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 Posted - July 19 2007 : 3:03:07 PM
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Here's one to ponder, what if TYCO had not exited the HO-scale train market in 1993?
What would they have today? Roadbed Track? Knuckle Couplers? DCC? Would they have gotten serious with a line similar to Bachmann's Spectrum series and the Life-Like Proto lines? What new tooling might have been done? Or better put, what items might they have cloned in the '80s and into today? [:D]
Tony Cook
HO-Scale Trains Resource
http://ho-scaletrains.net
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 Posted - July 19 2007 : 3:15:03 PM
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12 Wheel Drive 630's!!! 8 Wheel drive 430's, and for the love of Gawd a full size switcher!
-G
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Posted - July 19 2007 : 5:17:14 PM
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I like to think they would have taken the higher road, but judging by their Skyforce RC planes I've seen on TV, probably not. Stuff they're making today seems to be more in the "disposable" realm than it ever was.
I think a better question would be how many people would have never taken up model railroading if it WEREN'T for Tyco? There's not a whole lot of lower end starter stuff visable in the market these days. We as collectors know where to look, but your average Joe probably doesn't.
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Posted - July 19 2007 : 6:34:30 PM
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quote:12 Wheel Drive 630's!!! 8 Wheel drive 430's, and for the love of Gawd a full size switcher!
-G
Originally posted by romcat - July 19 2007 : 8:15:03 PM
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One could hope but that certainly wasn't the trend for them. They might have survived if Bowser or NWSL made a retrofit kit for some of their locos. That 630 I own would be nice with a flywheel and can motor.
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Posted - July 20 2007 : 12:53:59 AM
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I think CPR hit it on the head – even if their stuff was crap, it was at least good enough to foster a cheap interest in trains for most of us. If only the PowerTorque had been abandoned in favor of something better, they might not have driven equal numbers of frustrated kids (and parents) away….
But the original question is fun to ponder, yet deceptively simple. I think you need to go further back than 1993, because the seeds of exit were planted much sooner.
As far back as 1985, Tyco had begin outsourcing parts, like AHM switchers for the GI Joe sets. It only got worse with the awkward Yugo 430, which came around 1988. True, the mid-80’s also saw cool things like the Contemporary Series buildings, but even they were remnants from AHM, outsourced from Europe besides. And the train sets got less and less imaginative; when things like Power Packs became Featured Items, and tiny phone poles, signs, and pieces of track accounted for 80 of the “102 piece set!” you knew it was bad. And I still stand by my statement that they only had themselves to blame: their motive power in the 1980’s was pure garbage most of the time. As fussy as a 70’s PT could be, they only got worse.
Tyco was not alone with struggling. AHM went under, Pemco and Playart came and went, Cox bailed out even after making some truly incredible items. Bachmann and often gave Tyco a competitive run for “worst crap ever” in their trainset line, BUT they ONLY dealt with trains, so they realized that kids were falling out of the hobby and if they were to survive, it would be by going after serious hobbyists – hence the birth of the “Plus” and “Spectrum” lines.
Even Life-Like – which also sold (and STILL sells) some truly awful stuff in train sets while reaping profits from foam coolers – had to face this reality for survival, and came out with the Proto 2000 line in 1989. P2K’s 1989 BL2 and 1991 GP20 may be laughable today, but were touchstone revelations when they came out.
So faced with this, what was Tyco to do? Exactly what they did: enjoy the increasing revenues from their wildly popular Lego knock-offs, RC cars, dolls, and action figures. Compared with the prospect of tooling new, reliable “state of the art” diesels, the choice was obvious.
And that choice was made way back in 1982, when a capital investment firm known as The Savoy Group bought Tyco from Sara Lee. Tyco had a proven name, an enviable distribution network, and access to established manufacturing in Hong Kong and elsewhere. If the writing was on the wall for bursting of the late-70’s model railroad fad, they wasted no time in making other plans.
1977-1982 were banner years for Tyco – new paint schemes, new accessories, fun train sets, better quality overall. Then the new owners with Savoy tapped in to distribute their (very profitable!) Lego knock-offs, and pulled the rug out from trains. No more expensive paint schemes. No more fancy accessories. Any rolling stock of more than just a shell, base, and trucks (like the covered hopper, center flow, 40’ box, tri-dome, or 62’ car)? Gone. No more gloss paint, reversing lights, nite-glow or chrome. PT QC was nonexistent. And it got worse from there… so they diversified to other toys to survive and grow, ultimately turning the demise of their trains into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That said, there’s one thing Tyco still did that shows they could have made it: in 1988, they came out with “track boots”: rubber plugs to hold track sections together. Ah-ha! If only they could have combined this with the old “TycoScene” concept of getting trains off the carpet… they could have beat Bachmann to the punch with EZ-track. It’s obvious they knew of the problem and tried to get a solution on the cheap. But it took Bachmann 7 more years to release EZ-Track. If Tyco had actually been actively developing trains in the 1980’s with the same energy they put into the other toys instead of eliminating and outsourcing them, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have put “two and two” together. And we all know what EZ-Track did for Bachmann…
Ah, what could have been...
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on July 20 2007 12:59:02 AM
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