Walthers 0-8-0? It has been cancelled.

[lock4244]

Walthers:
"Due to lack of interest, N scale has been canceled. Please return our referance catalogs."

 

Self fulfilling prophesy, they are. Nothing expected, nothing given. Is Walthers even relevant anymore? We are so well served by Atlas, IM, FVM, BLMA, Bluford, Trainworx, MTL, ESMC, EXR, DI, Kato, and others that I say F'em (forget them). Athearn's lack of recent N scale announcements is more troubling... they had some excellent new tooling.

[Cajonpassfan]

Richie, too funny...
Otto, dreaming' of TTT's and 4090's...

[Lemosteam]

Self fulfilling prophesy, they are. Nothing expected, nothing given. Is Walthers even relevant anymore? We are so well served by Atlas, IM, FVM, BLMA, Bluford, Trainworx, MTL, ESMC, EXR, DI, Kato, and others that I say F'em (forget them). Athearn's lack of recent N scale announcements is more troubling... they had some excellent new tooling.

Walthers never really was relavant to me anyway.  I was very disappointed when they bought Life Like.  LL was really starting to pump out nice running product.  leave it ti WKW to screw that up!  I dont have one of these loco either, so I'm doubly bummed.  Would have made great Kitbashing fodder.

[mcjaco]

Let me get this straight.  Consumers didn't jump up and pre-order enough to merit a run of these, and it's Walther's fault???



 

[Kisatchie]

Let me get this straight.  Consumers didn't jump up and pre-order enough to merit a run of these, and it's Walther's fault???

It's been suggested that the engine was way overpriced.


Hmm... I could afford
eight dollars...

[Bremner]

Let me get this straight.  Consumers didn't jump up and pre-order enough to merit a run of these, and it's Walther's fault???



 

OK, think of it this way...for the last FIFTEEN YEARS, Walthers releases a model, they sell poorly, and then are blown out at half the price. I can't think of a Walthers product in N that this has not happened with, and due to their history, what modeler would pay full price when you can get it for 50% off in 6 months?

[ljudice]

No defense of Walthers here, but if they didn't get the pre-orders they needed, how is this their fault?

 

[Bremner]

why pre-order when you can wait for the firesale?

[mmagliaro]

I think that the eBay sales of 0-8-0's do not show a strong demand.  If you look at the "completed sales" search in eBay on them,
many of them go for $100, and one didn't even get a bid and had to be relisted before it sold.  Maybe Walthers
does look at how they sell on eBay after all.  If I saw that, I would not be convinced that a new run of them
was going to sell hot and heavy.

In contrast... look at how the ancient Trix K4 sells on eBay.  40 year old technology, crude motor and pickups, no DCC,
big flanges that can't run on code 55, and still, they sell, and they usually go for over $50 (some higher, a few lower). 
And there are lots of them always selling. 

[mcjaco]

why pre-order when you can wait for the firesale?

Pre-order, cancel when the order goes through, buy later at firesale prices.   

[MichaelWinicki]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Walther's do the same with their HO product– I mean, bring it out at list price, then after certain time period discount it?

[Chris333]

If I needed another 0-8-0 from this run there is no way I would "pre-order" it. I'm not gonna pre-order anything.

[mcjaco]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Walther's do the same with their HO product– I mean, bring it out at list price, then after certain time period discount it?

Doesn't everyone when they have a surplus? 

[asarge]

Well, I guess all you guys didn;t pre-order, thinking you'll wait for the firesale. SO guess what happened, dealers didn;t pre-order based on speculation. Only on what was pre-ordered by their customers because they didn't want to be stuck with inventory at a high price only to be undercut by a firesale and stuck with loco's they couldnt sell. Yep WKW finally shot themselves in the foot and will again as sales of the HO ProtoLine at short dealer discounts.

But just as importantly, those that figured they wouldn't preorder and just wait to see it before buying and those who were waiting for the firesale just got burned too. You don't preorder, the dealer doesn't preorder and it don;t get done. Both ends of the chain got burned this time, but Walthers may have decided no more firesale policies too.

Whoever it was that suggested pre-order and then cancel at a later date. You can do that once or maybe twice. If it becomes a trend, a new trend putting down deposits on pre-orders will become the norm too.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Someone really needs to make an offer on the Walthers tooling. Just think of all the things FVM could do with them.