Subject:
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Re: Any 9v train update?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 8 Dec 2006 13:54:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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3669 times
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In lugnet.trains, Chris Phillips wrote:
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In lugnet.trains, Kevin Wilson wrote:
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their corporate policy prohibits them from accepting outside ideas for new
products and that hence, a 9V version of the train would be impossible.
Still,
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You know, if taken literally, that statement would mean that we should
*never* suggest anything to LEGO, because then they would automatically be
unable to make it. In practice, it doesn’t seem to work that way.
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...And they definitely wouldn’t be able to resell people’s LDD models that are
uploaded to legofactory.com.
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I’ve been reading All Aboard!, a book on the history of Lionel trains. I
found it interesting that in the last chapter, which chronicles 1980 to the
present, Lionel faced a number of difficulties and stiff competition and went
through a series of CEOs and parent companies.
One realization reached in this was that their market was not children looking
for an introductory play train set but rather middle-aged adults, and 24-48
year-old males in particular - those with the disposable income to spend on
their trains. I know this point has been brought up before in the case for 9V
trains, and of course, LEGO trains have a different audience than model trains
do. But, I think the one similarity should be obvious - the serious train
builders pour a lot of money into the products and create large-scale layouts as
well as public layouts that draw publicity to the hobby and the product.
Another observation was that several of Lionel’s CEOs were from other industries
and knew nothing about trains. While experts at running companies, running a
model train company required an additional skill: being closely attuned to the
requests of the train community. I think that LEGO has made great strides in
this area, for instance through Factory, the LEGO Ambassadors, and the groups
selected to consult on projects like the ultimate factory train set. I hope to
see this trend continue.
Lastly, after reading about the history of Lionel, a company that saw its heyday
in the 1950s and has been trying to hang on since then, it seems all the more
remarkable and commendable that LEGO is a profitable company today. The
competition is formidable. I’m glad that LEGO is doing a lot of things right
and is making things work in a tough market. And, as some others have expressed
on this site before, I am glad that LEGO does what it needs to in order to
remain a profitable corporation, because I would like to see LEGO around for a
very long time to come.
-Jordan
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