Subject:
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Re: Why is the monorail motor so special?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:53:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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1266 times
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In lugnet.trains, Richard Marchetti writes:
> In lugnet.trains, John Gerlach writes:
> > The rumor I heard was that the moulds to produce the motor housing were no
> > longer available.
>
> So what?! TLC is in the business of making moulds so that they can
> manufacture thousands of little plastic modular elements that comprise a
> supposed "system" of building blocks. I have the strange idea that TLC can
> and does make moulds for manufacturing elements anytime they want to...
>
> Has anyone recently considered the stuff TLC has been manufacturing rather
> than what we might wish they did? Look at Bionickles, Creator, and the Jack
> Stone lines -- there are probably a minimum of two dozen elements not
> previously available in these sets, all new this year! I don't think the
> argument about the expense of making an element, or series of elements,
> holds any water any longer. TLC can obviously make the moulds and put stuff
> back into production if they wish to do so. It is not a matter of whether
> they could -- because doing so IS the very business with which they are
> presently and have always been engaged.
>
> The real issues are obviously those of "return on the investment," and the
> probably questionable savvy of their business strategists. I am cheered by
> the possibilities suggested by the "Classic" and "Legend" lines, but I am
> equally disheartened by the advent of lines like Bionickles, Creator, and
> Jack Stone.
>
> I feel positive that Rose is correct in assuming that there is no technical
> reason that the monorail cannot come back. It will return if and when TLC
> decides it's a good investment. I note that Rokenbok Systems makes a
> monorail set for around $150 USD...it's pretty cool, I played with it at TRU
> once.
I think you're absolutely right! The stuff I speculated about elsewhere in
the thread isn't technical, it's just monetary (putting an electromechanical
assembly line back together again or even recreating tooling isn't
*technically* impossible, it just costs a lot). But I think that TLC thinks
there's no return on spending that money to do it.
Yet, anyway...
We can always hope that if LD does better and better their budget for
revival will increase and stuff that takes more up front investement might
someday come back. Confounding the designers of all that JS, B, C, stuff by
actually making money.
So ya, vote with your dollars, absolutely. Buy what LD offers (when it is
good) and shun what the mothership in Billund designs (when it isn't any
good). (which seems to be "mostly", and "mostly", respectively, IMHO,
although I wish they'd gotten the printed elements in 10000 done better)
I played with the Rokenbok(r) monorail too, and I think it is pretty nifty.
The rumors I hear about the Bionicle RC device suggests that it STILL won't
be as flexible as Rokenbok, which is too bad!!! The Rokenbok scheme of
little receivers that each are a different channel is SO cool, and SO more
modular than what Lego(r) has done so far. You'd think they would have
learned from the original RC car which I don't think did all that well (I
still don't have one! Can't see the value in it)
But I didn't buy the R monorail in the end because I remembered that I have
plenty of monorail in my "hoard" :-) to play with, so that's what I and my
kids went and did instead.
Lucky me, I guess, (1) but not at all an acceptable answer for everyone
else. Not at all. Unless they want to pay silly amounts of money, that is,
on the after market. Which is fair (as I've said before, people spend what
they want to spend) and unfair at the same time.
If anyone responds it may make sense to set FUT to somewhere else as we are
veering away from Trains and more into the "why does TLC do what they do"...
1 - until my wife reminded me we could have had a nice little jet ski for
what I dumped into buying monorail...
++Lar (who remains 9V complete but owns no Arctic, no Jack Stone, no Alpha
Team and no Creator... although his kids have a little Arctic and are fairly
Bionicle crazy)
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Why is the monorail motor so special?
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| (...) So what?! TLC is in the business of making moulds so that they can manufacture thousands of little plastic modular elements that comprise a supposed "system" of building blocks. I have the strange idea that TLC can and does make moulds for (...) (24 years ago, 3-Aug-01, to lugnet.trains)
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