Larry Bad news it seems on the BR05. Thankfully over here we dont have to bother with Marklins warranty. The dealer either replaces the decoder or supplies a new model and if that is not possible then a full refund.

If repairs are two months behind it makes me wonder just how many faulty locos there are.

The BR05 is a great model but that is of no consolation to you. If you can find a Brawa or HAG you like then try it and see the difference.
Hope the problem is sorted soon.

David

Larry,

sorry to hear this bad news from you.

I think Marklin has lowered its quality control (today the locomotives are more complex than in the past, due to the decoder and sound PCBs).

Probably today Marklin receives more defective locomotives compared to the past and their service department has less person than required.

I am sure you will receive your beautiful locomotive (which I have too) repaired, even if you have to wait for a long time.

Renato

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Quite agree guys. If you think M doesnt want the USA what about us over here they have also changed the main dealer and wholesaler and they dont even produce a British loco. I dont mind the lack of locos etc but the way they treat dealers and customers is to say the least very poor.
Only thing is Larry as I said that BR05 is really good and if you can get it fixed then you will probably be happy with it but certainly not with the delays.

David

Good one, Larry - wanna buy ours (verrrrry good price !!!) [xx(][:p][}:)][:o)]

Interesting to note that this chap posts in large capitals ... shouting (not polite)
Not a word of apology for faulty locos and expects Larry to phone...get the customer to do the work.
Looks like you chaps in the USA now have two firms to deal with lets hope for an improvement in customer relations. Do you really all go on holiday in February.
Anyway this reply should be from a dealer who should have the information needed and not a wholesaler who has no contract with the purchaser.
Larry : good on you my friend you got somebody to actually take notice.

David

Hi Nev you are probably right but I would have thought that saying sorry for the problems with the (more than one) locos that Larry has and ensuring that the matter would be put right would be the correct manner to deal with a complaint of this type.
Telling your customer he is not polite shows the attitude that is causing M to lose business. Larry may not be very polite when complaining about the service he is receiving along with the faulty goods as I am sure most people would be.
You are dead right about the dealer ... he should be the one sorting out the problem.
With all the Marklin items I have bought I have only ever had one faulty Loco and the dealer replaced it instantly but I do support those who are spending their cash and not getting good service.
You are of course he did not write in capitals (apologies)

David

Hi all,
Mr Stimson,if I may,some of your comments on this 'unoffical' forum have rubbed me the wrong way.

2. <u>Everyone</u> sends their repairs back right before the holidays? This indicates that perhaps hundreds of people send you items for repair?
Or Marklin has hundreds of problems?

4.Sir, this is the Internet,rumor central.

6. Larry, you made statements in this thread about Märklin, Inc. and its staff that are fundamentally libelous and slanderous. You did this without ascertaining all of the facts. A phone call to me would have provided you with the complete facts about your repair. Making such statements complete with juvenile smiley/growling faces is neither professional nor polite.

So let me ask you,in legal terms; are you going to sue a customer?!?
That is good customer relations! To post it here,where the whole world can read it,you make a vailed threat to a customer. In all my years of customer service,if I didn't get a legal confirmation and had legal post this,to a customer,in private,off list,well, you know how quick a goose processes food?
Then the personal attack.Geez!
Hey Larry,you a Marklin professional? juvenile smiley= here!
Mr Stinson,your 'professionalism' took a hit in my opinion and your own politness is debatable.

Good day.

Dr Dirt

Larry. Glad something is happening for you but dont give in to what is basically poor service. Dr Dirt comments above are right and you should be treated as a valued customer. I am as big a supporter of Marklin as anybody (not fantatical though) and as I see it if we dont complain and make out thoughts known then the loss will be Marklins. We have recently had many of us now buying Brawa and HAG which would not have happened a few years ago.
When you get your model back and working it is not good service it is just what you should expect from a firm which has supplied faulty goods in the first place.
I have done lots of business in the USA in my working life and have always found a willingness to please the customer and give good service ... maybe model rail is different.
Now you will have a different firm dealing with sales perhaps they will ensure M does their part to improve their goods.

