Its Walthers, they couldn’t give two figs for LGB, they NEVER have.
Even back when Walthers put out a gen-u-whine large scale only catalog, they never really attempted to promote LGB. Part of that was due to LGBoA consistently undercutting the MSRP and offering direct sales thru the San Diego office, it didnt help that Walthers has a very strict MSRP pricing policy (exception of course being their own product which they flog on sale constantly). Walthers got really hot under the collar about all that and eventually dropped LGB entirely.
Walthers is/was a distributor that never tolerated direct sales competition from any vendor already contracted to sell through their distribution network, to do so would invoke their wrath. When EPL when phoom! Marklin, who supposedly already had a distribution deal with Walthers, although you had to search deep and wide to fund ANY Marklin products actually being sold in the US let alone the non-existent efforts on Marklin’s behalf to market themselves. So now you have Marklin that for a long time didnt seam to give a wet slap about their US presence, now having to pay back their LGB investment and quickly wanting some sort of US presence, now having to almost reluctantly sell newly acquired LGB thru what can still be considered a hostile distributor, is it any wonder Walthers advertising stinks?
I really hope Dickie tosses out all the Euro-centric idiots at Marklin (their partly to blame) and only keeps the ones who remember that the US was at one time one of EPLs biggest markets. I have to admit LGBoA model worked really well for direct sales, parts and servicing, be nice to see something like that make a come back. LGB needs to get out from the Walthers distribution yoke or whither on the vine.
