Atlas acquires Microtrains

[basementcalling]

It's a shame. I bet folks like @robertjohndavis would've been happy to help in exchange for very little back. Hell, probably knowing he helped a long-term N scale supporter probably would've been enough. I know I do my best to let model manufacturers that I'm always happy to help them sort out web issues in that same way.

Why? Simply because I want to see them succeed. I want them to be able to focus on making trains for me to buy instead of dealing with expired SSL certificates making their customers think they've gone out of business, for example.

Will work for model trains is a payday most companies might agree to.

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[Ngineer]

maintaining some semblance of what MTL production was before the fire.

My understanding at that time was that the factory was completely unharmed by the fire.

Only some of the employees there at MTL experienced personal losses.

   Javier

[Point353]

It's a shame. I bet folks like @robertjohndavis would've been happy to help in exchange for very little back. Hell, probably knowing he helped a long-term N scale supporter probably would've been enough. I know I do my best to let model manufacturers that I'm always happy to help them sort out web issues in that same way.

But you can't help a client who might believe that they have everything under control and therefore don't need outside expertise.
By the time the opposite becomes evident, the PR damage may already have been done.

[bman]

My understanding at that time was that the factory was completely unharmed by the fire.

Only some of the employees there at MTL experienced personal losses.

   Javier

That's correct. But between Covid and the fire, maintaining staffing levels for production became a challenge from what it sounds like.

[OldEastRR]

I am biased because it’s my field, but there are very good reasons PR agencies exist. This case is one of them. I’ll explain why and then discuss the biggest mistake made.

Given the political environment we live in, buying a company that hung their hat on American-made messaging with the intent of changing manufacturing geography was never going to go down easy. Layer on skyrocketing prices and tariff concerns, and you’ve got a tough path to navigate. You need not be Nostradamus to realize the announcement could go sideways.

Atlas needed a partner to help them craft messaging and scenario-plan. It seems that didn’t happen, and now you have them taking a defensive position with a lot of emotion. It didn’t have to go this way.

In all of this, the communications forgot the customer. And this is where the biggest mistake was made…

Atlas took the position of the sale being a good move, but from many customers’ POV Atlas is a company with notorious supply chain issues, long production times, quality control concerns, and inferior trucks and couplers. And they were announcing the acquisition of a very reliable company that turned out product monthly, and produced the defacto trucks and couplers of the whole market.

A humble Atlas would have positioned this (in reality, not just comms) as a way to improve Atlas. Instead, what modelers heard was that MT products would now be subjected to the way Atlas works. That was where it went off the rails and they are still trying to counter it.

This is a common approach unfortunately - the buyer presents themselves as the standard. When that opinion isn’t widely shared by the customer base, you get backlash like we are seeing now.

This was going to be a tricky announcement no matter what, but it could have gone better. There’s no question from a communications point of view that mistakes were made. That doesn’t mean the acquisition isn’t a good thing, but it created a negative backlash that may have been avoided. Never underestimate the need for PR.

Rob

In this case, it's like when Boeing bought MacDonnell-Douglas but then let MD personnel make all the executive decisions -- resulting in the 727 SuperCrash (..er..) SuperMax.

[Ike the BN Freak]

My understanding at that time was that the factory was completely unharmed by the fire.

Only some of the employees there at MTL experienced personal losses.

   Javier

Speaking with Eric at the KC NSE show, he stated that after Covid and fires, they haven't been able to maintain staffing. Some of the former employees lost everything in the fires and were not able to rebuild, therefore never coming back. He mentioned at due to the smaller staff, it is why we were only seeing only certain body styles for monthly releases. Basically stating that these took less skill and time to assemble.

[crrcoal]

Can you or someone explain the fire? I had thought it was the business that had caught fire but I have seen people say some employees lost everything in the fire.

Speaking with Eric at the KC NSE show, he stated that after Covid and fires, they haven't been able to maintain staffing. Some of the former employees lost everything in the fires and were not able to rebuild, therefore never coming back. He mentioned at due to the smaller staff, it is why we were only seeing only certain body styles for monthly releases. Basically stating that these took less skill and time to assemble.

[SirTainly]

Medford suffered badly due to wildfires the other year.

[Mark5]

Can you or someone explain the fire? I had thought it was the business that had caught fire but I have seen people say some employees lost everything in the fire. What does that mean? Were they living on the premises? They had all their personal belongings in the building?

I don't think the MTL building was directly affected. The Almeda fire was largely south of Medford, some MTL employees lost everything (not surprising given that thousands of homes were lost):

https://www.ijpr.org/wildfire/2021-09-08/the-almeda-fire-one-year-later

[nscalersince1969]

The fire came close to their building to a housing development across the main road. If you look at Google earth for their address, pan out about a block from their building and you see either empty lots or buildings under construction. Not sure if this link will work or not. They were definitely without utilities for a while.

https://earth.google.com/web/search/351+Rogue+River+Parkway+,+OR+97540/@42.23839732,-122.77884895,499.33175567a,328.8202081d,35y,242.83503332h,0t,0r/data=CiwiJgokCV3rPvuqokNAEZGo46D9oUNAGVpYV78eM1PAIU35bkNdM1PAQgIIAToDCgEwQgIIAEoNCP___________wEQAA

[Mark5]

Not sure if this link will work or not.

It works - thanks!

More contemporaneous info here: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,5101985

[bbussey]

The fire was stopped across the street from the facility. Multiple employees lost their homes, and many relocated out of the area. The potential MTL workforce was greatly reduced by the disaster and the company never recovered. If it wasn’t for the new printing process, this changing of the guard might have happened much sooner than it did. As it was, the company was available to purchase for roughly three years or so.

[ljudice]

Very good analysis.

Agreed 100%

[wes_sutton]

So if Atlas weren't the ones to buy the business, who was the caped hero, with a big enough PR budget , that would have come along and saved the day instead?
Is there an emoticon for tumbleweeds?

[nscaler711]

So if Atlas weren't the ones to buy the business, who was the caped hero, with a big enough PR budget , that would have come along and saved the day instead?
Is there an emoticon for tumbleweeds?

Scale Trains possibly. But.... then i look at FVM offerings.... oh wait.