. I have ordered from them in the past and there was always some glitch in the transaction. Always! I think the internet has put an end to their supposed dominance.
I’m sure Walther’s did drop ship a lot of their stock. They also put their logo and branding on many items by other manufacturers. Many of these manufacturers were unknown to the model railroading hobby for years. Now, Walther’s self-does brand some items but not as many as in past years
Wendell Hanks said:
Walthers…They have chosen the only large scale information for Flyer readers is an 1/8th page ad of a children’s battery train set. That’s it. There are 70 HO and N gauge product information pages…
The sad thing is, this is a good proportionate example of large scale modelers compared to the other scales. We are a super small percentage of the overall model railroading hobby.
HO is king, and Walthers is very large in the HO market.
Trust me, they know what sells. And if it doesn’t sell, they limit what they carry.
I still have the Walthers 1989 large scale catalog. Page after page of large scale glory. But back then G scale (large scale) held a larger share of the overall model train market. It was THE emerging scale at the time. Not so much now.
To use the phrase “Back in the Day”, that is the 1950’s and 60’s I shop Walthers both by mail and as well as in the shop and that was in Micro Gauge! When I got bit by the G Scale bug I went to the Internet and bought direct. That way the manufacture made more profit on his items and therefore, maybe stayed in business, which is good for us! While there is a local shop it is a chain and sells it all, with lots of N, HO, and O gauge they have almost no G Gauge items. And if you go to their on-line catalog there is very little offered.
Now I buy used equipment and build my own cars with wood and metal castings, that way I get what I want and not what someone thinks I want.
Paul
Back in my middle years, mid 70s I ordered a Western Scale Models 10 stamp mill in O Scale. I insisted that my local HS order it for me. The store owner told me I could order direct, but I said No! and he relented. Imagine his surprise when his store was mentioned in a Western advertisement in Model Railroader! He couldn’t thank me enough and gave me a standing 10% discount for life!
It was a fully stocked scratch builders supply… strip wood in 36" lengths , etc… It was in my interest to keep him open…
The Walthers catalog was the universal catalog, but few ordered through it. “Your dealer can make our excuses!”
John
To continue the return to my initial observation.
Yes, it is a critical one aimed at the very agency who unabashedly and loudly proclaims support for ALL aspects of model railroading. That support is missing for large scale.
In short…
There are 70 pages of HO and N gauge product information in a Walthers monthly catalog Flyer. Each endless page of HO and N products gives significance to the model railroading hobby. As to significance, large scale is instead represented and depreciated to one single, tiny, solitary little ad showing a children’s toy.
The message is no large scale products are worth Walthers promoting before serious modelers. Think of products that truly represent our hobby – none require use by children.
Good observations Wendell and I have that catalog as well Vic.
Andrew Moore said:
. I have ordered from them in the past and there was always some glitch in the transaction. Always! I think the internet has put an end to their supposed dominance.
I’m sure Walther’s did drop ship a lot of their stock. They also put their logo and branding on many items by other manufacturers. Many of these manufacturers were unknown to the model railroading hobby for years. Now, Walther’s self-does brand some items but not as many as in past years
The internet has basically done the same thing that the printing press did. It has allowed knowledge to freely flow to the masses.
To be honest, I’ve bought only a few items from Walther’s–books mostly. But I support them for being the glue that holds model railroading, a diminishing force in the hobby world, together. Let’s face it, how many kids take up model railroading who don’t have dads or relatives in our hobby? And who can blame them? It’s an action world in which imagination plays a smaller and smaller part–unless you are a programmer writing war and sci-fi games. But the main reason I tip my hat to Phil ( I think that’s the reigning member of the family) is for the excellent HO building kits they produce. I enjoy looking at the structures that appear in each catalogue and am often inspired by them. Plus they’re kind of an architectural history book, a timeline showing buildings that no longer exist. For example, Walther’s had an office building (I forget what they called it, maybe, “Office building”) that was a dead nuts model of Ford’s corporate headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan–before that big skyscraper was built. Likewise, the Walther’s car dealership model was a replica of the Dearborn Ford dealership that was situated on the fringes of Greenfield Village. These are only the buildings that I recognize and I’m sure some of you will find others that replicate some structure from your part of the world. People have a tendency to ignore the process, but mass producing models of anything is a time consuming and costly process. As someone who worked in retail (but thankfully did not own the store), I don’t know why Walther’s does it. If you’re looking for investment income there’s more money in stocks. And video game development.
I have never bought direct from them but bought Items at my local hobby shop at a cheaper price. I used there catalog to see what was available and then buy elsewhere. As said they are not into large scale as such more the smaller scales and the prices are not cheap. Later RJD
As Joe Rusz states in above post: “To be honest, I’ve bought only a few items from Walther’s–books mostly. But I support them for being the glue that holds model railroading, a diminishing force in the hobby world, together.”
That’s the point. Joe captured it. Considering Walther’s importance and steadfast dedication to model railroaders, why would the only example in their Flyer of large scale modeling be a product for children? No other scale in the Flyer is represented by a children’s toy.
A question unanswered.
Wendell Hanks said:
As Joe Rusz states in above post: “To be honest, I’ve bought only a few items from Walther’s–books mostly. But I support them for being the glue that holds model railroading, a diminishing force in the hobby world, together.”
That’s the point. Joe captured it. Considering Walther’s importance and steadfast dedication to model railroaders, why would the only example in their Flyer of large scale modeling be a product for children? No other scale in the Flyer is represented by a children’s toy.
A question unanswered.
Retribution?
Think about it, USA was never a big user of Walther’s and is now almost entirely direct buy oriented, Aristo is still on life support, and they just had a rather public split with Marklin\LGB, Lionel may be all that’s really left in their large scale portfolio, so they do their best to thumb their noses at LGB. Just my 2¢
Retribution?
