three years into Marklin take-over and excellent LGB program 2011!

I think the thing about LGB is they provide(d) a COMPLETE garden railway system - and I mean complete in every way. And that, to my mind takes some beating"

I can't afford it and don't model European but it doesn't stop me admiring it (drooling as well - or is that the missing front teeth?:rolf:). If you have the cash and want it, you'll get it - and that's all there is to it.

To me, standing from afar, the LGB was (or is) extensive and that takes some supporting fiscally.
 
I began buying LGB in 2006 (not the most auspicious year to start) beginning, like most, with a Stainz starter set. Why? I had been collecting Hornby tinplate trains since my early teens (I'm now in my early 40s), but marriage and career had taken me to Singapore with my tinplate collection in storage back in Australia. I wanted to have some trains to [strike]play with[/strike] test, so decided to see what was around. There were two model train shops in Singapore, one selling LGB and one Marklin (some irony there too!). I like large scale trains, so looked at Marklin G1, Marklin Maxi and LGB. G1 was way too expensive, Maxi on the way out - so that ruled out Marklin. I had liked LGB for some time, having known a few people who ran in back in Oz. LGB was perfect for non-permanent layout and would withstand the frequent setting up/packing away necessary in a small apartment. It also withstood the trip back to Oz in 2008.

For me, I'm glad to see that LGB (under Marklin) appears to turned a corner. My tastes are DR and (in the last 6 months) RhB. I own 5 locos, a dozen odd pieces of rolling stock and am just beginning to build a modest indoor layout. The current items list suits my taste.

I know LGB isn't to everyone's taste - each to their own - but for those of us who do, some return to normalcy is good news. In Australia LGB prices have fallen (thanks to a strong $A for the first time in 2 decades), so I do have pity for the majority on this forum from the UK (Hopefully things will improve when the Bank of England abandons the cowrie shell standard:bigsmile:) However, I think for the most part one gets a quality, reliable product with LGB. If I couldn't afford it I wouldn't buy it - and I can't afford 2-10-2Ts, sound-equipped Ge4/4 IIIs, hence their absence from my loco roster. I would like to see some of the older, smaller items return (the steam tram was a good start) but the Mixnitz electric would also be another good 'un. I guess the niggle is quality issues - which obviously are important to overcome.

As to LGB bringing people into the hobby, from where I sit its unlikely to happen. As a secondary school teacher I deal with heaps of young people everyday, and a $5 Harz 2-10-2T with sound, MTS and a massive layout to run it on isn't going to drag them away from Facebook or the latest iteration of Call of Duty. G Scale is a niche market within a niche market. For those of us who enjoy it, we have to be prepared to face the vagaries that beset that position.
 
I agree with Mike that you make the choice on what you can afford and I also perceive it as value for money if I want it badly enough ;)
As said above though selling a minimal profit range to grab people got many of us hooked and that's what seems to be going. Don't forget model shops rather than eBay are still an important entry to the hobby and you see lots of Bachmann Thomas sets now but very few LGB start sets even in garden railway shops. Do Marklin think that they can leave the others to introduce G and then grab them once hooked? That isn't going to sell their track and accessory range very well in future. Premium prices are ok on the top of the range but not good across it is all I think.
 
Maybe Marklin have got it right. Let Bachmann /PIKO get people interested selling at low margins and LGB becomes the brand to aspire to.
 
If you buy a loco at £300, which turns out to be a bad runner bits fall off, and in a couple of years is a complete Knacker then that money is wasted, down the drain etc, plus, you need to get another loco, and now you're £300 down. Best pay a little more get a good loco (LGB for example) and not only will it give years of pleasure the loco's resale price is'nt bad either. Alyn LGB cheaper in the long run. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
 
imagine if LGB made a model of an ASTON MARTIN .

:rolf::rolf::rolf:
HAT COAT GONE........
 
themole said:
If you buy a loco at £300, which turns out to be a bad runner bits fall off, and in a couple of years is a complete Knacker then that money is wasted, down the drain etc, plus, you need to get another loco, and now you're £300 down. Best pay a little more get a good loco (LGB for example) and not only will it give years of pleasure the loco's resale price is'nt bad either. Alyn LGB cheaper in the long run. :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:
Click to expand...

