> Pieter Roos wrote:
> Gee Ed;
> Being kinda coy here ain't cha?
Hi Pieter....
Coy? Golly, I hope not. I thought it was perfectly clear. To clarify......
The point of all this is: Nobody on this list has yet to tell us who is the
S/AF new product decision maker at Lionel. Not to mention providing a snail
mail address and email address.
Let's think about that for just a minute: Does anybody care? Alan Lambert
gave up trying. How can we expect to receive the products we want if we cannot
figure out how to communicate with the #1 new S scale loco manufacturer (so far
in 2013)? This is not being coy. In a way, it is kind of sad that nobody has
gone the extra mile to search out this elusive fellow at Lionel. Maybe it is a
gal?
> Jon Zahornacky, CTO of Lionel seems to know who you are. According to his
> post on the OGR forum, you "facilitated" the arraingment beteen Fred and
> Lionel.
Yes, Jon and I know each other. He works 20 minutes from where I live. And,
yes, I introduced Lionel to Fred and vice versa. But the hard lifting was done
by Jon and Fred. I just watched from the sidelines. You know me -- lots of
ideas for other people to do.
> Now, don't get me wrong, that was a REALLY GOOD THING. Thank you, you deserve
> to take a bow for it.
It was a team effort with Jon, Fred and me all working for several months
toward a worthwhile goal. Jon, especially, interfaced with the Lionel factory
in China and with the Marketing Dept. folks. It was a major contribution from
him that made all this possible. None of us kept secret paperwork in the sock
drawer.
> I don't get the standing in the corner, digging your toe in ground and saying
> "Gosh, if only someone could find out who we should contact at Lione..."
Here is what you are missing: I don't want to be the only person doing this
sort of stuff for S scale. There MUST be others that have an interest in doing
something. If not, we are going to have a most difficult time getting the
products we desire. Sitting back and waiting for someone else to do things is
not a very good strategy. Finding the decision maker and communicating with
him (her?) and attempting to educate and influence him/her is probably a better
way to make things happen. Would you not agree?
One fellow on this list provided a LINKED-IN (or was it Facebook?) way to
contact Lionel executives. It was a while back, but his message is still in
the archives somewhere. Has anyone followed up on his information? It looked
like a pretty good path to follow. It would probably take all of one hour to
find the information sought.
Since Jon is known to work at Lionel and is reachable, has anyone asked him who
we should contact to discuss new Lionel products for AF/S? Why not? Why does
the gaze always turn to someone else? There are lots and lots of people here
who tune in to the OGR Forum. How many of them have asked Jon about who to
communicate with? And shared that information with us here?
Fred's AF-conversion-to-scale project can be a remarkable success if handled
right. There are ways to design future locos to facilitate the process. There
are ways to design future locos to frustrate the process. There are models
that will sell well in S. There are models that will not sell well in S
regardless of the flange size. Do we really want smoke, crew talk, Legacy,
remote control scale couplers, DCC via Lionel decoders, factory weathering,
factory-provided scale wheelsets, highly detailed realism, no wires between
loco and tender, etc., etc?? There are dozens and dozens of various paths that
Lionel can take with regard to S products. Who of us is really talking to
Lionel seriously about what makes the most sense?
Here is an interesting comment from someone attending O SCALE WEST this past
weekend. I will quote him as best I can recall:
"Lionel's cooperation with Fred's AF-to-scale conversion project is doing more
for S scale than Lionel has ever done for the 2-rail O scale crowd."
Sorry if I was being coy. Didn't mean to be. Just hoping and praying that
someone (else) here will see the light about the potential for our future and
help turn up the voltage so that the Lionel headlight shines brighter. And,
just for the record, we should be doing exactly the same thing with MTH also.
A bit of honest competition will not hurt anyone and will benefit the consumer
in the long run.
End of speech. Sorry if I bored you. Now, who is going to take the next step?
Remember: Lots of ideas for others to do.
Cheers....Ed Loizeaux
> > The real problem is knowing to whom your letter of
> > appreciation should be sent. Has anyone unearthed who
> > at Lionel is responsible for S/AF new product decisions and
> > what his mailing address is? Any volunteers out there
> > to track down the appropriate contact person?
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