Walthers reaches out...

[sirenwerks]

Please Walters, just sell the N scale line to somebody who knows what to do with it!!!!!!

Here, here! Here, here!!!

[C855B]

I saw the new Walhters annoucement packet thursday night. ...
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN N SCALE!!!!

This is sad. However, to a degree I understand because Walthers' focus in the [ahem] years I've been in the hobby has been to serve the modeler, with a large catalog of various "fiddly bits" for the craftsman. N scalers in general are train runners relying on RTR, so the modeler market is a smaller percentage of an already minority market. It doesn't help that the N detail supplier market is mostly full of flakes with no serious business development plans (JnJ, Sunrise, Details Associates... shall I go on?), so Walthers' N scale modelers' supply stream is inconsistent and difficult to manage, and just not worth the trouble for the lousy return.

I saw the Life-Like purchase as out of character, maybe even an impulse buy. The N SW7/9/900/1200 and GP20 were break-out models for them and it is a major shame that the tooling is going un- or under-utilized. In my perfect world, maybe Intermountain or FVM could muster the resources and see if W will entertain a reasonable ransom for the tooling, once they get their current distractions put to bed.

Bottom line - to a degree I wish that W would either $#!+ or get off the pot when it comes to N. They're not doing the few of us who are modelers any favors with the poor stocking yet they're the 500-pound gorilla discouraging anybody else from building a trade in all-lines distribution. It's very annoying, and a damper on our hobby segment.

[wm3798]

They purchased Life Like for the HO Proto 2000 line and the train set business.  They got the N scale probably as an afterthought.  So far all they've introduced in the N line is stuff that was already on the shelf or in the works at Life Like.  Consider that much of the N line has been discontinued, and it's clear that there's not a lot of hope, other than a periodic warm over of the steamers and E units.  Anything else would be a real surprise.

Lee

[MichaelWinicki]

The Walther's business plan for N-scale makes my head hurt...

Here's the gist of it– Come out with a model, be it the GP20's, the GP18's or the modular series.  Make it "acceptable", not junk, but not top of the line either... but then price it like it was top of the line.  And when sales combust give the stuff away a little more than cost. 

Everyone in the food chain then ends up suffering for it one way or another...

Some modelers get screwed when they buy in early– before the price drops.  Others get deal after deal when they buy at closeout price, but everyone takes it in the shorts when Walther's doesn't bring out anything else.

The hobbyshops get hosed because they get stuck with all this merchandise that Walther's has slashed to bare-bones.  Then the shops aren't inclined to invest in more product.

Then you have Walther's itself who ends up not making anywhere near as much money as they could have if they had managed the products better.

It's basically a horror story where everyone perishes at the end.

[up1950s]

Walther's might see N scale as competition to , in their narrow viewpoint , to the real model trains that are in HO scale , instead of looking at N scale as an extension of the hobby . It is a unwanted pet that they must feed just enough not to be considered as being an animal cruelty case by normal people . HO gets the cattle bones , N gets the sparrow bones . 

[Mark5]

so what's this about Walthers reaching out?

[MichaelWinicki]

Walther's might see N scale as competition to , in their narrow viewpoint , to the real model trains that are in HO scale , instead of looking at N scale as an extension of the hobby . It is a unwanted pet that they must feed just enough not to be considered as being an animal cruelty case by normal people . HO gets the cattle bones , N gets the sparrow bones . 

I honestly don't think that's it.

N scale isn't going away and they know that.

I think it has to do more with the N-scale product manager/development team.  It's a lack of direction, or understanding of the market's desires and what the prospects are willing to pay for those desires.

[asarge]

Here's the gist of it– Come out with a model, be it the GP20's, the GP18's or the modular series.  Make it "acceptable", not junk, but not top of the line either... but then price it like it was top of the line.  And when sales combust give the stuff away a little more than cost.  

That's why dealers have all but stopped ordereing loco's from them. We tried when they did the RS2's, which were awfully nice models, but they were no huge sellers and a year and a half later dumping them. I do know this. In this recession they have been dumping structue kits at great discounts. Which tells me alot didn;t selll well, or Waltehrs produced LARGE runs. Probably both.

[wm3798]

I don't think they have a product development team for N scale.  I think it's the same bunch of pointy haired bosses that do HO, and every once in a while, they tell Wally and Asok to scale down some existing drawings to N scale so they can reject them.  Meanwhile Dilbert shakes his head in wonder.

I bet Walthers thought long and hard about going into the foam cooler business, and leaving N scale in the torched warehouses in Baltimore...

Lee

[asarge]

I don't think they have a product development team for N scale

That may be the understatement of the young century so far. They have a couple of talented N scalers in their employ, but they don't seem to listen to themn much.