Well in my experience Aristo and USA Trains diesels are wondefully smooth. powerful runners and seem to run and run with very few problems. Absoluty none of my Aristo and USAT fleet which have been bought both new and secondhand over the last eight years are shelf ponies - all work hard and still look good. From my experience neither of these brands will leave you with a "knacker" after a couple of years. As I said earlier LGB were unquestionably the best say 15 years ago but the world has moved on. I am very happy with people buying LGB because they believe it is best but I do find this attitude suggesting all other brands are poor quality without any reasoned argument to be somewhat tiresome.
 
im no marketing wizard
but LGB had
[*]a complete line[*]attractive colors (albeit not always to train lovers likes-but to a wider toy audience)[*]they had some affordable entry items like complete highest quality starter sets [*]they advertised-they had an energy and passion that was apparent in everything about the company-from huge slorious cataloges-to a magazine-to great and plentiful ads[*]they had a stellar reputation among dealers-period-they were always sold as the rolls royce[*]they straddled the model train-toy market- [*]they created a unique offering-neither model (sometimes) nor toy-for me it was an acquired taste
as an LGB fan-and on the fence about Marklin
they need to re-establish the above
and
[*]they need to improve paint [*]packaging might be important too to keep the perception of unchanged quality we can have no expectations that older models will change re the rubber rule or greater detail and fidelity-they simply cant with economics of the existing molds

and as long as i have loved trains-1958-Marklin has been priced like aston martins-at one time this was merited
i think they will be determing whether this will work in the present
if we are the demographic-many of us are sated with product-others facing retirement-others simply re-directing disposable income
or those of use that paid half the present cost just dont understand why things are so much more pricey now

in order to get a newer younger market-they again need to lead

and as noted above -offer value-not only quality but competitive pricing-where they might have an edge over others is the toy train market (but for bachman starter sets ) but i imagine this is low margin and a loss leader-hoping to create addicts like all of us on the forum

dont know how this can be done with dealers -
here in the US thier distributor, Walthers, sells full retail-
i will only rarely buy LGB at full retail as a rule -
 
Being 16 and still I think technically counting as a youngster the pricing issue is quite a big one.

LGB is what got me into the hobby in the first place as their starter set offering was in my mind by far the best available, but the pricing of their stuff blows me completely out of the water, even that original starter set was second hand.

The only new items I own are rolling stock and an Aristocraft lil' critter stater set which at the time I think was £170, cheaper than that little Kof. But then again I have never had any problems with any of my second hand LGB, some of which is getting on for 30 years old.

There's no doubt the quality of LGB is brilliant but not all of us can afford to put that sort of money aside for the product, as much as we would like to
 
Must say the PIKO locos don't look as good as typical LGB locos. I can see good but different reasons for choosing to buy either make. Are PIKO locos proving to be reliable? I haven't heard of any major problems so I assume they are good.

I like the look of Bachmann locos but the earlier models did not have a good reputation for reliability. Are they now mechanically stronger?
 
Chris M said:
Are PIKO locos proving to be reliable? I haven't heard of any major problems so I assume they are good.
Click to expand...

Ask Mike - he blew up two motors on his Piko railcar.
 
Hmm,

A 5' Circle of Aristocraft Euro tie brass track from a certain US discounter in 2005 was $38.

This month's flyer on their website shows $102 for the same circle.

I will not even mention H0 prices in the period between my last year of H0 modelling (2004) and now.

Point? Marklin/LGB are not the only ones that have had price increases.
 
I've been a great fan of LGB for almost 15 years now and have a very extensive collection.

The quality issues since the Marklin takeover are, to my mind, the biggest problem here. The 28435 RhB Ge 4/4 II 619 in Bernina 100 Livery arrived at my local dealer with the lead weight rattling around loose in the body and the replacement loco sent by the Hobby Company had broken detail parts. In the old Nuremburg days, in the latter case, and this would've been a rare occurrence anyway, I'd have simply faxed an order for the parts to Germany, knowing I'd receive them in a week. Now, parts being so hard to obtain, I simply won't accept the damaged product.

I've finally managed to obtain the loco from another retailer, but in the light of these awful quality issues, I will no longer buy from Germany as shipping faulty items back is so expensive.

Before LGB get my vote as being the benchmark in G-Scale, they really need to sort out the quality of their Hungarian production and also sort out their spares department.

I do love LGB but I am seriously concerned about the quality of their Hungarian products and their poor back-up service at the moment. I understand that the Hobby Company are also very unhappy about the situation here too.

J
 
Yes, the see-saw has really moved.

Bachmann have moved up with their 4-6-0 Big Hauler so that the Anniversary model (about Mk 5 by my reckoning) is now a serious model rather than a cheap short-lived toy.

Most of the other locos are quite respectable as regards quality & durability - i've not heard of any problems with the Biles-Coleman mallet, the last completely new offering.

On the other hand, people are seeing LGB quality start to dip (not me, don't use the stuff, so I'm relying on other people's comments) but the prices haven't reflected the change in quality.

