Maerklin model railway maker to make comeback

Don't hold your breath.

Maerklin's main market has always been Germany. It went bankrupt because German model railroaders stopped buying it. The bread and butter of any model railway maker is not the train-set market, but the repeat buyer. But when you are locked into a manufacturer's "system" because of that mfr's deliberate avoidance of non-proprietary standards, then you get rather annoyed after a while. Besides, M* has always been primarily a toy train maker, not a scale model maker, and the market has shifted.

On the German model railway group, the most common attitude is a variation on "So what? M* deserves to die."

M* slogan is still "Simply the Best", but that's simply not true any more - if it ever was.

Compare: Lionel, the premier toy-train brand in the USA for decades, until it misread the market and refused to adapt to emerging scale-model train market and went bankrupt. But the brand had enough value to tempt investors to maintain it for a niche market, which it is serving very well.

Hornby, who looked as if they would go the same way as Lionel and M*, but who have woken up to the changes in the market, and are trying tpo adapt/upgrade their product to the new realities. They appear to be succeeding, but IMO it's too early to tell (loom at the thread on the B12 tender wheels, a sign of insufficient care at at the design stage for this model.)

cheers,

wolf k.

Sorry mate, but Hornby set the standards in their market. They may choose to go along with this or that for commercial reasons, but so-called "international standards" are pretty much irrelevant in the 00 market, which is largely British based, and totally irrelevant to UK outline O gauge. And indeed with 10mm becoming the norm, also in G.

Maerklin got into trouble because the ignored their home market, not because of not sticking to fanciful "standards".

Cheers Richard

Dont worry, Hornby not regressing with B12, its a very very old model (originally from 1963).

cheers, simon

LOL. That wasn't even the case back in Dublo days (I lived in the UK at the time.) a) they had strong competition in the _toy_ train market, strong enough that this competition bought them out. And b) their attempts to satisfy the _model_ railway market were, im, let's say a mess of interesting experiments. I love Hornby Dublo, BTW, but even as a child I never considered it a model railway. It was definitely a toy, and very, very well made. Sigh.

Sorry, mate, but Hornby OO isn't a standard. It's a bloody awful mess.

And their "choosing to go along with this or that for commercial reasons" is of course exactly what they have to do if they wish to survive and thrive. Because the market does expect standards. Really.

Other mfrs seem to be having quite a success horn(by)ing in on the OO market. That's why Hornby, for "commercial reasons" is following the international wheel/track standards fairly closely.

And if you read my screed more carefully, you will see that "ignoring the home market" is precisely what I was talking about. When the market changes, the mfr must change with it, or suffer the consequences. It's what killed Lionel, and nearly killed Hornby, who, not so many years ago, was considered a fading brand as a _model_ railway supplier. They have, it appears, a somewhat more nimble management than M*, and began upgrading product in many ways even before they moved production to China.

Ah, that explains it. IOW, Hornby are offering what is now junk compared to more recent models. Well made junk, sure, but still junk.

I don't see the marketing sense of continuing to offer junk. All it takes is a couple of more or less severe disappointments, and you will lose that customer forever.

BTW, that's exactly what M* did -- they offered old models alongside the newer, better quality ones, and you shoulda heard the scorn in my cousin's voice when he referred to them.

cheers,

wolf k.

I have one of the last Margate batches of the Class 25 and IMHO it's pretty damned good. Stands up well against Dad's Bachmann Class 24.

Speaking of Bachmann, I hear that they're planning to re-tool their LNER locos with new chassis. Not before time, particularly in the case of the J72s.

Wouldnt call them junk, more ok ish and not super detail. Bachmann have similar products.

Cheers, Simon

(Chorus) Oh no it isn't! The standard is a defacto one and it works just fine. The fact the the NMRA chose to ignore it, and other UK outline standards, when compiling their "standards" is the NMRA's problem. If you were modelling UK outline 0 gauge would you look to the NMRA for standards, or The 0 Gauge Guild? Similarly, if you were looking at UK outline 00 would you look at NMRA or what Peco/Hornby/Bachmann et al are actually producing? In both cases the latter is the only option, they may pick and chose bits and bobs as a way of agreeing amongst themselves without loosing face, but they are certainly not endorsing the whole NMRA "standards" set up - and thank god, their 0 gauge standards are a complete mess.