Vic’s analysis makes sense.
Certainly, Walthers catering to an adult market of model railroaders is purposeful and not by accident. So a fair conclusion is their presenting a large-scale battery-powered train toy to this audience as representative of large scale is equally purposeful – in particular since there was no other large scale option shown.
Am I gonna get a body part caught in the proverbial wringer if I say that perhaps the reason Walthers shows little interest in large scale is because many of us are not model railroaders, but just guys who want to play with trains? Which is OK (whatever floats your boat), but based on what we see on this site, you can count the modelers, vs. the “trainers” on the fingers of your hands. BTW, I have no real layout and am no Ray Dunakin. I just like to mess around with something until I get bored, which hasn’t happened in the last 18 years I’ve spent in large scale.
Joe, you have a point. But, many folks in O gauge and HO gauge, that I run across, are also train runners. They only buy RTR equipment and built up buildings. Some also buy the shake the box building kits. Many of them arent modelers neither. I see trains run at the all scale shows that are spotless, and a mix of eras in the same train. Woodside reefers with modern boxcars and many other un prototypical set ups. The buildings on some displays dont even have galzing in the windows and no interior details, they are just empty boxes.
So while you have a point, our gauge isnt the only gauge where there are just folks who play with trains. Maybe there is a higher ratio of modelers to train players in the smaller scales, but I am not sure. How many folks in HO, still scartchbuild freight cars? How many folks in HO still kitbash, or super detail locomotives? Many don’t. Some do. On the all scales site I moerate, most of them are RTR guys. They just take it out of the box and run it, kinda like many folks I have seen in G gauge.
I think Walthers missed the boat with us large scalers for years. But I also was not impressed with them when I was in the smaller scales neither. One G gauge toy train in their flyer tells me they dont care about this market, and about us. That’s ok, since many of us source our stuff out elsewhere anyway.
I dunno, Dave, maybe the whole problem is scale and the size of our stuff compared with theirs. For example, I see stories on layouts in MR where the guy has like 200 cars and maybe 20 locos that run on let’s say, a two-car garage-size layout. To duplicated this in large scale I’d need a warehouse or a very large yard (yes, I know there are large-scalers with lots of equipment).
The other problem with large scale is that it isn’t just a single scale, but rather several different scales sharing a common gauge. To put oneself in Walther’s shoes, if you were gonna taut large scale, which brand/loco/train set would you recommend to a beginner? When I jumped into LS in 1997 or so, we had lots of possible starter sets from LGB and in my case, from Bachmann. In fact, I bought a Colorado Southern freight and an identically named passenger set at $99 each from San Val. Of course, I soon needed more track, cars, locos, all Bachmann. I don’t know what USA Trains and the others were offering, but they probably had an equivalent. Nowadays, Bachmann’s starter sets seem to be 0n30, which as a scale/gauge, has siphoned off lots of enthusiasm and money from large scale. Truth be told, if I were to do it over, that’s where I’d be.
Finally, I’m guessing that Walther’s which is kinda a kissing cousin of Kalmbach and MR, knows the market, figuring that a dinky train set as described at the beginning of this thread, is all the company wants to expend any energy and money on (Sorry for the bad grammer. Don’t tell Sister).
Joe what scale? Oh yea, that is always a question.
Starter sets? Bachmann has their big Haulers sets in what? 1:22.5 or thereabouts. USA has their starter sets (or used to) in 1:29. Piko has theirs in 1:32 (at least the cars are 1:32), And Heartland has their Mack starter sets in 1:24, or they used to have them last time I looked.
As for shear size, yes that can be a problem, or not, depending on your viewpoint. I mean, to fill a basement with trains, one would need a few hundred cars, but a modest backyard set up could be run with a dozen or so. With large scale cars running, lets say $50 to $100, and HO cars running $25 to $60, it would be less expensive to do the large scale thing with fewer cars. Yea, I know, more expensive cars can be had, and less expensive ones are out there on the used market. But my point is the cost difference isn’t as great as some folks think, piece for piece. Track is a whole separate discussion.
What the thread started with, is that it is insulting that the only item representing our chosen gauge is a cheap, plastic toy. Something that isn’t representative of most of what we run. Maybe they are looking at that’s all they want to “expend any energy and money on”. But that is a real disservice to them and us. Someone who doesn’t know anything about or gauge, would see that and think that all that can be had for our gauge is cheap plastic, toy-like junk. That is a real shame. They could have chosen something better, even if they only wanted to show one item. And showing only one item also conveys a very narrow view of our gauge.
Walthers prices were almost always MSRP, they expected customers to order items through their dealer network and the dealer could discount if he was willing to make less on the items. Problem with large scale was most brick and mortar shops didn’t carry much large scale and probably didn’t have many large scale customers. The end result was that large scale product didn’t move. Not only that it took up an out of proportion amount of space to warehouse. It’s a no brainer to me that Walthers could care less about large scale. They have the history and stats on what makes them money and what doesn’t and my guess is as far as they are concerned, it’s not large scale.
Yea, and the history of what doesn’t make money also includes the HOn3 shay they didn’t have when I ordered it, the HO machine shop equipment they didn’t have all 3 years I ordered it, the LGB Chloe when I ordered her and, and , and… (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
David, et all, I am out of answers/opinions, so if you guys want to know, hie yourselves over to the Bachmann, Accucraft, USA Trains or whatever booth the next time you’re at say, the ECLTS or the Big Train Show, and ask the factory rep why large scale gets no respect.
As for Walthers, which is where we began, I like their flyers and I think their HO model building kits and built ups are terrific. I wish there were large scale versions.