David

Hello Everyone,

Anyone wanting to contact me directly about this or any other topic having to do with Marklin or Trix can call or e-mail or write here:

Marklin, Inc.
P.O. Box 510559
16988 West Victor Road
New Berlin, WI 53151

Phone: 262-784-8854, Ext. 20
Fax: 262-784-1095

E-mail: jeff@marklin.com

John,

To answer your question about the American models program, the business model for these models did not work well. While the models were of very high quality and generally received high marks in product reviews by the model railroad press, these models did not find broad enough acceptance in the marketplace.

The general formula for the success of a model railroad product is:

1. right model
2. right features
3. right price

You need to have all three for good success. One or two out of three won't give you success. We never quite had all three factors. Some models, although American models, were better suited for the European market than for the American market. Many models did not have the right features. Virtually none of the models had the right price for our market. For example, two-rail H0 models never really liked the NEM coupler pocket and guide mechanism on the Trix models of the American freight cars. They wanted coupler pockets mounted on the underside of the car frames and ready to take a Kadee-style coupler. Also, the couplers offered by Kadee with a swiveling coupler head and an NEM shank and combined with the guide mechanism created too much slack action for proper operation.

The new management at the factory is reviewing the American program to decide what to do in the future. The factory is not giving up on the North American market. At 330 million plus people and with our levels of disposable income they have to have something for this market in order to broaden the appeal of the Marklin and Trix brands.

Jeff Stimson
Marklin, Inc.

262-784-8854, ext. 20
jeff@marklin.com

its unforetunate if marklin gives up totally on US models. From what I saw price was the biggest negative, at least on locomotives. I was never too concerned with the freight cars - what is there to differentiate themselves with on plastic bodied freight cars (of only two or three body types) when there are so many others to pick from?
The problem with the loco's was that marklin/trix was going head to head with the likes of Boradway limited on the very same types of locos (Alcos, Mikados, Bogboys, GG-1), some with metal bodies at 30-50% under the retail price marklin was asking. The outrageous MSRP markups being asked of for for locos by some US dealers made sure this was dead on arrival. Who in their right mind is going to pay $699 US for a GG-1? That's what a local dealer in Pittsburgh was tryign to sell a GG-1 to me for. I'm sure its still on his shelf.

I hope they don't give up on the GG-1 or Alco, as there as still many more paint schemes to go through.
It would have been nice to see them try something unique and top quality like a Pioneer Zephyr railcar - since the only choices were hard to find and very expensive brass - with nickel plating, and a pile of plastic looking heap like the con-cor model (maybe it runs OK but it still looks like cheap plastic molding with bad silver paint).

Dear Jeff, thank you for participating here and give our US members some answers.

Very much appreciated by everyone indeed.

Hi Biotechee, Jon and Everyone,

No, Biotechee, the marketing fundmentals of the formula I outlined are very simple. Business students have been learning them in their first year marketing classes in college or university ever since I did my MBA program, which was 26 years ago. The trick is applying them to a market that is not your own, i.e. an export market. The factory is very good at the marketing for the German market, but the dynamics of the North American market are different and require a different approach. For one thing, the American market is not monolithic. It is rather regional. The new GG1 starter set (despite its rather high price) will do fairly well on the Eastern Seaboard. The paint scheme on the locomotive brings it into the late Fifties / early Sixties and the cars with their Eastern road names are rather colorful. It will not do so well on the West Coast or in the Midwest. In hindsight, more basic analysis of what the 2-rail DC market in North America wants as absolutely necessary product features might have resulted in the necessary changes to make that end of the American program more successful. Absolutely necessary product features for this group would be among other things the coupler pockets mounted rigidly on the underside of the car frames, horn or whistle sounds that could be activated as long or as short as desired by pressing the appropriate button, not a fixed sound pattern that you turn on and off by pressing the button twice.

