Subject:
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Re: 9V Train Motor Being Discontinued?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:41:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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3326 times
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That may all be true (but I would point out that last I heard, Lionel is
alive and well, yet there are folks who only do vintage tinplate Lionel),
but my main point is that by chosing to be 100% pure to a single
manufacturer, we are totally at the whim of their marketting folks as to
whether product lines we depend on will continue to exist.
Now it's worth pointing out that if the LEGO company completely evaportated
tomorrow, we would still be able to put on impressive displays and get
invited to train shows. Unless for some reason they REALLY are only inviting
us because we drive sales of LEGO. But somehow I doubt it, and surely the
American Flyer hobbiests aren't similarly driving anything other than a
collector's market. Well ok, perhaps there might be an issue in that at most
train shows, you'll find someone selling vintage American Flyer, not so for
vintage LEGO.
I think we also have to ask ourselves why are we doing this? Personally I do
it because LEGO is a cool medium to work in, and the other AFOLs are cool
people to work with (either locally at train shows with GPLR, or nationally
with the brick cons). But I'm also starting to get more of an interest in
finding ways to do shows other than train shows. For one, we've been treated
rather shabbily by them. For another, there's a lot more to the LEGO hobby
than just trains and the towns that they run in.
And 90% of my enjoyment of the LEGO building hobby is completely independant
of LEGO producing any new sets. And personally, I have plenty of train
parts, so if they never made another train, I'd probably still get 95-99% of
the enjoyment. Now I do happen to have a directly tied in hobby of buying
cool new LEGO sets, but that interest is really totally independant of LEGO
trains. So my feeling is that if trains go away, oh well. I'll still build
and show. If LEGO stops making sets, well, that will be a big bummer, but
I'll still build and show (and probably actually do more building since I
won't be spending most of my LEGO time buying and sorting sets).
Now if my hobby was more strongly model railroading, and I wanted to stick
with LEGO, I'd consider getting serious about looking for 3rd party
solutions for track etc. And I'd love to have LEGO compatible track that I
could use outside. On the other hand, I love the G-scale stuff I've
purchased in the last year or so, and there's no way LEGO holds a candle to
it for detail and cool massiveness (of course G-scale has nothing on the
7.5" guage live steam I've seen in those same areas).
Frank
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: 9V Train Motor Being Discontinued?
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| (...) Frank- I see two signficant differences between LEGO train enthusiasts and fans of defunct products from defunct companies: 1. TLC is not defunct and although it's had problems, we all expect it to recover and thrive. 2. While many (most?) of (...) (18 years ago, 27-Mar-06, to lugnet.trains, FTX)
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