Bill. A lot of good points..well said.
David

I'm not into the HO DC stuff, except for some US prototypes that I hope to eventually convert to 3-rail digital, but bachmann, and most of the other DC types sold here in the USA, sell two or three levels of "quality". Bachmann makes its "Spectrum" line which supposedly gets good reviews in the magazines. Same goes for Athearn with its Genesis line.
I would suspect that some of these boxed DC sets you will find in toy stores, department stores, or big box stores, are geared more to the impulse buy than anything else. I would also suspect that the price is much lower than what a Marklin (or Lionel) starter set would be.

Hello,
Almost everyday things are changing in our small railroad world. Rivarossi disappeared; Life-Like, Proto 1000 & 2000, etc were bought by Walthers; Athearn was acquired by I do not remember who ...
It will become difficult to some other manufacturers to survive. Financial strategy is now more important than end products.
Pierre.

Does Lokshop have the same deal as modellzentrun) where you get 33% discount on in stock loco's (their bankrupycy - blowout sale)?

What is modellzentrun?

I see, thanks. Looks like they don't have it (ROCO69771).



And what would I do with a carburetor on my layout??
QUEEN got it all wrong

Well, that guy Magdfrau must have been two cans short of a six pack when trying to salt up the bank - so they wasted him
Just a guess - they'll sell that shop for big $$$, soon ... [}:)]

John

Steven: The bank always wins ... [xx(]

After reading all the doom and gloom, I hope that they succeed and reestablish themselves. With support from their labor force and their creditors they well may be able to pull it off. It would be terrible to loose such a fine company. I know their are companies willing to buy the brand name and ship out cheap poor quality product using the brand, however, it would be nice to see this company make it back even as a smaller venture.
Stephen(USA)

It is shame that Roco is having problems and will probably go out of business. Hopefully they can be sold to another Austrian, German, or European train manufacturer to keep the company on the continent at least. The market is tough for model trains these days since children now have some many electronic toys to choose from. I should know since I have two sons one 10 and the other 12 years of age. I was able to keep their interest to some point in model trains by showing them at a very young age and working on layouts with them, but of course they still like there video games. I spend as much time as possible doing things with my children just to keep their interests in many other things and it has worked to some degree. Well the way I see it model railroading does takes time and patient something many people at least that I know don't have anymore - even to cook our own meals. As for the future of Marklin, I think Marklin will eventually have its lower end starter sets, locos, and cars manufactured outside of Germany, but continue to produce the higher end products in Germany which will keep the brand afloat. This is what happened to many companies everywhere in the world. I saw Henkel knives made both in Germany and Taiwan (I think) the other day. The Taiwan ones were priced much cheaper, but it gives the brand name recognition which helps sales. Of course the ones made in Germany were more expensive, but the name becomes more recognized and becomes a potential sales. Of course we know the auto industry along with photo industry has been doing this for some time now. All that said I feel Marklin’s future will be fine as long as they keep up with the times in the areas of marketing and control manufacturing costs. Compromising on quality would be out of the question no matter where they manufacture. This is the one niche they still have in the market.

I have heard news that roco back in business.

Found in other forum site say
'According to news reports Roco is back in operation under a new name, Modelleisenbahn GmbH. Several members of the old regime are working for the new firm that is now based in Munich, Germany.'

More or less every single sentence of this "other" forum's quote has been known for months but is in the meantime outdated or simply wrong (i.e. NOT Munich).

But Steven, your headline is correct. They ARE back in business and were at the Munich exhibition with an ok presentation.

Regards,

Hans

Hello,

All I can say is that I am very sorry for ROCO, as I was for Rivarossi. Who is going to manufacture now the superb true-to-scale 303mm passenger coaches? Given that Märklin continues with the stubborn trend of the "toy-train-has-to-fit-all-curve-radii", I hope that we will see another maker coming up on the horizon that will accurately reproduce model trains.

May this be my epitaph for a lost friend...

Greetings,
Armando

Successful industry turnarounds are not unheard of - witness the rebirth of the Swiss mechanical watch industry in the aftermath of the quartz movement in the 1970s.

The likes of Marklin, Fleishman and Roco all have compelling brands and products. As opposed to blaming the economy, the banks, the owners, the workers, the customers, (...and the Chinese, for that matter[}:)]), they may want to focus on the declining level of corporate, marketing and engineering competence which no one likes to talk about.

Roco decided to spend the money a couple of years ago to build a fancy new Roco plant in Austria as opposed to getting more and better trains into our hands. As a customer I'm not enjoying the outcome either, but nah I don't think I'm going to shed too many tears for the management who decided to do it, nor for the banks and shareholders who approved it. I'll just keep looking at the awesome 18-201 I have on my desk now and hope the business gets back on track again...

Leo Cheung
(griping from my Chinese soapbox)[:0]