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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Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:11:36 GMT
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Highlighted:
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(details)
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Viewed:
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3546 times
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In lugnet.trains, Eric Kingsley wrote:
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If 9V trains do get discontinued...
1. Would your club disband or significantly cut back on public appearances?
(List your club and number of appearances)
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SCLTC (Southern California LEGO Train Club does about 6 display events covering
100 show days that attract about 150,000 visitors per year. The trend is upward.
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2. Are there any clubs that would continue to show using the new Battery
powered IR Trains?
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We probably could not avoid having some members bring IR trains to our layouts,
but we would not become an IR only club. Electrified rails are essential.
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3. How tightly are 9V trains and your clubs survival tied together?
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Probably 100%, unless we morphed into some other organization.
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It is important that folks take this seriously and post honestly. If you have
any other feedback in terms of how your club would be affected if 9V trains
were discontinued please share that as well.
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Several points:
- Train motors are essentially consumables for heavy duty display oriented organizations like ours. If we knew that effective today we would never have access to motors again, we would probably cease doing shows immediately because members would be motivated to protect their motors for future personal use. In our club, the members provide the motors for club layouts and it would be hard to get volunteers to sacrifice theirs to do shows.
- It’s been hard (crazy!) enough telling people for 5 years that “LEGO has been making trains for 30 years including the current system for the past 15 years”. It would be very hard to say “well they used to make these and you can find them on eBay if you look hard”. It would make more difficult to recruit new members.
- We always look forward to creating bigger and better. Killing 9V would kill that. We have many, many thousands of dollars invested in 9V motors and track.
- We’ve been told for years that we (LTCs) are extremely valuable to TLC for showing the public what they could do with the brick. We have been told repeatedly that this is good for TLC and in turn it will be good for us and eventually open the great floodgate of new stuff we’ve been asking/hoping for years: better geometry switches, alternative radii track, better motors, etc.
- TLC must consider the value of the grass roots movement that created all the LTCs over the last 5 years. The only thing that we all absolutely need to keep putting the joy of LEGO in front of millions of visitors each year is for TLC simply keep selling us the same product the company has been making for 15 years. At BrickFest, the new LEGO CEO made clear that he valued “the system” that LEGO is based on. For the LTCs, 9 volt trains is definitely a key part of the system.
-Ted
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: 9V Train Motor Being Discontinued?
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| (...) Ted, This is very important feedback. Lets try an informal poll... If 9V trains do get discontinued... 1. Would your club disband or significantly cut back on public appearances? (List your club and number of appearances) 2. Are there any (...) (18 years ago, 28-Mar-06, to lugnet.trains) !
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