbolic, end-of-the-hobby-as-we-know-it rhetoric are precisely what overshadow anything we may share in common.  The manufacturers and their pricing do not cast that negative shadow on our hobby.

 

 

I'm not getting this comparison at all, either. Complete apples to oranges, it seems to me.  "If we're paying premium prices, I'm expecting top of the line features.  If the prices reflect lesser quality/features or lower price/performance, that's different."

 

Paying premium prices for the Lionel cars? The Lionel cars work out to $108 per car street. The 3rd Rail cars are $250 per car! Trying to compare the Lionel cars with the 3rd Rail cars?? The 3rd Rail car cost 230% more!

Some people want the cars without people.  I would have preferred  by 3rd Rail ToT that way, since I bought it to display, not to run, and prefer display trains empty.  Although I don't want that enough to take it apart and remove them, so it sits here in my study where I am looking at it now, with a very sparse population of a couple of people in each dome area and a few looking out from the side windows.  

 

A manufacturer can't please everyone, and I suppose among the options Lionel had, they took the lowest cost way out.  I'm not sure I wouldn't have, too. 

 

Regardless, I like passengers in trains I run, but there are never enough.  Even recent Lionel and MTH offerings with passengers were still deficient: they needed at least three if not four to five times as many passengers.  And passengers are easy to put in.   It's actually a fun project because you get to position them in little groups and vignettes and such, and that can be very entertaining and creative.