Bachmann succesfully run at two levels (forget Thomas for the moment). There's the 1:22.5 stuff which is perfectly adequate for a garden railway, and reasonably priced. then there's the pricier Fn3 (1:20.3) range that is highly detailed and quite expensive.

LGB stuff is all quite expensive, and sometimes of indeterminate scale.

My view would be that Marklin need to sort their act out:

Declare what scale each item is manufactured to.
Get the quality issues addressed.
Stop caning the prices on anything Swiss
Bring out a secondary, cheaper line of stock - no opening doors, no hidden khazis etc. (Be honest, how many times do you open the door on your carriages when the trains are running round - the 10ft rule applies here)

That would do the hobby some good :bigsmile:
 
My view is that quality issues tend to be the first sign to the consumer of a company having real issues. These could be poor training, low morale, poor materials and poor management to name a few. I feel for the retailers as they must be fronting the costs of sending out replacements. When I borght some faulty LGB points I had to pay to send them back to the retailer. E mailed marklin and had nothing back. So I'm tempted by the kof but will buy in person. lgb is not high tech stuff ( only bit that has any tech involved is made by massoth) it's either screwed, molded or glued on and most detail is clipped on so there is no excuse for poor quality. Bachman, aristro and USA trains have caught up and the USA trains motor blocks are far better than lgb. I accept prices had to go up as lgb ran at a loss but their cost of manufactur has gone down to I'm sure. As for piko I can't fault their stuff and they are getting better all the time. Look at trainline too- scale coaches at less than the toy lgb ones. Until marklin get there act together I will be very carefull what I buy from them. ' 3 years in and they still can't get the quality right' oh and pls stop with the plastic wheels.
 
"Get the quality issues addressed.
Stop caning the prices on anything Swiss
Bring out a secondary, cheaper line of stock - no opening doors, no hidden khazis etc. (Be honest, how many times do you open the door on your carriages when the trains are running round - ) "

I'd agree with Ian's points above I don't care how much better the LGB is supposed to be it can't be costing three times as much as a Piko loco of the same size unless you've got either serious issues you need to address with production methods or a huge profit margin.
Long term what will happen if Piko decide to attack the strong selling lines like RhB with a budget alternative?
Opening doors and hidden toilets are I agree pretty pointless for most although with dcc now allowing remote controlled opening door mechanisims they at least are probably justifiable.
I've said before that I doubt I'd now take the LGB route if I was getting into large scale because it's so expensive to start. Probably Piko for European stuff with one or two LGB locos later on or I'd probably go American again with Bachmann, USA and Aristo.
Piko may not be as robust but it would take several years to wear out three Piko camels and I'm sure once number three failed I could make a fourth out of the three failures!
Notable failures of locos I've owned have been 2 Bachmann with multiple failed gears replaced free, one Aristocraft with fried electronics replaced free and two LGB one with fried chip replaced free and one with a burnt out motor which I had to pay for as it was a couple of years out of warranty. So in my experience LGB isn't any more reliable and the cost of spares, when you can get them, has now risen rather high. As a result I buy LGB because of prototypes rather than brand loyalty and would switch to a cheaper alternative like Piko without hesitation though I won't support knock offs of others work. ( I admit to now being fortunate in being able to afford that viewpoint and fully understand the attraction of it to starters and especially younger modellers ).
 
I have just purchased the new LGB24500 tram from Chalk Farm. Excellent price and includes decoder. Red cardboard cover is slightly thinner than previously. Rest of packaging as per usual. No broken bits and worked straight out of the box, as you would expect. The tram is lighter than previous models and could use some extra weight. This will be fitted in due course. :)
 
Well to be fair to LGB and I did do a bit of a trawl around the net following my bit of banter with Mike the other night, and was surprised to find that relatively speaking a lot of LGB isn't as expensive as I had thought.

Yes it's more expensive than some brands and yes it would be nice to see some "entry level" stuff but I found plenty of stuff that I would happily have parted with my hard-earned for and could afford (and some that I wouldn't consider too).

The other thing to consider is that Marklin have only just got the LGB brand out of the mire, so maybe they can't look at introducing lower end or loss leading product just yet. Maybe when things pick up a little the price of start sets could reduce and perhaps some of the Toytrain brand wil re-appear.

On the start set front there isn't that much difference between LGB and rival brands at the moment anyhoo.

Compare Jeremy's price on the Aristo 0-4-0 frieght start set with the LGB Big Train Starter (pretty much like-for-like based on what's in the box) and the LGB set is £10 cheaper.

Maybe price-wise it's not as bad as we think. Certainly surprised me.
 
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