The product was already in the development pipeline for both the Marklin and Trix brands when the exchange rates worsened. The result was excellent product, but at too high a price for the market to accept. No one could foresee that Broadway Limited was going to bring out as much product from as much new tooling as they did and in such a short time. One suspects they took some shortcuts in the process. We did not take shortcuts, which meant that we could not react as quickly. Our USRA light Mikado was judged by a product review in a major model railroad magazine to be one of the finest American H0 steam locomotives ever made, but it was easily twice the price of the competition. The Broadway Limited GG1 locomotives came out before our units and were not even on the market a year before they were blown out at half the retail price just as we were introducing our models. Even though our GG1 was constructed from copies of original Pennsylvania Railroad plans and was therefore more accurate than the competition (compare the angle of the sloping cab windows on our models and the competition), and the sound of the horn was judged by many on the East Coast to be dead on accurate, the price was just too high in the 2-rail market.


We were most successful with our caboose models, here because we chose prototypes that had never been done (except in brass) or that had been done in less detailed versions or in runs with very small distribution.

We made mistakes in assuming that Big Boy owners wanted 20 and 10 car sets of 40 foot boxcars with different car numbers and the slogans / emblems used by the Union Pacific over the life of the Big Boy. The market wanted lots of boxcars, but from different railroads. In hindsight we would have done a lot more colorful boxcars and fewer "boxcar brown" boxcars.

The American starter set we were given came from available tooling, namely the Alco PA. This locomotive was conceived at a time when the factory's decisions for American models were based more on salability in the European market. That was the marketing strategy at that time. The PA's were already in the pipeline when the strategy was changed to making American models for the American market. The result was a very nice but rather expensive American starter set at about $600 retail. It wouild have been fine in a lineup with a lower priced set around $250 retail and a more deluxe set at greater than $600 retail. Alone, it made very little marketing sense over here, but that was the only available tooling.

The three rules I listed before,

1. right model
2. right features
3. right price

demands that the manufacturer find out in detail before making any decisions or going into production what the market wants, what it is willing to pay for that product, and whether the manufacturer can make any money producing that product. If the manufacturer can't make money, he needs to find out if there are other ways / places to produce the product as desired by the market and at the price demanded by the market and still make money. If he, the manufacturer can't do this, then he probably should not be making that product.

This is the kind of analysis among others that the new management will be looking at in the future to determine the feasibility of American models. It's not rocket science, just a different approach from what many companies are used to.

Jeff Stimson

Marklin, Inc.
(262) 784-8854, ext. 20
jeff@marklin.com

Jeff,
Thanks from Down under for a very illuminating and detailed explanation.
I am sure all members of the forum appreciate the time and effort that you have put into this.


Nev

I second that! I've asked for better communication from Märklin in some other postings and this is the kind of input I was looking for.

/Torbjörn

Hi Jeff. Having given you a hard time earlier may I say it is great to see your posts above. We now have helpful information which is what is needed. Excuses and defence of problems which really cant be defended only drive away customers but where we can be told there is a problem which is being attended to quickly then customers can be retained. It can be seen easily from the above posts that it only takes time and good information to win round Marklin fans.
As Nev has said this is USA speaking where there is a different approach and culture than in Germany but maybe in time and with management changes Marklin can again get to the front with top class model rail items.
Hopefully you can continue to provide us with information and again thank you for the above posts.

David

Torbjörn and others:

While I realize your comments are well-intentioned and complimentary of Jeff and Maerklin, Inc. (USA/Canada) I'd not try to frame any of this as Maerklin, Inc. (USA) versus Maerklin Company (Germany). They are one organization in an extremely competitive, challenging and dynamic environment with, as Jeff points, having to make very difficult marketing and pricing decisions for customers not only in national markets but as a global organization.

I have no complaints about Maerklin Company in Germany and their responsiveness. When I made a complaint about the issues related to the Insider deliveries, I received an email response directly from the manager (actually the "CEO") from Maerklin in Germany and the problem was addressed. I think they are trying to do the right things to grow the brand, have it not only survive but thrive. Their attempt to appeal to the younger generations with products such as the virtual train driver is a great and innovative step in the right direction.

I think underlying what Jeff has stated and I've mentioned before before, we look at this through the eyes of passionate hobbyists for the Maerklin brand. However, Maerklin, Inc. and Maerklin Company has to run this like a business by making decisions in uncertain economic environments and markets. As a result, if Maerklin, Inc. teams up with Walther's and this arrangement brings corporate benefits for the brand overall then it is a good thing.

Agreed! [:p]