Those who want "better" standards (EM, P4, Scale 7 etc) have developed their own standards - again no NMRA in sight!

Marklin (old UK spelling) went bust because they were producing rubbish models - nothing whatsoever to do with standards. Hornby's problem years were down to a shift in the whole model railway demograph - the toy end of the market collapsed pretty quickly in the early 70's and it took them time to shift to the "adult" market at a time when raising the capital to do so must have been extremely difficult - the fact that they survived at all is a tribute to their management- there was a time where none of the high street shops or mail-order catalogues offered anything railway related except Leggo and such. If they had not there would be no 00 market as it is now - like it or not Hornby = Model Trains to the vast majority of the UK population, and probably British trains to most overseas.

Cheers Richard

beamends wrote: [snip an anti-standards rant]

They were rubbish because they didn't meet standards. The modelling scale varied from about 1:72 for small tank engines (so that those huge AC motors and reversing units would fit) to 1:100 (for coaches, which otherwise would have been too long to traverse those tight curves.) M* did have consistent track and wheel standards, though. Mechanically and electrically M*'s models were extremely reliable and robust. Their main problem in the long run was their insistence on their "system" - which was incompatible with just about every other mfr's product.

Well, thanks for agreeing with me. ;-)

True, but the Christmas train set market has (as you have noticed) pretty well disappeared, and it's that market for which Hornby stood/stands for model trains -- you know, doting aunts, generous uncles, and devoted grandparents. :-) What matters now is what the model railway demographic wants, and they want standards -- that is, they want to be able to run any mfr's product on their layouts with no problems. Gosh and my goodness, they even want to run older reissued models with no problems (!), and get a tad annoyed when they can't do it (though some people enjoy fiddling with a model to make it run right.)

Well, yes and no. There has always been a significant market for UK outline in N. America, even in the US. But Hornby's reputation is mixed

- many (like me) remember Dublo with great fondness and nostalgia. Now there was a quality product -- it was reliable and robust, and inspired many a lifelong devotion to the hobby. I recall gazing longingly at a crimson Duchess set displayed in pride of place in the hobby shop window in Stratford on Avon. I'm looking for a nice Dublo set in good condition, to set up at Christmas time -- but it will cost me loadsadough. ;-(

But many people recall the sad effects of the Triang takeover of Hornby. "Triang-Hornby"" was terrible, even as a toy. Ran poorly, and some of it looked awful. Very difficult to modify to run on standard track. Not exactly a winner of friends and influencer of people -- yet it carried the Hornby name.

Now that Hornby is trying to re-establish a N. American presence via Rivarossi reissues, many are bemused by the fact that Hornby are offering "shorty" carriages, with low levels of detail, and at prices close to those demanded by Walthers and Rapido, who are offering absolutely superb models.

Fact is, Hornby still thinks of itself as the premier purveyor of model trains, which it was for so long in the UK. They still too often operate as if anything they put on the market will sell "because it's Hornby." That just isn't true any more, not even in the UK.

But Hornby is changing, and with luck will remake itself.

One final note: the NMRA was and is a volunteer _consumer_ organisation. It was modellers that organised it back in 1936, and it is modellers that run it still. There have been changes and extensions to Standards. Each has been argued, fine-tuned, and debated for several years before being put to a vote by the membership. It distinguishes between Standards (necessary for interchange) and Recommended Practices (desirable for better looks and better operation).

The NMRA doesn't impose its standards. The fact that its track and wheel standards have become a de facto international one testifies to the care with which they've been developed. These standards are currently being revised so as to eliminate the +0/- or +/-0 specifications, which were often misinterpreted by mfrs.

cheers,

wolf k.

Which is why DCC manufacturers (especially European) are turning their back on it, and setting up their own groups. Look how long Digitrax have had transponding on the market. Where are the devices with any *useful* RailCom functionality?

Which is why products can carry the "football" logo for DCC conformance and yet still not interoperate as they should.

The NMRA has been a great disappointment recently and is still really very insular in veiwing everything from the US perspective. Which is fine, I guess, since it is a US organisation.

Ah, that's better, must be the temperature.

MBQ

You can have some of our 10C weather, if you really need to cool off.

;-)

wolf k.

It's just as cold here in the balmy south. The only warm places in Canada are in the far West, from Vancouver up to the Yukon.