MTH 2021 Transition Plans Revealed

[chuck]

No, it's really off Broadway theater of the absurd,

It's so far "off Broadway" that it's insane/inane.

I'd agree except for this bit: "The as-of-now unnamed buyers of the other O Gauge tooling will be revealed later this Summer." Curious....as to the who (Godot and friends?) and what that really might include or not.

After the Atlas announcement where they actually bought everything but the trains with the exception of a few passenger car sets (assume these will wind up in the TrainMan line since they aren't scale) and a small selection of locomotives? If someone had actually bought the bulk of the tooling I'm sure that they would been shouting that out from the rooftops. Maybe they cut a deal with someone in the EU for the European models?

I don't know, maybe the next announcement/pronouncement will be even more poorly written/confusing and provide additional humor.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I don't know, maybe the next announcement/pronouncement will be even more poorly written/confusing and provide additional humor.

The suspense is terrible! I hope it will last...

[rogruth]

Back when "THE ANNOUNCEMENT" was first made I questioned the honesty of it and said I thought it was a business ploy.
I was told by many that Mr. Wolf was quite sincere in his wish to retire and that I was very wrong.
Hmmmm.

[chuck]

Mr. Wolf was quite sincere in his wish to retire

He is and he will.

I questioned the honesty of it and said I thought it was a business ploy.

It was and still is but not necessarily for the obvious reasons.

and that I was very wrong.

Nope!

The statements are not mutually exclusive. He wants out and he does intend to retire. Trouble is what he thinks the company is worth and what the market thinks the company is worth are very different things. As the creator of the company he is torn between the desire to see it go on without him but also the fear that it could go on without him. He feels some degree of responsibility to the people who work for him but he really does want to move on and hopefully enjoy a life beyond toy trains. I suspect that all of this emotional baggage has contributed greatly to the extremely confusing exit strategy (or lack thereof) and directly to the strange "announcements".

[Norton]

I did hear the European trains are going to a European manufacturer, no idea which one. At this point my only interest in MTH is whether PS3 and other DCS remains available as its far easier to replace PS2/3 with PS3 vs ERR or Legacy. Also on the lookout for some 64' woodside cars, but thats it.

Pete

[rogruth]

Some hear this, some hear that. Lots of wishful thinking. Very little seems to be official.

[chuck]

Very little seems to be official.

Very true. That you can take to the bank!!!!!

[Norton]

Some hear this, some hear that. Lots of wishful thinking. Very little seems to be official.

It depends who you hear this from. Sources include the MTH employee taking over parts and setting up the new building as well as a train store owner who has known Mike since high school and as a result acquired most of his broken parts donor items.
Also Andy Edelman and Rich Foster said as much on their Trainworld and facebook presentations. What isn't as clear to me is why they keep putting off the "official anouncements". DCS and parts was supposed to have a new website back in January.

Pete

[Neil]

"What isn't as clear to me is why they keep putting off the "official anouncements". DCS and parts was supposed to have a new website back in January."

None of this was planned from the getgo, and the plans change as circumstances do, and as finances allow. It's a sole proprietorship, as far as I know, so anything Mike spends money on is less money he gets to take with him into his semi-retirement. This is a totally frazzled, unplanned mess is my guess. Trying to make it appear to be good news is excellent marketing, but largely transparent rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[jlong]

Mike Wolf's plan was to own Lionel. What happened?

[chuck]

Mike Wolf's plan was to own Lionel. What happened?

Short answer is he pissed off Richard Kughn and was fired. If he had played nice he might have achieved his goal. That isn't his style so he was doomed from the start.

[G3750]

Mike Wolf's plan was to own Lionel. What happened?

Short answer is he pissed off Richard Kughn and was fired. If he had played nice he might have achieved his goal. That isn't his style so he was doomed from the start.

Wasn't he actually competing with Lionel at the same time he was working for them? Or do I have that wrong?

[Neil]

I think both sides would agree that what caused the rupture was Mike Wolf proposing a scale diesel project to Lionel via his ties to Samhongsa. Lionel turned it down, but Wolf went ahead with producing it for sale through his own train shop (a major Lionel retailer). Kughn found out about it indirectly while attending York and seeing MTH's flyer for the diesel. He immediately terminated the relationship with Wolf and MTH, including terminating his dealership. Mike sued and Kughn caved in because he wanted to sell the company and having outstanding litigation would make selling Lionel that much more difficult. Mike no doubt thought he was in the moral right (as usual) and so did Kughn. But competing with your boss (we don't know whether he was salaried or a contractor) and not telling him about this sort of thing is vintage Mike Wolf. He does what he wants and then cries victim when he loses or is called to account.

He stole Liionel intellectual property (trade dress) with impunity (as did Williams) and they did nothing about it. When Lionel started using ex-Samhongsa employees at Korea Brass to make locos similar to Wolf's he successfully sued them for tens of millions of dollars. Until the appeals court told him his expert witness was lacking credibility. And so it goes. Now he is transitioning to the end stage form of MTH and Lionel is going on. Shows the power of a brand name, and perhaps having reasonably good technology (TMCC) vs. reasonably crappy technology (DCS) that also arrived six years late.

That said, it's undeniable that he made a boatload of money, employed a bunch of people until the bottom fell out, made a lot of people happy with his trains, which are undeniably well made mechanically and good looking. He made a big impact on the hobby, although not as big as his most loyal fans think.

[chuck]

There was an excellent Inc. magazine article about 20 years ago on most of this. There was also an interview in Korea with the head of Samhongsa. The train division was only a part of the company. They also made bidets and remote control window coverings! The head of Samhongsa shut down the toy train side of the business when he found out what was going on with the designers and the fact that MTH was behind in payments for the stuff they were receiving from Samhongsa. The initial victory in the law suit was wiped out and the final settlement was about a fourth or the original judgement. The original judgement had forced Lionel into bankruptcy court but this allowed them to do things they couldn't have done otherwise and they wound up a stronger company coming out of bankruptcy. From a strategic standpoint this was like winning a battle while losing the war.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

[jlong]

Lionel killed MTH sales by outfitting Samhongsha designs with TMCC. Thus leaving Wolf sitting on a warehouse full of doorstops outfitted with flunky PS-1 boards. Wolf then used the court system to bail himself out. That's just how self serving the guy was.