Model trains becoming less popular.

Never worked on their hardware, but used System 38 and and 4381 stuff, and came to hate VMAS - the manuals for ver. 5 were worse than the ones for ver. 4 - the overpaid IBM techs trying to learn about what they were supposed to be helping out on always went back to the v4 manuals to look stuff up.

On a much more brighter note:

"Model Train Firm Hornby 'Best Sales since Mid-70s'"

Hornby produces its models in China.

There is another factor as well. As the population ages, a lot of the older model trainers are dying. Their trains, layouts, and so forth are going up for sale in estate and garage sales across the country. There is a lot of used equipment out there, and more coming. Manufacturers and retailers have that as competition.

Carolyn

Marklin is sacking most of it's _German_ staff and moving production to China and Eastern Europe.

And here's a couple of articles on the Lionel front. First, a very extensive article on the background and trying of the MTH-Lionel lawsuit:

Another sidenote:

A few days after they announced the layoffs, the maerklin company musemum was robbed. According to maerklin the damage is ~1.000.000 euros. There was more than one person thinking "insurance fraud" at this moment.